The challenge clue is “New York State of Mind” which leaves Anthony with a slightly blanker state of mind. L’Oreal spokes shill, Collier Strong, sells some line of makeup at us in the form of a challenge. The designers will make something based on their experience of one NYC neighborhood: East Village, China Town, Upper East Side and Harlem. And, oh, work in teams. There is much eye-rolling, oh-please-Jesus-don’t-make-me-work-withs, and weeping from the designers at that pronouncement. It only gets worse for them: two looks (day and evening), $300 and a day. There is a round robin of button picking from the bag: first the team leaders, then the team leaders go around again and pick partners, then in reverse order pick locations, so that the leader stuck with Mil/ya will at least get to chose where to go.

As it works out, Anthony, Amy, Emilio and Jay are the team leaders. Anthony picks May/la, Amy opts for Jonathan, Emilio can choose between Seth Aaron and Mil/ya, and being no freaking idiot, he grabs Seth Aaron and his mad tailoring skills like a magnet grabs iron filings. That leaves Jay with Mil/ya. They loathe each other, apparently, and every other designer knows it. Emilio is very proud of his maneuvering, as well he should be. If only he could cackle like Dr. Horrible. Jay then gets to chose his part of town, and goes for the East Village. Emilio goes to Harlem with Seth Aaron. Amy and Jonathan, those free spirited sprites decide to go the Upper East Side, perhaps hoping to run into Carrie Bradshaw. Anthony and May/la are left with Chinatown. This results in some horrible footage involving Anthony, roast ducks in windows and a whiff of Steppin Fetchit. They are mesmerized by the souvenir store windows, which are mesmerizing.

Up in Harlem, Emilio and Seth Aaron are bonding. This is going to be good. Everyone is in denim. They examine some cool mosaics. Jonathan and Amy are unhappy on the Upper East Side, finding it static and stark. They think a shirt dress epitomizes the gestalt of the area. Miz Shoes’ notes say (Bad. Idea.) Then they discover the black wrought iron gates at street level and below and decide that Jonathan can create some more of his challenge-winning cut-away fabric.  In the East Village, Jay and Mil/ya are miserably planning each other’s unfortunate accident. They loathe each other.

Next stop, Mood, where Emilio dissuades Seth Aaron from using black denim for daytime. Really, dude. EVERYONE knows that. May/la finds Anthony’s textile choices dicey. In the workroom, Tim says that even team leaders can get sent home. Mil/ya hates Jay’s daytime pants design, and bitterly sucks it up.

Team Emilio is going for old-time Harlem glam, Cotton Club, style. It’s slinky. Anthony and May/la are having control issues. Jonathan is throwing everything into his night time design: insets, pleats, pleated insets, and May/la is doing another million pleats by hand. Back to team Emilio, where Seth Aaron doesn’t sketch and works lightning fast, and makes changes every time Emilio turns around. Emilio says that Seth Aaron just keeps “piling on”. Jay and Mil/ya are working in icy silence, which Jay attempts to spin as “acting professionally” by which he means nobody has gone face-down in the sewing room with a seam ripper in the back…yet. Jonathan and Amy are loving each other’s textures and starting to realize that neither of them is capable of finishing their look. FLOP SWEAT!

Make up advertorial for the over-used smoky eye. Tim’s walkabout! Loves Emilio and Seth Aaron’s work. Tells May/la that Anthony’s fabric choices are better than hers.  Jay’s pants are turkey legged, and Tim is not pleased. Mil/ya is back in black and white and Tim informs them that based on what he’s looking at, one of them is going home this week. Jonathan’s arcing pleating and cut-aways are all too much look for Tim and he tells them to edit. Anthony refers to himself in the third person.

Model fittings! Jay and his model talk shit about Mil/ya. They both loathe her. Jay hasn’t started working on his top and Mil/ya is all up tight. Emilio is stilled mighty please with himself for having set that pairing up. Cackle, cackle. Rubs hands together in glee. Jonathan and Amy aren’t even close to done.

Runway day! Not enough time for anyone to work. Every one is a wreck. Mil/ya is nervous. Amy and Jonathan can’t finish. May/la is concerned that she used too much black. Emilio thinks that there may be blood on the runway before the night is over. On cue, Mil/ya and her model discuss how to throw Jay under the bus while Jay tells his model that that is what Mil/ya plans to do. Jonathan and Amy do not, in fact, finish.

Heidi is wearing a skin-tight zebra print dress and working the hell out of the fertiliy goddess thing. Judge NinaGarcia is joined by Molly Sims, an actress and sitting in for Michael Kors tonight is Francisco Costa of Calvin Kline. 

Anthony & May/la have gone outside the box for their Chinatown looks. The daytime skirt is black with inverted red-lined pleats and the top is evocative of pagoda shapes. The evening look is brown, with a cascade of beige honeycombing, a technique that was used in every paper dragon in every souvenir window.

