It is quiet in the Atlas, now that Anthony is gone, says Seth Aaron. Too quiet. In the women’s oda, May/la is making toast for Mil/ya. They eye each other. May/la is wrung out, and Mil/ya says that’s because she is the youngest, but that she herself, is older and wiser. Older, for sure. 

On the runway, Heidi digs it in that at this point in the competition, things just keep getting harder. Their challenge today will be to create a look for a celebrity known for being opinionated and headstrong; one who knows clearly what they want. Then she laughs at their concerned faces and tells them how glad she is not to be in their shoes. Nice.

In the workroom, Tim expands on the challenge. It will be a red carpet look for a celebrity. And that celebrity is… HEIDI! And here she is. Heidi tells them to keep their own point of view, but to look at her dossier. She will be post-partum, she says, so keep it simple and keep her on the best-dressed list. They have thirty minutes to sketch, and $300 at Mood.

Seth Aaron says that this is a challenge one wants to win. May/la looks at her sketchbook and walks out. Jonathan is so freaked by his place in the bottom of the pack, that he throws all of his design sense out the window and panics. He says that he’s living in opposite world, where his work is seen by the judges as ugly, so he’s going to make something ugly today so that the judges will love it. Miz Shoes speculates that that only works in Silver Age Superman Bizarro World, and wishes Jonathan good luck. Mil/ya grumps that she doesn’t DO red carpet. Emilio reminds the universe that a red carpet look has to be BAM-WOW.

Tim and May/la come back into the workroom, looking solemn. May/la has decided that she’s had enough. She’s leaving the show. She says that she’s too young and not ready to show a complete collection, that she doesn’t have a point of view, yet. She doesn’t even want to one last challenge. She is done. And that, dear readers, is the answer to the Mayan Mystery. She just left. Jay is sympathetic to her and her youth. Emilio pulls out the old “winners never quit and quitters never win” platitude. Seth Aaron, though, our lovely, sensitive Seth Aaron recognizes that this is a grueling endeavor and that we in the viewing audience have no clue how grueling. We cannot sit here on our sofas and judge her, says Seth Aaron, and he sums it up with a final admonition to just Fuck. Off. Tim tells the shell-shocked remaining designers to “Rally” and off they go to Mood.

Jonathan is looking for a print that he can use for his cut away technique. Mila is leaving her comfort zone of black and white to use gunmetal grey and gold. Seth Aaron is using black, of course, but says that half of the fashion in Heidi’s look book is black, so it isn’t a stretch for either of them. Besides, he could still get sent home next, NOT.

Back in the workroom, Tim is waiting to tell them that they still need six designers for this challenge, so the last one off will be asked back. In comes Anthony, and immediately begins to chatter like a magpie. He calls himself chocolate pudding and asks who WOULDN’T want Anthony back? He’d want Anthony back. He LOVES Anthony. Emilio is cranky and begins his litany of why one cannot make a red carpet gown in one day. There is an under structure of boning and such, and wahwahwah. Tim comes back in and calls Seth Aaron out into the hall.

Mila is so disturbed by the loss of her MiniMila, that she cannot focus. Seth Aaron comes back in to say that he’s lost his model because she has had the chance to work a Dona Karan show, and you know? Good for her and her career, he’s just gonna have to suck it up and work with whoever the last model thrown off was. She’s an entirely different size than his old model, but he’ll just make it work.

Heidi’s in the house! For the First Time Ever! on Project Runway, she comes into the work room. She begins with Seth Aaron and tells him that long, black and simple is OK, but she wants a show stopper. Anthony is working in black and white. Emilio is doing a mermaid hem in a coppery shiny fabric. Jay has a bodice of a thousand horizontal pleats. Much hilarity ensues when he says that the shape of the bodice allows for the space between her breasts, and she points out that she has no space between her breasts, that they, in fact, collide and proceeds to pull down her neckline to show him. Awkward.

As for Mila’s dress? Well, it isn’t bad, but she must ask herself, are the other dresses better? Not in Mila’s world view. Poor Jonathan. She hates his cut away work all coral under beige and silver and tells him it looks like curtains. Curtains for Jonathan, maybe.

