Under the Gunn: First Reaction

Tim Gunn, our beloved mentor from Project Runway, once again has his own show. Unlike Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, Tim isn't doing a friendlier version of What Not to Wear. Instead, Under the Gunn is to Project Runway as The Voice is to American Idol but with more camaraderie between the shows. (And technically speaking, Lifetime is still branding it Project Runway: Under the Gunn so they clearly see it as part of the same property, which is good because I like anything that brings Runway favorites back).

Premise: Under the Gunn offers up three Project Runway alums, Mondo Guerra, Anya Ayoung-Chee and Nick Verreos, as mentors for design hopefuls. After initial design challenges, the mentors will select teams. By the end of the show, one mentor and one designer will win. Tim appear to be serving more as a judge and host. I'm not exactly what role Tim will play and how much the mentors will be involved, but the premise is interesting so far.

Premiere: During the premiere, the first batch of designers recieved identical bags of mixed fabrics and given six hours to create a runway look. From those looks as well as time spent studying the designer's portfolio and mentoring the designers during the process, each mentor made bids for their favorite designers. If a designer was chosen by more than one mentor, the designer got to pick (so, if you've watched The Voice you know this part of the process).

Designers: It's hard to tell from this first outing, and we haven't seen them yet, but these designers seem to be of the same ilk that auditions for Project Runway. Some of them are even Tim's former students at parsons. It looks like the talent level will be high. The designers' looks are below as well as what team they ended up on if they didn't get eliminated. Did you have a favorite?

Under the Gunn: Episode 1 Auditions Runway by fashionbeccafabulous on polyvore.com

Mentors: I'm not sure why these particular PR alums were selected. Anya is popular, well spoken and good at branding. She is good at getting people she wants to join her team. I haven't seen enough of her to guess what kind of mentor she will be. Mondo is as quirky as ever, but he's had two runs on the Runway and he's extremely talented. He also sees things differently than a lot of designer so he may be able to broaden his team's outlooks. Nick had trouble getting people to join him, which surprised me. He has the most experience of any of the mentors. Perhaps people don't remember the glory days of Project Runway. What did you think of the mentors?

Tim: For a show with his name in it, we didn't get a lot of Tim. I hope that changes. I want to see him mentoring the mentors more, if that's allowed. He was there for all of it, and we got his commentary, but I want him to be more than a Heidi, or to go with The Voice comparison, the Carson Daly. 

I'm excited to see next week's batch of designers and find out just how all this will play out. What did you think of the show so far? Will you be watching tonight?