Jay & Mil/ya send out jodhpurs and a sleazy tank top and something black and white. The model throws devil horns at the end of the runway. Jonathan & Amy have used orange/peach to create a voluminous shirt that is supposed to be a shirt-dress but is at best tunic length. The dress that was inspired by black-painted wrought iron has become a coffee-colored slip dress with visible seaming and overlays. Seth Aaron’s model is rocking a Superfly collar on her spiff denim coat. There is a hat, part baseball cap, part tam o shanter, part African head wrap, part denim, part plaid. The jacket has lots and lots of studding and seaming and styling and look. Lots of look. Emilio’s evening dress is a dark sweep of satin with a zipper that seems to be functional as well as the edging trim along the neck and hem.

Jay & Mil/ya, Amy and Jonathan have the lowest scores, and leave to think about their sartorial sins while the judges heap praise on the competition. Emilio’s dress is a Billy Holiday homage, that still relates to the modern street style that Seth Aaron has laid down. NinaGarcia thinks that his jacket could be a bit more tasteful, but that it is pretty fly for all that.

Anthony tries to bring up the ducks in the window but nobody wants to hear it, and nobody laughs. NinaGarcia loves their collaboration. She loves the styling and the subtlety. She loves the origami, but would have liked to see more color. Anthony and May/la agree that they loved working together, even though May/la is a big ole Bossy McBossersons.

Amy’s Upper East Side brickwork is seen as not looking like the Upper East Side at all. Despite NinaGarcia hating it, and Heidi calling it an eyesore, they say that they still loved working together. Jay’s look, which was supposed to be East Village, and which he refers to as Lower East Side, (which excuse me, is another neighborhood entirely), is not so good. NinaGarcia loves the night look with its black and white coat and red tights, but not Jay’s pants or his lousy tank top. When asked, Jay says they worked together professionally, while Mily/la bites her lips and rolls her eyes.

Amy’s Upper East Side looked like the East Village in the 50s, and she misses the big picture. Jay’s work sucked and Mil/ya’s tailoring was impeccable. Emilio and Seth Aaron worked well together as a team. A real team, with one part balancing out the other and a mature point of view. NinaGarcia sulks that Emilio could have made a better evening dress.

Nevertheless, Emilio is the winner, and so is Seth Aaron! Another Project Runway first!! May/la and Anthony are safe, and Mil/ya and Jonathan are both in. Jay is told that his tank top was ill-fitting and didn’t match his pants, which also sucked. Amy’s shirt dress was bad retro, and she got lost in her concept. She’s Aufsie-Daisy.

Next week, they get to do something designers all dream of doing and rarely get the chance. Is it design their own fabric? There seem to be a lot of big bolts in the workroom. Whatever it is, the result allows Michael Kors to say that it looks like a disco straightjacket.

Morning has broken, and so has Emilio. He laments his recent runway spanking by Heidi and Michael Kors. He feels bad that Jesse is no longer among the contestants, but then shrugs it off. In the women’s room Mil/ya and May/la are doing the Harpo/Groucho mirror shtick again and having a shallow and totally not heart-felt love fest. Back in the men’s dorm, Ben doesn’t know whether being safe every week was a good thing or a bad thing.

Runway: Heidi reminds the designers that Jay has immunity this week, but then tells them that there will be no more immunity. Time to meet Tim on the roof. Hot hair and makeup person Phillip Careon (Carry on!) from Garnier is there to flog the product describe the challenge. Something something, blah, blah, blah, be inspired by one of the four natural elements: water, fire, earth and air. Button bag, choose your element. Jay takes air, May/la opts for water, Jonathon air, Ben goes for water, Mil/ya takes earth. Anthony takes fire, as does Amy and Seth Aaron gets the last air. $150 at Mood, thirty minutes to sketch.

Ben, despite having chosen his own element, is unhappy with water, because, he says, it is too fluid. So he decides to find inspiration in the things that live in the water, namely, the cuddly, designer-friendly Great White Shark. Emilio says that his model is a woman of color, so he will work with her skin tones to focus on earth. Anthony is blahblahblahing about failure is not an option. May/la also chooses to be inspired by creatures that live in water. Her inspiration is the mythical siren, or as she calls it, the vixen of the sea. Not to be confused with Chicken of the Sea. Which is not, as we all learned from J.Simp, not actually chicken.

