Previously on Project Runway, the popular kids were mean to Michael C aka Bluto*, and Gretchen revealed her true nature. Or natures, as there were many faces of Gretchen revealed.  In a team challenge which was supposed to have no leaders, Gretchen ran Team Luxe to a well-deserved loss, then AJ had to take the bullet, and was sent home. Team Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes won the challenge and El Nino del Infierno won immunity.

The Statue of Liberty holds her lamp high over the orange skyline of Manhattan. In the Atlas, the cool kids are still bitching that the losers won. Even April is trashing Wimpy and saying that he can’t tailor, drape, cut a pattern or sew. Ivy and Valerie want him to get sent home. Gretchen cries crocodile tears over Tim Gunn’s smack down and says he hurt her feelings. Ivy and Valerie are happy that Tim did it. They think it will give Gretchen a little reality check. Maybe, if they don’t go back to being her adoring sycophants, annnd we’re already too late for that.

Runway: Casanova has immunity. New models and quite a task. Oh, lord. It’s the reconfigure some of the world’s ugliest bridesmaids’ dresses challenge. Make something they would like to wear out of this crap fabric and these ugly colors. There is a blue vertical bow, a dress that looks like a Twizzler, another that looks like the inside of a Pepto-Bismal bottle. Every one is made of horrible polyester satin.

As the winner, Casanova picks first and goes for the tallest and thinnest girl. Everyone gets someone and something. Micheal Knitwear is appalled to be last and left with the big girl. Ivy picks the ivory dress, of course. Mondo goes for a rose-colored dress which is later revealed to be sporting a giant white stripe down the back.  The designers are told to create something that looks like a runway, nothing like a bridesmaid’s dress. $50 and up to two yards of additional fabric. Use most of the bridemaid’s dress. Christopher’s model bails and he gets a new girl with a sort of metallic net and embroidery.

April’s model is a pain. She wants the pleats ironed out of a Fortuny-pleated grey dress and does not get April’s aesthetic. Miz Shoes considers taking a shot every time one of the designers says “aesthetic”. Knitwear Michael calls his model “vo-LUMP-tuous. Tailoring and smart decisions will be key to his success, he says. And off they go to Mood. Michael Knitwear is so undone by the size of his model that he buys upholstery fabric instead of dress-making fabric, because he can only buy two yards, and upholstery fabric is about three times the width of dress fabric. It’s also coarse and cheap. And insulting to his model, although as far as he’s concerned, he’s being “mindful” of her special needs, saying to Gretchen that he doesn’t want his model’s size to even be a conversation topic. He’s really sort of a douche, isn’t he?

In the sewing room, Valerie and Andy trash Wimpy and his sewing skills, while Valerie sneers that the judges will tell them that they are crazy to think he can’t sew and love his work. They agree that the judges are the crazy idiots. Gretchen calls her mommy and blah blah blah time of reflection. Blah blah blah. Her mother is like a character from “Northern Exposure” but she is Gretchen’s mother, and Miz Shoes is not a person to talk trash about someone’s mother. Christopher is crushed inside for Gretchen. Gretchen and Tim are especially polite to each other as he comes in for his walkabout and Gretchen says blah blah blah. Tim tells Wimpy to edit and Michael Douche says something about size and trying to be kind. Valerie is making clothes, not fashion.

Tim’s Surprise is that they’ll have an extra day, one in which they will have a Project Runway Open House and hundreds of random people will come through and have a chance to meet them and vote on their favorite, which will influence the judges decision, but how much so is to be determined at a later date, depending, you know, on if the judges like who these people like. Some of the designers do not look happy about this.

Michael Douche is dressing the big girl in a fucking baby doll dress. Miz Shoes wants to slap him. Wimpy’s model is insisting on the black lace that Tim told him to ditch. He thinks he can make it work. The bust is lined with the ivory that was part of her ebony and ivory and rhinestone dress. Michael Douche is being a douche. April and her model are not happy together. Peach is in a panic, having cut her skirt wrong.

Life in the popular girls’ room is on display. Miz Shoes fast forwards. Peach is fatalistic and cute as a button, bless her heart. April continues to fantasize what she really wanted to say to her client. Wimpy and his model love the dress with the lace capelet bodice. Tim tells the designers to interact and wow the masses, earn their buttons in your fishbowl. The people love Wimpy, and Ivy spreads rumors that Wimpy is telling the strangers that she’s the season bitch. Michael Douche only gets one button…from the model’s sister, it would seem. Peach is adorable. Mondo’s getting buttons. Ivy continues to spread poison.

