Today is a but first day. You know, you have things to do that you want to do, but first, you have to do something else.

This is what I want to do: spin up these batts that I made last week when FiberNinja came to play.

But first, I have to make my way through this mess; sorting, storing, tossing and filing so that there is enough room to pull out the spinning wheel. Sigh.

And I also have to visit my mummy. And in the afternoon, I have an appointment to get my hair cut. I think I may have found someone who understands me when I say I need Roger Daltrey at the Isle of Wight. Oh, just Google it.

Bile green LA morning: Althea and Irina are no longer speaking. Irina is a smug bitch. Christopher is the last boy standing and says it’s strange. Agreed. Gordana wants to represent. This is the last challenge. Tim is going to take them to an iconic place with priceless views. More green smog. The Getty Museum. The mayor of LA claims that LA is the creative capitol of America. Miz Shoes weeps for the death of creativity. Thirty minute tour. Sketching. Mood. Models as assistant muses. Althea is inspired by the architecture of the museum itself. Carol Hannah is overcome by the French decorative arts and what appears to be Marie Antoinette’s bed. It is a turquoise and gold brocaded rococo confection with swoops and swags and ostrich feathers. Irina is seduced by a faux-Orientalist semi-Pre-Raphaelite women languidly lolling around in diaphanous togas. Gordana weeps at the sight of one of Monet’s cathedrals in dawn light. And Christopher. Ah, weeping, prayer-handed emo boy is overcome by the beauty of algae on rocks in an outdoor fountain. Oh, Christopher, you are so edgy…not.

Mood. Irina finds a sheared goat pelt. Christopher finds acid green. Carol Hannah is panicking. So far, so much of the same as every other episode this season. To the workroom, where Irina is a bitch and talks smack about the other designers, Carol Hannah fumbles around and Christopher continues to be a tool. Gordana says it would be sooooo disappointing to make it this far and not go to Bryant Park. Six seasons of watching, and the dismal reality of this season, lets us know that is a sure sign that Gordana will NOT be going to Bryant Park. Thank you blatant foreshadowing.

Irina is a bitch, who is now Gordana’s pal, having burned Althea. Carol Hannah is now Christopher’s pal, since Logan is gone and forgotten. Tim comes in for his walkabout, and tells Carol Hannah to lose the diagonal swash across the bust, Irina to lose the goat fur road kill and warns Althea about the puckering on her strippy, cross hatched piecing. (Which is exactly the same as her Bob Mackie challenge dress.) Tim loves Gordana’s dress and the clear inspiration of the Monet. She’s dead.

Christopher displays his only self-awareness this entire season when he confessionalizes that he knows that he’s being portrayed as the wacky kid who never listens to Tim. The designers all talk shit about the others. Everything looks pretty lousy. Morning. Workroom. Stress. Back-biting. Christopher says his dress is dirty and pretty and he’s sure that the judges will finally see his vision. Irina is a bitch about Christopher. Althea’s a bitch about Gordana. Irina is a bitch about Althea. It’s a circle jerk of bitchiness.

Tim gives the last pep talk. Make NinaGarcia’s stilettos blow off her feet and shoot across the room. Yeah, says Miz Shoes from her couch, good luck with that. Heidi tells the designers this is a double elimination. The judges are NinaGarcia, Cynthia Rowley (Miz Shoes loves Cynthia Rowley) and Cindy Crawford. Ho-fucking-hum. Time to see what these guys have managed to produce.

Althea has a sandstone colored dress with a sheer top over a very puckered skirt. Carol Hannah has made a pretty gold gown with some fabric braiding on one shoulder. Christopher has a grey and green sheer drawstring-necked top (Vampire Bride), with a grey corset (paper challenge) and a straight skirt with some really horrible finger painting.

Gordana’s dress is a simple sheath with layers of colors that are evocotive of both her inspiration and a vagina. Irina’s model has a terrible, terrible horse-stomp walk and a floppy green dress that looks like a 1980s disco fever dream. Her model is styled like the muse in that rollerskating movie…Xanadu.