Jonathon is going to create his own textile; cutting away layers of fabric and making a garment that he says is going to be “a swirl of uncontrollable laughter.” Which is what MizShoes is surrounded with when she hears that self-indulgent & pretentious drivel. Not to be outdone, Jay is making a tornado of bold shapes. Anthony finally comes to the point, which is that he has been profoundly affected by the self-inflicted arson of his pastor’s house and so does not see fire as hot and red, but as smoldering ashes and dirty smoke. Pretty! Seth Aaron lives in Manhattan, so to him, air is the night sky, dark and full of stars and wind. (Uh, MizShoes lived in Manhattan back in the day and the only time she ever saw stars was during the big blackout of ’76, but whatever.) Finally, Amy is going to make a controlled explosion inside of a structure (she had fire, by the way). Mil/ya tonelessly drones that this challenge’s concepts are too vague. We. Are. All. Un-settled. Beep.

Ben and Jonathon are tired of being safe, so Ben is going to take a gamble. Jonathon confides to the cameras that the other designers don’t think he’s a threat, but that he is going to win it all. Seth Aaron is working with black leather. Amy is creating “a unique silhouette”, that she recognizes may not be well received. Hair and product placement and we have to hear that tripe about Jonathon and his envelope of laughter. Seth Aaron wants his model’s hair to be both aerodynamic and gravity defying.

Tim comes for his walkabout and we hear another blahblahblah about laughter is the lighter side of air. Tim says Jonathon’s dress is stunning. It is, but do we have to hear that crap about laughter every time? I bet Stella would have slapped the laugh right out of him. Tim also loves Seth Aaron’s midnight in Manhattan, but he’s not so sure about Amy and her bowl of fire containing chaos. He is equally unsure about Ben’s Great White Shark skin suit. He is worried that it might be too subtle. Mil/ya is using the metallics of earth to create a vest, shirt and pant. Tim tells her to make it harmonious. Tim is encouraging to May/la and her water vixen.

At the model fittings, Mil/ya disses Ben’s pants, but is putting 80s shoulder pads in her vest. Anthony is doing color blocking and draping. Jonathon trash talks the other designers. May/la is time-challenged and says that so is everyone else. Ben is concerned that he may have been overly ambitious in making a pantsuit. He has no more fabric to start over. He is seen weeping and talking to his husband on the product placement telephonic device. WHOOP WHOOP LOSER EDIT!!!

Morning of the runway show. Mil/ya/May/la/Groucho/Harpo. The men do a huddle with a group shout out: leave as 4 return as 4. We are Sparta! In the workroom, Jay finishes before the others and helps Ben. It is a sweet moment. Tim tells the designers to use the Blowfly wall of tackiness any way they possibly can, since tastefully and thoughtfully are clearly not options. Mil/ya is nervous, or so she says, but with her total lack of emotion and affect she could just as easily be saying that her emotion chip is blown. Anthony disses Seth Aaron because he thinks that SA’s work could be intimidating to women. Jonathon is concerned for Amy and her giant bowl of contained chaos, which she has interpreted as a giant bowl of hair extensions. It really is kind of awful.

Runway (finally). The challenge was to create an innovative look inspired by one of the four natural elements. This was a broad challenge to let the designers stretch. Our judges tonight are NinaGarcia, Michael Kors and Roland Mouret, a French designer with a ridiculous accent, but thankfully, no subtitles. We are reminded that Jay holds the last immunity. And we are off.

May/la has made a short grey shift with long sleeves. There are vertical ruffles on the sleeves and at the hips meant to evoke water. It fits her model. Jay has made something all swirly and asymmetrical that looks like the baby doll dress he made for the Marie Claire cover challenge, only in darker colors. Ben’s three-piece suit is pale grey and not so pale grey and every piece is worse than the others. Anthony’s grey and black has a slit skirt up to his model’s pipik. Mil/ya has combined textures into a completely unmemorable nothing. Jonathan says that if you look up “romance” in the dictionary, you will see his floaty dress with a miniature version of Chris March’s couture challenge collar. It is pretty. Really pretty. Amy’s awful black bowl of hair is scary. Emilio has made a little green sheath with some texture to it. Seth Aaron’s coat is architectural and amazing. Despite the presence of an asymmetrical flying bustle, MizShoes is not intimidated by it at all.

Anthony, Emilio and Jay are safe. Off they go. Mil/ya is first on the block and Michael Kors says that she seems to be a one-trick pony. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. Heidi says that the only interesting piece is the vest, and that is tired and looks like mall fashion.

Seth Aaron’s version of air in black leather is “astonishing”. NinaGarcia is happy to see him being “true to himself”. The French guy says that he has reinvented trousers and that there is a top designer waiting to steal that idea. May/la’s dress is chic and perfectly beautiful, but all of her work is referential. NinaGarcia sees Nina Ricci.  Amy’s contained hair extensions repulse the entire judging panel. Hence the critique: a cat in a baby sling. Michael says she looks like a barmaid serving hair. The judges all agree that May/la got caught up in her concept and forgot to self-edit.