Model fittings! Seth Aaron has to take inches in on his dress. Emilio continues to complain. Jay is pondering his dilemma: Heidi has said that his skirt is going to make her butt look big. Does he change it to suit the client, or stay true to his vision? Jonathan has no such problem. Heidi hated his work, so he pitches it and makes another dress, all swoopy and swirly and drapey, just like she asked for. He hates that one, so he starts on his third dress with whatever scraps of fabric he has left.

Morning of the show and Mila has doubts after Heidi’s critique. Someone (Jonathan or Emilio) points out that it’s always good when all of the designers are in the same horrible, sinking boat. Anthony has rushed through his bodice and isn’t happy with it, so he starts again, rather than trying to fix the first one. Jay just wants to finish, Jonathan is just over it all, and wishes he’d left with Maya when he had the chance. Mila throws shade on Jonathan. Emilio trashes Seth Aaron’s look, down to hair and make up. Jonathan hates his dress and hopes that means the judges will like it.

Runway! Six now, five later. Judges are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Jessica Alba. Jay’s dress is silver grey with that fitted, pleated bodice (still with the seashell cups with three fingers of space between them) and a vertically ruffled tutu over the hips and butt. Mila’s dress is short and color blocked and a big snooze with a wide v-neck and narrow straps. Anthony’s black and white cookie of a dress is backless, and moves beautifully on the runway, with a slit that shows leg when the model walks. It is sexy and glamorous. Seth Aaron’s black, tank top dress has some studs or straps or something, but is forgettable. Jonathan’s dress is pathetic: badly draped, badly hemmed and shorter even than Heidi would wear. Emilio’s used coppery Mylar dots to make a strapless column dress with a half-bow handle on one boob. It is well structured and looks a lot like his winning Harlem evening gown.

The judges address Seth Aaron first: too Seth Aaron and not enough Heidi says NinaGarcia. Michael Kors says that this would be worn by the girl who carries the statuette, not the winner. Heidi says not sexy enough. Anthony tells them that his dress is a canvas to be accessorized. Michael Kors loves it. Jessica Alba loves it. NinaGarcia calls it stunning and red-carpet appropriate. Mila claims her dress is sleek and sexy, but the fit at the bust is criticized by Jessica. Heidi says that it is not a show stopper, and that it is too simple. Predictably, the judges all fall off their chairs over Emilio’s sequins, or more accurately, over the execution of the under-armature. Jay’s corset is beautiful, but how many times do you have to be told that NO WOMAN WANTS A BIG BUTT. (This has caused all sorts of blogosphere yapping about cultural sensitivity and how some cultures/ethnicities do, in fact, want big butts, but that is a debate for another blog.) Miz Shoes falls squarely on her own fat ass in the Do NOT Want camp. Jonathan’s dress is too short, and the back draping is good, but the front sucks. The judges catch on quickly that this was his third dress, made of equal parts desperation and fabric scraps.

The judges talk behind the designers’ backs. Seth Aaron was too safe and not body-conscious enough for Heidi’s body. Jessica wants Anthony’s dress, and who wouldn’t’? Jonathan made an unfortunate, dull pillowcase. It looked amateur. More culturally insensitive yammering about the big butt. Emilio is the only one who knew how to do an understructure that enabled him to drape stretchy Mylar sequins without looking cheap and tacky. Mila’s look is dismissed as “Housewives of New Jersey”. Heidi says that Mila is talented enough, but do they really want to see any more from her? Miz Shoes says that she hasn’t wanted to see more of Mila since about episode three, but nobody asks her.

And we do not have a winner this week, we have two winners. Heidi says that Emilio won and she can’t wait to wear his dress on some random red carpet or anther, and Jessica Alba says that Anthony won, and if he wouldn’t mind, she would like to wear his dress on some red carpet, and he just claps his little hands in elfish glee and says damn straight, woman, you better believe I want to let you. Hell’s bells, I went from out the door to co-winner; you can wear what ever you want whenever you want. Emilio gloats about his three consecutive wins (two of which were joint wins, but he doesn’t mention that). Seth Aaron is in. Mila is in. Jay made something that was not red carpet, nor was it flattering, and he didn’t listen when Heidi told him to take the volume off the bottom. Jonathan just delivered another mess that fell short of his talent. Jonathan goes Aufsie Daisy and Jay gets to try again next week, when Michael Kors says that something looks like a giant blue condom. But is it a giant, blue DISCO condom, Michael?

