By Adina Lepp

Hold onto your panties, people. The Panty Christ is coming to town.

“I’m basically the king of the underwear world,” proclaimed Andrew Christian, renowned skivvies and sportswear designer, in regards to his self-anointed title. Although he’s been producing urban-inspired menswear, swimwear, edgy tees, and accessories bearing his name since 1997, it is his company’s innovative underwear line that has established him as a force in fashion. Christian’s lines are carried at exclusive boutiques as well as Portland-based Under U 4 Men shops, attracting high profile clients like David Hasselhoff and Dean McDermott.

Besides a clean, bold aesthetic, Christian is devoted to helping men enhance their profiles with underwear and swimwear that gives “maximum frontal enhancement” – otherwise known as a push-up bra for the package. He also offers the Flashback, which provides a similar service for the rear and is available for both men and women. He plans on putting out a women’s line in spring 2010, which made me wonder whether a female “maximum frontal enhancement” product was in the works.

When asked to name his favorite piece, Christian played coy: “It’s like trying to pick my favorite child,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll see someone wearing a cute shirt and be like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so cute.’ And then I realize that it’s mine.” He finally copped to his favorite, the classic lifeguard boxer.

“I bring a lot of design details in my underwear that you would normally not find,” said Christian. Flourishes include Barack Obama’s face, and army and lifeguard-inspired prints.

Christian is coming to Portland for a meet-and-greet at downtown‘s Under U 4 Men store, along with a fashion show at Boxxes to promote his role in Bravo television’s Fashion Show.

The reality-show competition, airing Thursdays at 10 p.m., pits 15 established designers against each other. Isaac Mizrahi and former Destiny’s Child Kelly Rowland host. Contestants run the gamut from James-Paul, who describes his fashion as “post-colonial” and “experimental” to the eccentric Merlin, who arrived at the initial meeting with a feather in his red felt hat.

The show is a virtual carbon copy of Project Runway, which recently relocated to the Lifetime network. The premise is the same: celebrity judges; young, tenacious personalities; a series of time-bound challenges. But unlike Runway, of which the victor (last season’s was Portland’s own Leanne Marshall) lands a spot at New York Fashion Week, The Fashion Show awards its winner $125,000 and the chance to have their work sold in a retail market.

On the May 7 premiere, the challenges were to create a dress out of a simple black t-shirt and a must-have piece, along with five different outfits to accompany it. The second challenge, which took place in a team environment, was fraught with drama. Mizrahi called the results “embarrassing.”

The first episode was — in a word — terrible. Isaac Mizrahi is no Tim Gunn. Gunn, host of Project Runway, had personality, pizzazz and a way of inspiring incredible work. Gunn mentored the contestants, whereas Mizrahi just critiqued them. His co-host, singer-turned-judge Rowland, doesn’t have a background in fashion at all – and it showed. Her opinions were brief one-liners that lacked substance.

Like a designer knock-off, The Fashion Show feels cheap. Even though the designers are talented, their personalities strong, the show’s focus seems to be more on the not-so-private antics that the challenges foster than the resulting designs. It may be worth tuning in to watch the few formidable designers battle it out. For his part, Panty Christ Christian isn’t the series’ most eccentric figure, either in design or character, and that’s a good thing. You needn’t a feather in your cap to craft smart, fresh clothing.

“It was a very different experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be around so many designers in such a small space,” Christian said of the season, which has completed filming; he wouldn’t comment on the outcome. “It was challenging. You have an incredibly small amount of time to create. It was very frantic for everyone.”