Ben’s wild life that lives in the water is called ill fitting (it is) and the shark teeth used as buttons on the coat sleeve are “beee-zahr.” If you don’t know how to make a suit, says Heidi, you shouldn’t make a suit. NinaGarcia calls it a real mess, and Michael Kors cannot wrap his head around the seaming on the pants that looks like a jock strap. Jonathan’s air and laughter plays up his model’s pale skin. The French guy calls it fantastic. The judges all love the fabric. The styling is called best in show.

The judges caucus with the designers in the purgatory room. Seth Aaron is loved for his tailoring skills and the way his clothing speaks for him. The French guy concedes that being French, Jonathan’s romantic swirls of laughter are his favorite. Ben gets a BLECH. Amy was too ambitious and made a weird mess. Mil/ya made boring mall clothes. They think that maybe she can’t do anything other than black and white color blocking. (She can’t.)

Seth Aaron is in, to MizShoes disappointment, because he should have won. Jonathan’s the winner with his gorgeous, romantic and airy dress made of fairy laughter and unicorn sparkles. May/la and Mil/ya are both in. That leaves Ben and Amy in the bottom. Amy was out there in a bad way, but Ben thought it was a good idea to make jockstrap pants and so he is out there in an Aufsie-Daisy way. Bye-bye Ben. Next week? Teams!

Manhattan in the morning. Emilio thinks that now that there are only ten designers left, the competition is serious. Mil/ya says that it’s a bummer that so many women have been sent home, but that on the other hand, she is empowered by being a woman still in the competition. Why does Miz Shoes just want to slap Mil/ya every time she opens her yap? Grow some affect, sister.

Seth Aaron has immunity for this challenge which is explained thusly: Tim will take the designers to meet one of America’s favorite designers and together they will give the contestants all the tools they need. Michael Kors is the designer and the tools are a hardware store. Design a look from stuff you buy at the hardware store AND an accessory. Push the envelope. Think outside of the box. Try to come up with an exhortation that is not a cliche.

Emilio isn’t feeling good about this. He makes high fashion, not gimmicks. The designers have $150 and 35 minutes to shop. Jesse is astounded to discover how much hardware costs. May/la feels confident. Emilio stocks up on washers and cord, only to discover that he can only buy half of what he’ll need to make a dress. Jay is going to make garbage bags into leather. Amy is using sandpaper, because of all the colors and textures. Seth Aaron has chains. They all have until midnight; the winner gets immunity.

Jay says that he’s not taking the easy way out and making a dress: he’s making pants. May/la has focused first on her accessory; a necklace made from brass key blanks and bits of screening. It is breathtaking. Seth Aaron is hammering away at something. Is he making armor? Anthony is going to make something soft and airy out of hard. Amy and Jonathan are having the laughs together. That sort of editing never bodes well. Emilio wants to make a Paco Rabbane macrame dress, but he doesn’t have enough cord and washers. Someone says that Emilio is making stripper clothes. Not that there is anything wrong with strippers.

Amy is working her glue gun, Ben is using copper. Mil/ya is making something (hold on, because this is earth-shattering in its originality and astonishing leap away from her usual, NOT) black and white and color blocked. Wake me when she has a fresh idea and not another 1960s retread. I am officially over Mil/ya and I was never that into her to begin with. Jesse’s mesh is sticky and he didn’t know it would be. Oh, the humanity. Jay is crying because he’s had some personal revelation about the dynamics of his family of origin. He always competed with his sister. Anthony has found magenta duct tape.

Tim comes for his walkabout: Oh, look. Mil/ya is working with black and white paint tray liners. Jesse is creating an Elizabethan bodice over a puffy miniskirt. Tim warns him that it’s looking like a costume in an elementary school play. He tells Jesse to be careful with the costume aspect. Emilio says he’s making an intergalactic something or other and Tim says that it might be a bikini. Anthony’s dress looks tortured, and Anthony agrees that it pretty much blows. Jay is making spectacular leather pants. May/la’s necklace is still pretty spectacular and who knows what her dress will turn out to be. Make it work!

Jonathon says that he’s doing Veronica Lake meets C3PO. Isn’t he too young to even know how to reference Veronica Lake? Was she known for wardrobe? I thought she only had that hair thing going on. Jay’s model can’t even get her foot in the leg of the pants. She offers to grease up. Emilio is still whining about having to make a bathing suit. Jay is making a sexy belt to go with the sexy pants. Jesse is painting his copper flashing silver to set it apart from the two other copper flashing dresses.

Morning comes to all of us, and Seth Aaron is excited for the show, but Mil/ya hates the challenge. Mil/ya hates life, as far as this reviewer can tell. Jesse says that this is “cray-cray” and another twee buzzword is born and hopefully dies with the lifespan of a house fly. Emilio dispiritedly says that they are all in the bottom ten this week. Mil/ya disses May/la for finally making her bed. In the work room, all is a flurry of glue guns and duct tape.

Amy’s top is very cool and very sculptured. Jay’s pants are still too tight. Emilio’s bikini bottom won’t stay up because of the weight of the washers, so he macrames everything together on his model to create a one-piece. His model is a trooper. Anthony trash talks Emilio, Seth Aaron and Jesse. Mil/ya calls herself and her work a rock star and says it’s perfect. Really. Can I just slap her? Emilio recognizes that his piece is a disaster and commits to it fully. He says that the make up is awful, the hair is awful and his work is awful. Over in commercial-land the Blow Fly Skank is still naked. You’d think she could at least brush her hair.

On the runway, our judges are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia, Isabel Toledo (who designed Michelle Obama’s inaugural dress) and Stephen Webster who is credited with being a jewelry designer. Mil/ya’s 1960’s retread walks first. Ho fucking hum already. Jesse’s Elizabethan bodice has a silver mushroom balloon for a skirt. Jonathon’s copper dress is a copper dress. Form fitting. Anthony’s dress is purple with some sheer screening over it. Ben thinks that the fact that his copper dress doesn’t actually touch his model’s body makes it cool. Emilio’s bikini bottom is too small. Jay’s plastic bag pants have been paired with a top that has a sort of bubble-hemmed peplum and he’s given it vertical stripes of blue painter’s tape. Seth Aaron’s dress came from Judy Jetson’s closet. Amy’s sandpaper dress is very cool, even if she has used black circular sanding discs to create a skirt that is very similar to last week’s fish scale pants disaster. May/la has made a nothing little dress out of screening, with a skeletal jacket constructed of stiff black rope and the whole thing sets off the necklace. She, Seth Aaron, Jonathon and Ben are safe.

Mil/ya gets love for her “witty” cuff made out of a paint chip or something that has writing on it. She gets love for her black and white mini dress. Emilio claims that he made a bathing suit because he knew everyone else would be making dresses, not because he ran out of materials. It’s a save. Whether it’s a good save remains to be seen. Michael Kors calls it a full-on cheese fest and Heidi says it looks thrown together.

Anthony’s mesh is boring to NinaGarcia, and a bad prom dress to MK. Isabel says there isn’t enough hardware to be interesting. May/la’s screen dress, jacket and necklace is a head-to-toe look and gets the love. Jesse used dry wall mesh on his skirt. NinaGarcia calls it Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. MK likes the hair, but calls the dress a giant Hershey’s Kiss. Stephen Webster says it looks like a vacuum cleaner and Heidi says that no, it just looks like the used bag. There is some asymmetry in the back that gets kind words. Jay’s garbage bag ensemble is amazing!!! The belt looks like braided leather. The word amazing is used a lot and by pretty much every judge.

Mil/ya impressed Isabel, and Webster calls her use of paint trays visionary. Jay made a luxury item out of trash bags. May/la’s work was wearable, fashion-forward and had the strongest accessory. Emilio’s bathing suit was tasteless and a bloody disaster, but NinaGarcia liked it and defends Emilio. Jesse’s work had no artistry according to Isabel. Michael Kors sums up the fashion inspirations: Hershey’s Kiss, Tin Man, dirty vacuum cleaner bag. Not good. Anthony’s work was up tight and boring.

May/la is in. Jay is (deservedly) the winner and Heidi reminds everyone that we have seen A LOT of bad garbage bag couture on this show. Jay weeps and weeps and pulls a Sally Field (you LIKE me) and then confessionalizes that he’s a community college drop-out but he’s still won two challenges. He has? What was the other one? Mil/ya gets an in with her trite shtick and Anthony gets to stick around another week. That leave Jesse and Emilio in the bottom.

Jesse’s work was uninspired and disappointing. It was costume, not fashion. Emilio struggled to produce a Vegas show girl. So Jesse gets sent home, despite having been praised for his production skills all along and Emilio stays. Tim is stunned and tells Jesse that he never saw this result coming, and to go pack up his work space. Jesse delivers a sulky exit interview, opining that he shouldn’t be going home and dropping an f-bomb. Next week: a cat in a baby sling.

Do you remember me talking about my friend Paul Gallo and his house of Gallifornia? Do you remember how peeved I was when he was dissed by Tim Gunn and didn’t make it on Season 5 of Project Runway? Well, I got a note from him today. His patents came through. The money came through. The packaging was designed. The production took place, the items shipped and passed through customs. Gettagrip Sewing Clips are for sale NOW!

Check it out: gettagripclips.com and buy a set. Don’t forget to tell Paulie that I sent you.

Open on the Atlas, where…Hey! Who’s sleeping with a stuffed lamb? Really, who was that? It was cute. Anthony says that after being on the bottom, winning was great, even if it sucks that he didn’t get immunity, too. Weepy McWeepersons is bummed that she was in front of the Editor of Marie Claire, and the woman hated her. Maybe it was her perky demeanor.

This week, the designers will get new models with not much experience, but they are an attractive little group. In case that is too subtle for you, that means little kids. Jesse sums up the feeling of the designers thusly: Oh, crap. We have to do something age-appropriate for little kids. But wait! What’s this? Seth Aaron is a father to a little girl? It’s yours to lose, buddy, because the rest of the pack is like Jonathon, who is afraid of the small. Amy lurves making mini clothes.

In the workroom, there are mini mannequins, and cards with the little girls measurements. They have thirty minutes to sketch, $50 at Mood and until midnight to make their outfits. Anthony laments that his forte is big women, and these little girls have no bootie and no breasts. He has no idea how to design for that. Jesse has a fantasy of little schoolgirl Madelaine in Paris. Emilio is going to make a “pretty little dress”.

At Mood, Seth Aaron scrambles to find black and white checked jersey. He’s going for a hoodie vest in his usual Hot Topics style. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Miz Shoes has found many cute little things (that may or may not be age appropriate for her) to wear at Hot Topics. Amy is not amused by pink. It is, she says, cliché. Jay thinks that today’s 8 year olds are fashion forward. He’s going for plum and navy blue. At the Apple store, we used to call the fashion forward 8 year olds prosti-tots.  Do we really need fashion-forward 8 year olds? Miz Shoes says we do not, because those are the girls who are going to end up on reality shows like “My Sweet 16” and “Bridezillas”. But I digress.

Jonathon is going to make a bolero for his little girl, but first he has to create his own fabric, and mock Michael Kors. Mil/ya is doing something new and innovative. PSYCH! No, she’s just doing another a-line dress with color blocking in a 1960’s vibe. Snore. Wake me when the decade is over. Weepy is channeling the lady bug costume her older sister wore in a school play when they were the age of the model. Seth Aaron says that his daughter is now 11, but that he knows what girls want. They want fun.

The next morning, Weepy calls home and cries. Tim comes to the workroom with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that they have another day to work. The bad news is they’re going to need it to complete the adult look they are going to make to go with what they designed for the kids. Not mummy/daughter necessarily. Winner gets immunity.

Jonathon says an adult version of his little yellow frock is easy: lower the neckline and raise the hem. Seth Aaron is in the zone. Jesse is whining, and Amy is going to take her little petal skirt and turn it into pants. Anthony chatters away until the other designers put a gag on him and take bets as to how long he can last without talking. Why did nobody think of that for the Angry Little Peanut? In the event, he lasts 14 minutes and 56 seconds.

Tim works the room, and begins with love for Jonathon’s little girl’s piece. Weepy, on the other hand, is rocking the Halloween look, and she doesn’t even know it. Finding out makes her cry. Tim isn’t so sure about Amy, either, and warns her that those pants (coral, turquoise, grey and black) are looking alarmingly like clown clothes. Seth Aaron has made a little hot pink and black purse for the little girl, and is constructing a very tailored jacket for the grown up look. He’s doing color blocking, actually, creating chevrons that mimic the hound’s tooth check on the child’s hoodie. Tim is profoundly wowed. As he should be. Amy thinks it will be close on the runway. Emilio is concerned. Weepy is weepy, and thinks she might be safe, but mostly just wants to get through the day. Chronic depression?

The morning of the show arrives and so do the models, both adults and little girls. There is the kind of chaos one would expect, and the high-strung designers and the wound up little girls are hard to tell apart. Jesse ponders whether he has created something weird ass or genius. Tonight’s guest judge is Tory Burch. Walkies!

Anthony has made something adorable. Amy’s petal pants are horrifying, and compelling in that I think my mother had that exact color palette in an outfit she bought in Capri in the summer of 1966. It was a pair of lemon yellow slubby silk toreador pants, and a boat-neck, ¾ sleeved jersey top. The top had a pattern of scallops, or clam shell shapes, very pop art: black out lines and colored insides…I seem to remember it being coral and turquoise and lemon yellow and black. Wow. Flashbacks. Where are we?

Ben has made an asymmetric, below the knee hem for the little girl. Not pretty. Seth Aaron’s little hoodie top is adorable. There are two little pink pockets on the front, out-lined in big white plastic zippers, and they look like watermelon slices.  He did some sort of appliqué on the back of the hoodie.  Jesse has made a slightly off-kilter grey high-waisted dress with red trim and a red coat for his child. The adult version is a sleek and tailored sleeveless dress with a giant black belt and a red jacket.  Jonathan has made a toilet paper dress. May/la has made yellow jackets like little rubber duckies. Mil/ya has used hot pink and lime green, white and black and done the same old schtick. Over it. Emilio has made a liitle flower girl dress that comes to her ankles and put something hot pink on the adult.  Weepy’s made a tomato dress and leggings. Jay’s pieces are sophisticated and architectural. Vertical ruffles.