Althea’s dress has an underworked top and an overworked skirt. Heidi calls it a mess fest. NinaGarcia tells Irina that she has styled her goddess gown like an old lady. The length is wrong. The styling is wrong. The shoes are awful. Gordana’s silk organza is beautifully made. Heidi can see the connection to the painting. The judges finally decide that the zipper is badly sewn. Carol Hannah and her French decorative arts: Cynthia Rowley loves the fit, Cindy Crawford doesn’t see the connection. NinaGarcia calls it perfect and safe.

And then there is Christopher. He cries that he IS a rock with algae. Thanks for sharing. Get off the runway. The usual question of why should you go and who should go with you results in predictable answers: Because I WANT it so bad. Because I’ve never been in the bottom three. Because I make beautiful clothes that women want to wear. Because I’m an immigrant with American dreams (that from Irina, by the way).

More filler of the judges pretending to make a “tough” decision. Irina is in. Carol Hannah is in. Althea is in. Gordana and Christopher go home. And that’s a wrap. Miz Shoes is so over this season, that she isn’t even committed to watching the finale. Will the bitch win? Or the little blonde or the big blonde?

Finally, Miz Shoes would like to show Christopher what you do with grey and algae green that looks like water sparkling over rocks.

In case you don’t recognize the detail, that’s Laura Bennett’s amazing grey and acid green gown from season 3. Compare and contrast and learn.

This is the big day, and I have spent the morning culling photos and scanning. I bring you a Shoes Family Halloweens Through the Years. First up is Grandma Shoes On My Mother’s Side. Here we see her modeling a grass skirt, circa WWII, some sailor brought them home for my mom and her mom. Under the coconut trees on Grandma’s front yard (the side facing the river). Check out the coy little ankle.

And then Mummy, probably the same year she dressed me in the gypsy costume. Taken at Seymour’s Inn Halloween Dance, Jensen Beach in the early 1950s. She was something fierce, my mummy.

The fun couple that was my Mummy and Daddy: all taken at Seymour’s. I wish we had a Seymour’s today. A classic road house: a bar and very casual family dining at the foot of a popular fishing bridge, across the river from a popular public beach.

Artist and Majorette

Peter (of Peter and the Wolf, with his popgun) and Mary Mary Quite Contrary.

Little Lord Fauntleroy and Little Bo-Peep

Miz Shoes in Peacock Drag (it was the night that the RLA first told me he loved me)

And Miz Shoes as a wood nymph, loosely interpreted.

Bilious green L.A. Logan and Christopher swap clichés about stepping up game, being on the bottom, getting out of their comfort zones, and Christopher whines that nobody understands him. Over in the female dorm room, they are gloating about how many women are left. Althea and Carol Hannah blow smoke about who will be in Bryant park and comfort zones and something else or another.

The designers are facing away from the runway, listening to rustling noises and getting worried. This is what passes for drama these days, one supposes. When they turn around, Heidi is standing in the middle of a row of dress forms, each of which is wearing one of the remaining designer’s winning garment. In the case of Logan, who has never won a challenge, this is something long and two shades of grey and I have no idea which challenge it was from nor any memory of seeing it. That’s pretty damning for a show about creativity.  In the case of Irina (who has won more challenges than any one else this season and who won’t shut up about it as though this were a season where winning a challenge meant slightly more than squat), this means her giant pile of brown knits that won last week.

The challenge is to make a second look that goes with your winning garment. As usual, there is too little money for decent supplies and too little time for anything of quality or interest to come from this group. In other words, this is another one-day,  make something pretty challenge.

Althea focuses on the paper-bag waist on her original design, which I DO remember seeing, because the model’s boobs were flying around and the short skirt looked like a giant black diaper because it had a paper-bag waist and a bubble hem which combined for something quite unfortunate in shape. Irina, predictably gloats about her Aspen look being the basis of a collection. Gordana has the grey sort of mummy wrap dress from the divorcé challenge. Christopher has his pixie prom dress and decides that it needs to have a matching gown. Logan buys lots and lots of zippers at Mood, claiming that his look had a zipper detail on it somewhere. Christopher finds and buys 30 yards of something shiny and silver. Or white. Irina is making a dress that starts out as a work look and ends up a cocktail dress, which isn’t necessarily a contradiction in terms.

Carol Hannah is panicking and gets a Pep Talk From Tim ^TM that inspires her to stay in her comfort zone and make a pretty dress.  Workroom. Irina is cutting the pattern apart on her upholstery fabric to make a brocade. Althea is making trousers that are tight from ankle to knee and then full until pulled in on the high, paper-bag waist. In black, and there is a certain Princess PuffySleeves look about the silhouette.

Montage of designers includes Gordana’s back story: child of Bosnian-Serb farmers. Those of us old enough to remember remember that would have been a shitty place to be 20-some years ago. Logan is a straight gear-head from Idaho. Carol Hannah dithers and wanders off for coffee. Trash talking. Is it time for the runway yet? Tim’s Walk-About ^TM. Tim agrees with Carol Hannah that she does, in fact, have a scary mess. Tim loves Irina’s dress. Tim hates Christopher’s gown and says that it looks like the first dress’ dowdy, white-trash mama. Althea’s pants are scary. Logan is focusing on his color palette and zippers.

The zippers and the collar Logan is making. Irina and Althea make a big whispering mean-girls stink about Logan being a cheat and an idea thief. Then Irina turns on Althea and talks about her behind her back in the same terms, with a side of ridicule thrown in for not even seeing that she’s just the same a Logan. Rinse and repeat this scenario several more times randomly through the remainder of this review, and you will have the entire episode. Your humble narrator will now skip ahead to the runway and the judging.

Logan puts on his magic silver pants for good luck. Good lord, but that boy is bow-legged. Is he also a barrel racer? Heidi comes out in something so fucking hideous that she must have lost a bet or let her daughter pick things at random from the closet. She is wearing silver leather Burmuda shorts, a ruffled, flowery chiffon blouse in a hot pink print, and a black waiter’s jacket. I am frightened. Our judges tonight are NinaGarcia, Uncle Nick from Season 2 and Kerry Washington whose Wikipedia page tells me is an American actress who has been in movies I’ve seen. And I saw Logan’s dress, too, but same amount of memory has been expended in both instances, which is to say, exactly none.

Carol Hannah’s cute dress is cute. Althea has made a strappy-backed white tank to go with the scary pants, and a giant grey fuzzy knit wrap-bolero-thing is thrown over that. Logan has made a nice top with all those zippers, and a skirt that looks like a goth brothel lampshade. I know I used that phrase before, but this is the boudoir lamp, and the other one was from the public space. Irina has made a huge cocoon wrap out of that brown sweater knit and tossed it over her cocktail sheath. There is some very weird shit happening on the hip and hem, and nobody says a word about it. Gordana has made a sort of deconstructed jacket with tons of detailing at the waist to create the fit. It’s very interesting and I can see the same woman who would wear the grey mummy wrap in this.

Christopher is doused with ice water, verbally: proportions off, parade float, bedskirt, totally unrelated pieces. Irina: up-town chic, Kerry would call for it after seeing it on a runway, and NinaGarcia is aware that the empress has no clothes, but the other judges have drunk the kool-aid. Gordana is kicked in the teeth, verbally: old, drab, sad, Soviet-era dreariness, dated, office worker in Poland. Carol Hannah is delicious and Logan is a self indulgent student.  Judy Jetson, Nick calls it. Althea’s suit gets the love.

Moment of under-bus-throwing between Althea and Irina (see note above).  Deliberating. And Carol Hannah and her cute little dress are in. Althea is the winner and she better keep one eye open tonight when she sleeps (coughIrinacough). Christopher, for reasons unknown to all intelligent life in this galaxy is in. Logan and Gordana get a final reaming from the judges and then the magic is spent from Logan’s silver pants and he goes home. Gordana gets to stay and suffer under Heidi’s obvious hatred for another episode.

See, when I was young and in summer camp, I had a friend whose brother had (accidentally, he said) broken her nose. She was allowed to take the bandages off to go to camp, but she had to spend like ten minutes out of every hour pressing her deviated septum together. She’d forget, and then spend an hour with her fingers clamped on her nose, and say she was catching up on it, which became, when overheard by someone unfamiliar with the state of affairs, ketchup. So to this day, when I am behind, I think of the ketchup on it. So this is my Project Runway Ketchup On It.

Episode Nine

Christopher HAS to make it to Fashion Week, and Shirin deserves to be here. Carol Hannah thinks that she can win by staying in the middle of the pack.

The challenge is to meet the “Sultan of Sequins”, Mr. Bob Mackie, review his retrospective and produce an extravagant stage costume in his style. He remind the fashion hamsters that this isn’t fashion, it’s costume. It’s Glamor. It’s for Christina Aguilera (and Miz Shoes couldn’t pick her out of a line up, let’s be up front about that now. I only know of her from her frequent appearance on the pages of Go Fug Yourself).

Needless to say, Miss Nicolas is absolutely famischt at being in proximity to Bob Mackie, and has to fan herself. The hamsters have half an hour to sketch, $300 and half an hour at Mood and a gracious two days to work. There are the usual clichés about inspiration and icons and the usual running around Mood with no clue. Evil Twin Irina trash talks everyone. Christopher is going back to punk (ho-fucking hum to that). Carol Hannah is clueless. Logan admits that he doesn’t follow Xtina, which is to say, he has no idea who she is, but he hopes she likes fur. Nicolas is twitterpated. Gordana is disgusted with her fabric, which is shedding beads like a cat sheds fur at the veterinarian and cursing that she’s going to have to rely on her immunity, which, thank the lord, she has.

Day Two

Gordana starts over. Shirin decides that 1940s Hollywood glamor is the way to go. (Miz Shoes says, or not. Can you say done to fucking death this season?) Carol Hannah talks trash about Shirin. Tim comes for his walkabout.

Christopher, you think you have a big reveal, but both pieces look like cheap trash from the 90s. Althea, you are also doing something black, boring and with no wow to the reveal. Good lord, Gordana, that looks matronly. Are you insane? Nicolas, have you dragged your winning snow queen out for inspiration? No? This is new? Oh, are you sooooo lucky that Michael and NinaGarcia haven’t been here to see this particular trick pony before, because they would nail your ass to the wall for do overs. Carry on. Carol Hannah? This could be sexy. Maybe. Skip the reveall. Shirin, you have made a mash up of Guinevere and Vampira, it looks like bad student work and I hate it.

Evil Twin Irina talks trash. Shirin freaks out. Carol Hannah and Logan “flirt”. If you want to call it that.

Runway Day

Shirin continues to freak, Nicolas continues to twitterpate. Althea is confident and Evil Irina is a bitch. So far, everyone is sticking to the script. Carol Hannah is worried about all the raven wings she’s sewing on her dress. Nicolas says that Irina is a really good designer whose only problem is being a bitch. Fair enough. Christopher has made a bustier and sparkle panties. It’s worse than it sounds.

Our judges today are Bob Mackie, NinaGarcia and Xtina A.

Althea has made a silver dress with a black bolero and a long train. Logan has made a mini dress of black and silvergreen sequined zebra print. It has a black monkey fur ruff and a pathetic trio of little chains across the back. Thin chains. Shirin has made something long, shaggy and it looks like something Stevie Nicks would wear prior to rehab. Christopher’s model whips off the black mini dress to reveal a black bustier and striped, sequined, badly made boy shorts. Nicolas has made a silver and white (of course) mini dress with feathers and sequins and it actually does look like something Bob Mackie might sneeze out after a day in the sequins and feathers.Gordana’s dress is still awful. Irina has made a bulky jacket over mini-lingerie and Carol Hannah’s black dress has all sorts of black feathers and textures and some of it’s shiny and some of it’s matte.

Irina is sent away, safe. Gordana is told to be very grateful for her immunity and also sent away.

Xtina says she could see herself wearing Carol Hannah’s black thing. NinaGarcia calls it glamorous and Mackie loves all the different textures. Heidi calls it wow.

Shirin is told her dress looks like an upscale Halloween witch. Xtina points out that she couldn’t actually move in it. Althea worked the back side of the sequin fabric against the front to create her own matte and shiny stuff. It’s nicely made. Christopher can’t keep his trap shut and yaps about channeling Cyndi Lauper and NinaGarcia tells him that he’s made a cheap knockoff of Xtina’s Lady Marmalade costume, and Bob Mackie says it’s so trashy he wouldn’t put the corset on the back row of chorus girls.

Nicolas wins accolades from all of the judges, Heidi loves the short tight and shiny, Xtina says that she could shake it up in that little number and Bob Mackie calls it a great stage piece. Nicolas can die and go to heaven. Logan wanted to do something Xtina had never done before and so he lined his little Wilma Flintstone dress with hot pink, which can’t be seen. The judges rightly point out that he should have taken bigger chances and really played with the magenta against the Victorian collar and sequined zebra skin.

So. The judges deliberate a little more with Xtina talking about shaking her hips, and Bob Mackie calling Christopher’s outfit a sad little costume from a road company tribute band of the Pussy Cat Dolls. Logan’s dress was too short to be long and too long to be short and Mackie says something about putting a diamond on the crotch and you’re golden.

Althea is in. Carol Hannah and her dress of bird wings wins. Nicolas is in. Logan is in. Shirin and Christopher are lectured about doing cheap knockoff of cheap costumes and BORING Nina, and for reasons that nobody will ever know or understand, whiny Shirin gets sent home and Mr. One-note Christopher stays. Boo. Hiss. Boring. Next week we are promised both Michael Kors and NinaGarcia in the judges seats, so maybe there’s hope for this season yet.

Episode Ten

There is the usual blahblahblah about who’s gone and who’s in it to win it. Heidi tells the seven remaining designers that Tim is taking them on a road trip to Rodeo Drive, to the store of a world-renowned designer…who turns out to be Michael Kors, seemingly doing a guest appearance on his own freaking show. Quality, taste and style are his signature elements, and today he’s going to treat the designers to a slide show of some of his favorite places and inspirations, and they are going to have to try and find some of that same inspiration.

Carol Hannah picks Palm Beach, Nicolas opts for the Greek Islands, Althea goes for a St. Tropez tan, Gordana grabs New York City (it’s grey, a-freaking-gain), Evil Twin Irina jumps on Aspen for the fur and outerwear possibilities, Christopher accepts Santa Fe and Logan gets stuck with Hollywood. Thirty minutes to design, $150 at Mood and one day to crank out American Sportswear.

We hear what the designers imagine their locals to be: Palm Beach is relaxed, but put together. (HAHAHAHAHHAHA. No, it’s bad plastic surgery and too-bright colors) St. Tropez is seen as an old fishing town that just happens to be full of rich people on yachts, and Gordana says that New York is Park Avenue, sophisticated and independent. Logan is, as usual, lost. Evil Twin Irina is complaining that $150 is not enough money to buy fabric for a winter look. Miz Shoes would remind ETI that Aspen is also famous for its summer music festival and art show and oh, why bother.

Logan buys leather and is going to make a boho look with comfy, but skin tight jeans. Nicolas has fantasies of a tomboy in Greece. Carol Hannah doesn’t have enough fabric. Irina trash talks the other designers. Give it a rest. Nicolas is working on his details so as not to be on the bottom. Irina is making a faux fur vest and a sweater with a giant cowl neck. Miz Shoes would remind Irina that Mork and Mindy lived in Boulder, not Aspen and that Mindy’s sweaters were cute in the early 80s, but only barely. Gordana is working in grey. Althea did her whole piece in muslin first to make sure of the fit. It’s man-tailoring for women. Isn’t she always doing that? Over it.

