SWATCH WATCH PATTERNS AND PERSONALITIES COLLIDE IN 'TOP DESIGNER'.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski

Staff Writer

Design a room for someone with clearly eclectic tastes without knowing the client is Alexis Arquette, the transgendered sibling of actresses Patricia and Rosanna.

Spend the bulk of a bedroom-furnishing budget before learning your customer is only 10 years old.

Or design a framed and floored beach cabana that reflects a specific destination -- and have it ready to assemble in the sand in less time than it takes a coat of paint to dry.

The projects thrown at the contestants of Bravo's new series "Top Design" make for good bait-and-switch entertainment.

"It's sort of fun watching a human pinball game like this," host Todd Oldham says of the sudden shifts in direction he gives his interior designers.

But what do these curveball competitions really tell us about a designer's abilities in the real world of home and commercial properties?

Oldham says he would consider hiring one of the original 12 "Top Design" contestants if he were redoing a space. A world-famous designer with a La-Z-Boy furniture line and home decor at Target stores, Oldham says the contestants were chosen from among hundreds of applicants based on their proven ability to execute original -- and professional -- designs.

The way they rise to the occasion in the crunch of short time or changing circumstances on "Top Design" adds another dimension to their portfolios, he says, showing how they would cope with a finicky client, back-ordered furniture or a tight deadline.

"I think being a workhorse and having superhuman stamina is not out of line here because it's crazy," he says. "If they made it to the 10th challenge and won, can you imagine how much work that is? It's brainpower overload, because it happened in just a few days."

Although the series, shot at the Pacific Design Center, finished production in early January, only the first three episodes have aired. The winner has been chosen from among the eight remaining contestants, but viewers may have to wait until the finale to see if one of the two remaining L.A. women -- either Andrea Keller or Felicia Bushman -- walks away with the $100,000 and an Elle Decor editorial spread.

The door already has closed for L.A.-based Elizabeth Moore, who was eliminated after Wednesday's cabana team challenge. And local designers Heather Ashton and Lisa Turner were the first to feel the sting of judge Jonathan Adler's "See you later, decorator" send-off in the Jan. 31 premiere.

When styles clash

On a shopping trip that took her back to the PDC this week, Ashton reflected on her experience on the show and her regret that she did not assert her opinions more while working with a colleague whose views were about 180 degrees apart from her own.

"I really do think there's a good value in working with people and being compromising," she says. "In life, it's good. In TV, not so much."

She says being the first eliminated has not been the hardship it seemed when she taped her emotional exit interview (posted on www.bravotv.com/topdesign). Her brief participation gave her some invaluable exposure, she says.

Ashton, 36, says even the show's most outrageous assignments have real-life applications. "It's a TV show, and people have to keep that in mind," she says. "The creative process is still there. It's in a much more condensed amount of time, but you're still drawing, and you're still coming up with abstract ideas and then taking those abstract ideas and making them happen through vendors at the PDC and your contractors and paint.

"That's the whole thing with these shows. Think about (Bravo's) 'Top Chef.' They're asked to make gourmet meals out of vending machines. They're never going to be asked to do that (in a restaurant). It's more about the innovation and about the ability to think on a dime and the creativity that comes into it than it is about a real-world situation."

Grace under pressure

"Top Design" judge Kelly Wearstler says that in hiring one of the show's finalists, a client is getting "somebody who's extremely talented and somebody who listened to the program that was given to them -- and that's the most important thing -- and who worked well with others. Those are the three most important things in hiring a designer."

The winner also will have shown an ability to hold to a strict budget, to collaborate with other designers and to give guidance to carpenters and seamstresses.

Wearstler is no stranger to pressure. Her firm currently has eight separate hotel projects in the works, she's relocating her office, and this mother of two is redesigning her own home.

Does she think she would survive to the last episode if she were a contestant?

"With lots of coffee, yes," she said, laughing. "Even now, I feel like I fight a war every freaking day at my office. That's easy, being on the show, compared with the real world."

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Interior motives

'Top Design' puts decorator hopefuls through their paces

(2 -- 3 -- color) The contestants and judges of Bravo's "Top Designer," with host Todd Oldham at the top.

Photos above and at right courtesy of Bravo 

(4 -- color) L.A.'s Heather Ashton, above, thinks too much compromising led to her booting from "Top Designer." Below, Andrea Keller works on the cabana challenge.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer