An Open Letter to Jay McCarroll

Thank you, Jay. Thank you. Thank you for setting me free. After the season finale of Project Runway, I know that there is hope, if not justice, in the world.

I have not been so emotionally involved in a TV show since, perhaps, the series finale of M*A*S*H. Project Runway was my March Madness, my NFL playoffs. Every Wednesday night I raced home. The rest of life paused. What's the challenge? What will be the twist? Who will snap? Who will crumble? Will they finish on time? Who will get a verbal bitch-slapping from Michael Kors? How hot is Tim Gunn? WHAT WILL THE DESIGNS LOOK LIKE AND WHO WILL GET CUT?

This ain't no punk-ass reality show, where luck, fear, whims, personal stupidity and drama can let you slip by or kick you to the curb. No. That's just the icing on the cake. The world sees you work. We can see who has a clue, skills, a temperament problem. And when those dresses come down the runway, we know from ugly.

It started in week 3: the Banana Republic challenge. The week before (Envy challenge), you tricked out a punk ensemble in fur, slashes & graffiti. Suddenly, you whip together a perfectly tailored, meticulously pleated reproduction of the Chrysler building. Well now. Every week, the palettes and silhouettes changed, but your voice was consistent. You were up front. You didn't play games. You didn't manipulate. You didn't limit yourself. You didn't take the bitch's dye.

Still, as the finale closed in, I wasn't rooting personally for you. It was a dead heat among you, Austin and Kara Saun. (I am still bitter that bitch Wendy made it to Fashion Week over Austin. BITTER.) Then your collection came down the runway. And it spoke to me.

Omigod, it was everything I wanted to be in high school, but better. It rounded up all the incarnations of my teen angst in the same subway car. This is who I wanted to be all these years. Hippie, debutante, street punk, professional, alien, grunge waif, academic, femme fatale, all with a common thread of being bad-ass. Different, but not at war. They overlapped, they drew from each other. They didn't just sit together; they traded lunches. They might. Have even. Shared. Makeup. Shit, I still want to be every single one of them.

My teenage version of the Jay McCarroll collection consisted not so much of gorgeous knits and quilted leather, but more of black turtlenecks, hippie skirts, safety pins, granny boots, cardigans and thrift store jewelry. The hair and makeup were less the work of L'Oreal and more from the school of Robert Smith. The vision was half formed; the execution even messier.

In the John Hughes movie of my high school experience, I'd be somewhere between Allison (Ally Sheedy) in The Breakfast Club, and Duckie in Pretty in Pink. Except without the great speeches, clever comebacks, or music video numbers. A lot of leaning against the locker and looking down when the jocks, cheerleaders, geeks, rich kids, and stoners passed by.

The greatest joke of high school is that nearly every other kid feels just as isolated, misfit and badly dressed. That's kind of a teenager's job. But no number of John Hughes marathons could have convinced me that I was not a freak of nature. The sandwich is always tastier on the other side of the lunch table. And one by one, the visual reminders of my teen angst got buried or destroyed.

Until you, Jay McCarroll, made it okay to pull out my Cure albums and Duran Duran 12-inch singles. The electric blue Betsy Johnson sweater dress might still be in a box somewhere. I don't know how you got inside my head, but I no longer fear type. I can be all those women. Your collection made it possible.

So thank you, Jay. Thank you. Whoever dismisses fashion therapy is full of shit.