Irina trash talks Christopher, who is making some Mary of the Prairie turquoise and brown chiffon thing with a big belt. Carol Hannah has done a halter top, flowy patterned maxi dress that looks like the fabric that Epperson used in the beach challenge. Nicolas says he’s designing for a fashion-forward young woman, but Tim is doubtful. Logan is designing for “young Hollywood” with a big top over his tight jeans. Irina’s done ski pants with a sweater with bat-wing sleeves and an enormous cowl neck. Tim tells her to watch her proportions. More trash talking on all sides. Nicolas doesn’t want to go home. Althea is smelling Bryant Park. That may just be the stale water in the steamer.

Runway Day

Carol Hannah isn’t feeling her dress. Nicolas had a freak out last night, but he’s feeling better now. Althea is confident. Logan is making last minute adjustments. Irina is trash talking the other designers. Christopher has made his Mary on the Prairie into a mini dress and thinks that solves his problems. It doesn’t. Gordana has made a dress to go with her ornate necklace of crystals and frayed chiffon. It is a simple little A-line with some squiggles of applique to create shape and interest where there is really none.

Our judges today are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Milla Jojovich, who actually has some really great stuff in her clothing line.

Logan sends out his tight white leather jeans with black suspenders. Althea has made burnished gold metallic leather shorts and a sheer top over a tank, Nicolas has made some interesting pants and a wrap top in jersey that evokes the sails of the windmills on the Greek Islands. To Miz Shoes, but apparently to nobody else on the planet. Carol Hannah’s halter dress is boring. Christopher is extremely proud of his nothing dress. Irinia has made snow-bunny clothes. The sweater is revealed to have a stupid vee-shaped cutout for no reason in the back. Gordana’s grey dress is pretty and the necklace is cool.

Althea leaves, safe in her mediocrity. Michael Kors loves the Irina does Aspen thing and says it isn’t a too literal interpretation of the 1980s. Christopher claims to be inspired by the colors of Santa Fe and is immediately taken to task for using washed out colors and no taste. Milla says she likes the 1983 vibe she gets from the belt. The judges go wild for Carol Hannah’s print. Milla says she’d live in the dress. Miz Shoes says that she already does, but that it’s made out of polyester jersey and she bought it early in the summer at Marshall’s for like, twenty bucks. Nicolas is told his inspiration is not Greece, but Grease. Milla points out that the top is cool, and if he’d made it into a dress, he could be a winner. Gordana’s necklace is loved, as is her little grey dress. Yes, it is very New York. Logan’s Hollywood is declared Hollywouldn’t, and NinaGarcia tells him that his styling is all wrong. Michael Kors says: They’re clothes, not fashion.

Irina’s pieces had, says MK, runway power, but too much brown. Gordana hit the right tone for up-town Park Avenue, but she personally lacks confidence. Carol Hannah totally looks like Palm Beach. Christopher’s dress is sad and unwearable. Nicolas’ idea could have been great, but it wasn’t. Logan’s outfit is summed up as belonging on Project I Didn’t Mind It.

Carol Hannah is in. Irina is the winner, and no doubt will be even more insufferable next week. Gordana is in and given a lecture about confidence. Logan is in. Christopher and Nicolas are forced to hear that they missed the mark and had no sense of place. Nicolas is aufsie daisy and Christopher gets

to stay. Milla cries and says that she doesn’t know how Michael and Heidi do it every week. Michael just smirks, and you know that the auffing is their favorite part of the show.

Next week? More boring shit, more nastiness from Irina and more clueless, talentless crap from Christopher.

Entry two for the Great Halloween Tweet

My parents loved Halloween, too. I remember them dressing up and going to some dinner dance every year, and working on their costumes. My father dressed as Little Lord Fauntleroy and my mother as Little Bo-Peep one year and I still have parts of Mummy’s costume. This picture is from long before I was born, and it hung over my father’s desk in the back room of the store. It’s still one of my favorites. That’s Daddy in drag, and my Uncle Irving in the zoot suit.