Jay, Amy, Seth Aaron, Weepy, Jonathan and Jesse had the lowest and highest scores. Jesse’s big red coat and the grey dress with red piping gets praise. Seth Aaron’s little model, Sydney loves her purse. Both looks are super. Tory Burch says that this is something a little girl would want to wear.

Jay’s pieces are chic. NinaGarcia calls is urban, New York and cool. Weepy’s dress was too plain, it needed more whimsy. Heidi calls the look cheap mall, and Michael Kors delivers a “looks a little home ec”. Although Jonathan thinks that he’s given the little girl an edge, she says it’s more of an itch. In her armpit where that damned bolero is too tight. Yep: Michael Kors calls the adult look a tornado of toilet paper.

Amy. Yeah. The judges can not heap on enough scorn and derision. The little girl ran out of a burning building, wearing everything she owned. The adult pants are a circus, a train wreck. They are hideous, says Heidi, and Tory Burch does not like the colors.

Jesse is in. Seth Aaron is the winner. NinaGarcia says that he designed something a child would point at and say “I want that!” (IIt’s the watermelon pockets.) Jay is in. Jonathan is in. Amy’s color sense was nonexistent, the pants were clownish and the little kid got dressed in the dark. Weepy, though, she didn’t design, she barely sewed. Her stuff committed the mortal sin of looking cheap. Weepy gets to go home. Finally.  Next week? A trip to the hardware store.

It is no secret that I am a rock and roll junkie, and that I have a particular soft spot for guitar gods. Mike Campbell. Pete Townsend. Little Steven. Lemmy. Well, I could go on and on, and I usually do, but that’s not the point. The point is that I have a phone, an i-phone to be precise, and I love it hard. I am not in the market for a new phone, and especially not a new carrier. Why then, do I want to go out and buy this phone, every time I see this commercial? Because the only thing that could make it cooler would be if they could somehow make a Flying V version. I’m sorry. I love this ad.

In the Atlas, Jesus has left, and Anthony is trying to wake Jay up for bible study…which entails smacking him on the head with the bible, or so Anthony says. In the women’s dorm, Anna Whomever declares herself sweet but fierce, and Mil/ya is peeved that nobody was happy for her when she came in second last week. Maybe that would be because she comes off as a peevish, demanding diva.

On the runway, Heidi reminds us that as last week’s winner, Amy has immunity. Their challenge this week will be to design something “picture perfect”. Tim’s field trip takes them to the Hearst Building, where they meet Joanna Coles, the Editrix in Chief of Marie Claire. This is going to be the biggest challenge in Project Runway history with an unprecedented prize. They will be designing a dress to be worn by Heidi on the cover of the April issue of Marie Claire.

Ms. Coles gives them some guidelines: cover photos are cropped, usually from the hip or waist up. No black; it doesn’t photograph well. No patterned fabrics; it’s hard to run a headline over them. It’s the April issue, so make it spring-like and seasonally appropriate. Finally, this is Marie Claire, so make it sexy, strong and eye-catching so that the magazine flies off the racks.

Thirty minutes to sketch, $150 and thirty minutes at Mood, and a whopping one day to create. Anna Whomever is going for icy: silver,blue and charcoal. Anthony (who has apparently seen Heidi before) is going for short and tight but not slutty. Ben is doing a color story. Emilio is thinking blue. Weepy McWeepersons is grabbing everything she can in blues and greens.

In the workroom, Amy wonders why time gets harder to manage with every challenge. Jesse thinks that the cover of Marie Claire is a huge prize. Seth Aaron sings, does a little soft shoe and annoys the other designers. Ben is working with fuchsia and black. Anthony is going to do something that says Anthony in turquoise. Weepy is doing creams and pinks and decides that this is too bridal, so she second guesses herself and goes off in another direction.

Jonathan says that this means more to him than anything else in his whole career. Mil/ya crows that she her time management gets better with every challenge. Anna Whomever is making shorts, Seth Aaron is making pants, top and jacket. Mil/ya crows that she has no competition in this competition because she is the shit.

Tim’s walkabout begins with Anthony, who is sort of designing on the fly. Tim reminds him to edit. Mil/ya is doing something in a stretch wool, in a sort of lingerie nude color, and color blocking (again.) Weepy is using layering waves of ocean colors. Tim tells her not to let it look like clown clothes. Ben says that his dress is Madame Butterfly on acid, (bad acid). Tim warns him about using metallic leather for the belt. Anna Whomever is doing a juxtaposition of feminine and short shorts. Emilio is all about color. Fuschia. A cocktail dress with corseting at the neck.

Model fitting reveals that Jesse has finished the basketweave inset for the front of his dark teal/green piece. Jay has made an ivory baby doll dress with lots and lots of whicketywhack and frippery. (So not Heidi.) Anna Whomever’s shorts don’t fit. Mil/ya gets the brunt of the majority of the other designer’s trash talk. They call her fake and a one-trick pony. Mil/ya delivers an “I’m here to win, not make friends”. Anthony needs more time. McWeepersons is stressed and needs more time. Emilio should recut his dress because it’s too short, but he HAS. No. TIME.