Atlas morning rituals. Jonathan misses Amy. Game on. May/la is jealous of Seth Aaron’s win. She sulks about being safe all the time. Emilio is full of himself. Runway. Heidi gives a clue: more than just picking fabric. Seth Aaron speculates that this means pocket elves to help them sew. Seth Aaron, did you just make a joke about the production company?

Into the workroom for this week’s infomercial and celebrity product shill. Computers, software and Vivienne Tam, in order. The challenge, and Miz Shoes’ speculation last week was correct, to design their own fabric, and then create a look from it. They have one hour to design the fabric, two days to sew, and a field trip to Mood to get supplemental fabric and findings and notions. Miz Shoes would love to see the button selection at Mood.

Seth Aaron is jazzed, Anthony doesn’t like prints, Mil/ya is doing giant paint drips and Jonathan is doing the same thing electronically that he does on real fabric: layering and removing layers. He calls it subtractive. OK, that’s cool. The program interface lets you use an actual paintbrush against the computer screen. No mousing around, no mechanical device that attempts to feel like a pencil in your hand, a real fucking brush that would give the user actual tactile feedback. REAL DRAWING. Still not enough to make Miz Shoes give up her Mac, but dude. Put that shit in the Apple and the world would change. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Project Runway.

Emilio is creating a graffiti-inspired logo. May/la is making red/orange stripes. Seth Aaron is doing a pop-art design that he calls a British take on pop-punk. The designers get paper print-outs of their fabric designs to take to Mood. Jonathan’s is so pale that nothing prints. Mil/ya has purchased a ton of some garish yellow. Anthony is going to do separates, including his first ever jacket. Bad. Idea. Meanwhile, Emilio has a robin’s egg blue leather bustier that he is not happy with as he views it on his mannequin. He clutches his head in his hands and listens to his viscera. His viscera tells him to scrap the piece, so he does.

May/la thinks that she’s in trouble, because she never uses prints and has no idea what to do. Seth Aaron gets the loser edit and is seen talking to his wife on the phone. The fabrics arrive in the workroom, and Mil/ya hates Emilio’s print and says that he has no taste.  The designers all love their own fabrics, though. May/la is troubled, because she can’t be sculptural with print fabric. Mil/ya is going to make a tent dress with tepee canvas and her giant paint drip print.

Tim works the room, beginning with Emilio. He can’t read the print and thinks it says something about Seth Aaron. He hates the twee heart that makes the “O” in Sosa.  ES?SA. Emilio gets all huffy that Tim is “mocking” him and says that he is over listening to Tim Gunn. He’s doing a 1940’s silhouette swing-back jacket over a simple sheath dress. Miz Shoes idly wonders how many simple sheath dresses have come down the runway over seven seasons.

Tim isn’t sure about Seth Aaron’s print. May/la confesses that she has designer’s block this week. Anthony’s work isn’t ambitious enough. Wait! Did we just get a glimpse of Jay working with something black and electric green? Where’s that footage? Jonathan is doing his same-old, same-old: soft and hard, sweet and edgy. And pale. Really, really, pale. May/la continues to whine. Time for our first trash-talk round robin. Emilio starts by saying the Mil/ya has made a white tepee and how can she call herself a designer when she can’t use color. Mil/ya counters with the opinion that her color sense is stellar, but that Anthony has questionable taste. Anthony himself says that his bodice has given him a “conundrum” while Seth Aaron continues to be jazzed. And confident.

Runway morning, and May/la hasn’t slept. Jay is wearing electric green pants that match what we may have seen to be his fabric, and Anthony tells him that he looks like a gay Christmas tree ornament. Says the gay in the Member’s Only jacket. Jay changes his pants. Mil/ya is droning something about her chance of getting to Bryant Park by dint of her consistency (hobgoblin of little minds) and her ability to do something every week. Well, there was an adjective in there, but it wasn’t anything accurate. Round robin two: Anthony says Jonathan’s work is too pale and Jonathan says Mil/ya’s dress is too stiff. We see her model unable to walk in it. Seth Aaron is still sewing when Tim calls the ten minute warning.

Heidi is on the runway wearing a chain around her neck, each link of which is about the size of a croissant and made of something as thick around as Miz Shoes’ wrist. Wow. Just. Wow. The judges are the orange Michael Kors, the NinaGarcia and the unintelligible Vivienne Tam.

Seth Aaron’s look leads off, and it is, as usual, impeccable and interesting and cool. There are pants with a detail up the front of the leg that could be a zipper, and the hip little blazer made of his fabric, which he has set on the bias, so that his little cartoon blocks are not squares, but diamonds. Not for the first time, Miz Shoes wants to wear what Seth Aaron designs. Jonathan has covered up his little dress with a gold leather wrap jacket that wraps backwards. The dress has a sweetheart neck over a grey chiffon racer-back top with a big floppy bow on the neck wrap. May/la has made a simple sheath dress, but used her own print as side panels and made a center panel of black ruched fabric, with a deep v-neckline filled with high ruffles of black and the print. It’s part clown collar and part Elizabethan ruff.

Emilio’s 1940’s bed jacket is worn over a 1960’s wiggle dress with a black inverted triangle at the neck and a black belt. Mil/ya scowls at her model, who has had the nerve to haul the dress up on one side so that she can actually walk down the runway. Anthony’s made a plain little nothing dress out of his fabric and topped it with a micro-vest/bolero/shrug thing in black. Before you can focus on it, Jay’s military jacket over a black catsuit with a turtleneck that covers the models chin has come, gone, been declared safe and sent off screen forever.

As so often happens when the judging begins, Miz Shoes wants whatever they’re having, because the judges all just fall off their directors stools for Emilio’s logo print and bed jacket. Heidi wants it. Michael Kors coos over the logo. NinaGarcia calls it chic. Mil/ya calls her fabric a painterly print and Michael Kors tells her that there is nothing interesting in her look at all, and did she not notice that the model couldn’t walk? Heidi complains that Mil/ya is stuck in the 70s and Vivienne says that the print and the design don’t work together. NinaGarcia tries to get Anthony to put a name to the shrug thing and he starts to spin a song and dance and NinaGarcia tells him to put a sock in it.

Seth Aaron is called impeccable, adorable, well-made and charming, and so are his clothes. May/la created a romantic warrior, according to MK. Vivienne likes it. What none of the judges like, however is Jonathan’s backward wrap jacket, or Michael Kors’ disco straight jacket. MK says that Jonathan’s print looks like a dirty table cloth and Jonathan takes umbrage, saying that that description is preposterous. NinaGarcia puts an end to the bantering by saying the look was a full-on catastrophe, period, end of story.

Anthony never shuts up and always does the same silhouette with different trim. Mil/ya took the easy way out and made either a striped tepee or Michael Kors’ mom’s patio dress from 1972. Jonathan could be as peeved as he wanted over it, his fabric was too conceptual and looked like dirty table linens. Seth Aaron is the shit, always designing something polished on no money and with no time. He is true to himself and whimsical. Emilio invented the wheel, or made a logo, pick one. May/la designed a really great new form of striped fabric! It was the bestest print ever!

Annnnnd, Emilio wins his third challenge and becomes even more insufferable as a result, calling himself a force to be reckoned with. Seth Aaron has done another great job. May/la and her best print of the challenge are merely in, as is Mil/ya. Anthony is chastised for doing yet another simple cocktail dress. Jonathan made something BEE-zaaahr and sad. It was a complete misfire, but good for him for taking chances. He gets to stay, and Anthony has to decide whether to sing Bye-Bye Birdie or Shuffle Off to Tupelo. In any event, he says that he doesn’t need a crown to be a queen (no duh) and that we shouldn’t cry for Anthony, but toss one back for him.

Next week, they will design for a bitchy celebrity and there is stunning, shocking news that turns their world upside down. Does this mean that the Mayan Mystery will finally be solved?

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

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.