Day of show, and Weepy and Anna Whomever are catching a clue that their time is running out. Anna thinks she maybe missed the mark on this challenge. She is in “a mode of near hysteria” but Mil/ya is still swanning around being overly confident and Weepy is no where near done. Of course. Tim comes in: FOCUS! PERFECTION! MODELS! Hair. Make up. Blow Fly accessories. We finally see May/la’s dress. It looks like her couture dress, with flaps and layers of flaps making an organic construct at the neck. Weepy’s machine is broken. Ben looks at his cobalt blue and ochre and thinks that this may be his moment. Miz Shoes does not.

Our judges this week are (still and thank the lord) NinaGarcia, Michael Kors, Heidi and the guest, Joanna Coles. Let’s walk:

Amy has made something with patterned fabric. Seth Aaron has made a fitted, fashion-forward jacket and skinny jeans in what looks like a metallic denim. It is hott, and the RLA and I decide that Heidi would wear it in a New York minute. Jesse’s done a little green slip dress and the panel of basketweave is barely visible. Anna Whomever’s shorts are short, the little vest cropped too high and worn over a shapeless blouse. Anthony’s dress is sculpted with flounces of fabric sort of cascading down off one shoulder and working into a structure at the waist and hip. Weepy’s dress is beige with a dark trim on the cut away arm holes. Mil/ya has done beige on beige on beige color blocking. Emilio’s little slip dress is nicer than Jesse’s little slip dress, with more interest at the neckline. Jay’s long, asymmetrical baby doll is also pale. Jonathan has, inexplicably, made a micro-length romper with huge bell sleeves. May/la’s organic collar is beige on grey. And then there’s Ben and his bold color blocking.

Seth Aaron is called first, followed by Jay, May/la, Jesse, Jonathan and Amy, and our hopes of him being among the top designers are dashed. That’s the middle of the pack, and they are safe and sent away.

Ben says that his piece is his impression of Madame Butterfly (for the third time, and Miz Shoes wonders if he’s ever seen the opera or if he’s just hoping nobody else has, either.) Michael Kors says that if this were on the cover of a magazine, it would just cut through the noise of the newsstand. Really? Heidi loves the back. Ms Coles calls it a contender? Again, really?

Anna Whomever says that she made her color palette just for Heidi. NinaGarcia calls her pieces shapeless. Joanna Coles says that she has used three ingredients in one dish that make one nauseous, and that furthermore, Marie Claire is a fashion magazine, not a teen magazine and that Anna Whomever has totally missed the readership.

Anthony says that he was inspired by Heidi her own self and that is why his dress is feminine and modern. Michael cheers that he has taken the one-shoulder look and made it new. Nina is enthusiastic that Anthony has embraced color. Ms Coles calls it great.

Weepy’s ocean inspired dress is dismissed as having seaweed organza hanging around the neck. Heidi does not see it as fashion-forward at all. Ms Coles sniffs that if that is the ocean, it is a polluted sea. Not to be outdone by her boss, NinaGarcia announces that it is sweet and bridal and if there is one thing that Heidi Klum Samuels is not, it is sweet.

Mil/ya’s dress is feminine but strong, she says. No, says Michael Kors, it is an Ace bandage. It is a jog bra with a v-neck. NinaGarcia flatly states that the beige/greige/bland color blocking makes a giant V pointing to the crotch.

Emilio has a strong color, and good detail at the neckline. Michael impressed with how he took soft, drapey jersey and made it structural. NinaGarcia thinks it might be a little junior-ish, and Emilio whips out his scissors and cuts the straps off, right there on the runway. Then he undoes the model’s tight little pony tail. Emilio earns huge points for that with the judges.

The designers are sent away for the real critiquing to happen. Weepy’s dress was not Heidi. Anna Whomever’s work was horrible. NinaGarcia and MK admit that the shorts seem to have been sewn well, though. Maybe. Mil/ya gets the worst of it, with her dress called the color of hospital food, and that being on the cover would cause people to walk right by the magazine rack.

There will be no immunity for our winner tonight, because the reward is So. Huge. And Anthony wins!!! Oh, happy happy joy joy. Heidi loves the dress and can’t wait to wear it. Anthony acknowledges that he has taken every bit of every critique the judges have given him to date and used it to better his designs. Ben is in, Emilio is in, Mil/ya is in. That leaves the expected bottom two: Anna Whomever and Weepy McWeepersons. True to her inability to hold the viewer’s interest, Anna Whomever gets sent home. Weepy weeps and is told to get off the runway, already.

Next week? CHILDREN!!!! This is going to be fun.