Christopher is shaving the sides of Andy’s head to give him a Mohawk, and then Andy confronts Wimpy about Ivy’s accusations. Wimpy steadfastly denies it (and there is no footage of him doing it, at least none that aired). Andy notes that that a lot of the designers are tweaking their work based on

the audience response

their own editing eyes. Peach is in the weeds. Wimpy confronts Ivy and straight up tells her he never said a word about her and his model will swear to that. Ivy is a stone bitch and says she doesn’t believe him for a second.

Time for the runway. Michael Douche is wearing a do rag. Mondo says that Michael Douche has handled his “special challenge” with grace, by which he means that MD didn’t throw a tarp over the fat girl. April is wearing her hair down.  Mondo got the most votes from the commoners at the previous night’s event. Our special guest judge is Cynthia Rowley (coolness).

Mondo’s model is from Jersey and working the Jersey/Snookie strut. Ivy’s made ivory pants and a blouson top in yellowish chiffon. Valerie’s dress looks like bad junior wear and the fit of the top is one of the worst Ever Seen on Project Runway.™  Gretchen’s Post-Apocalyptic cocktail dress with Mad Max™ boots prompts one of her minions to coo sweet nothings. Peach’s disaster of a dress is not helped by the fact that her model has apparently never seen a single episode of America’s Next Top Model and has never learned to stomp it out on the runway with wind in her hair and smize. Andy’s overdyed shorts and vest are short, but not as short as Wimpy’s very Little Black Dress. Christopher is confident. Michael Douche has made an adult woman look like a chubby, awkward girl at her bat mitzvah. Casanova has made a sand-colored blouse from Flashdance and a pair of teal blue satin toreador/motorcycle pant.  April’s black and silver grey dess is fierce and so is her model.

Casanova, April, Ivy, Andy, Gretchen are all safe. In the green room, they all talk shit about Wimpy. Michael Douche talks about his dress. Oh! Michael Kors says bat mitzvah, too. NinaGarcia is appalled by the upholstery fabric sheer that he bought for cheap. She says it looks like cheap mosquito netting. Christopher gets a little love. Cynthia Rowley loves it. Heidi likes the short, tight and shiny. Peach is savaged and there is no way to defend her. She knows it, too. Mondo claims that his model could wear “leggins” and flats with his dress. The judges think it looks tough and cool, but the Jersey Shore lo-brow styling is killing them.

Valerie is getting the same harsh treatment as Peach. Michael Kors calls her attempted color blocking unfortunate. To say the least. Cynthia Rowley explains proportions and NinaGarcia calls out the construction on the top. Heidi didn’t hate it as much as the others. Wimpy gets serious love. Even though he made a dress short enough for Heidi, the coverage of the lace at the top give it a modest look and a great proportion. MKors loves his draping at the shoulders. Miss Rowley loves the hip pocket. They all love that he turned drab dowdiness into chic edginess/edgy chicness. NinaGarcia loves his use of so many different materials.

The judges start with Wimpy’s dress and Heidi reminds everyone that the designers on Team Luxe were so universally mean to Michael C. The judges educate the viewers as to their opinion of Michael C’s skill sets and list the many virtues of the garment that was sent out. They like Christopher’s attempt to make faux organza drape. Mondo’s modern hot dress was styled like Snookie and the Flintstones, but not vulgar. Impeccable tailoring: perfect seams, perfect hems.

Valerie’s dress was a tennis dress gone very wrong. They loathed Michael Douche’s fabric. Peach is toast. Michael Kors says that she can sew well, at any rate. Gretchen, Andy and Ivy are all “if Michael C is on the top, why are we even here?” They are horrified. Wait until they find out he won and Mondo came in second. He gets immunity again. When Wimpy enters the green room and says he’s won, Ivy stone-faces “Of COURSE you did.” Gretchen confessionalizes that she is very disappointed that the judges don’t care about craftsmanship. Casanova points out that both Gretchen and Michael are twice winners. Gretchen looks for the razor blades.

Christopher is safe. Valerie is safe. Michael Douche and Peach had the two worst looks, but Michael gets to stay and Peach goes home. Don’t cry for Peach, viewers, for she has had the time of her life.  She was just jazzed to be there. April starts to cry. Mondo cries. Peach goes out in style.

Next week, resort wear, designers acting as art directors, maybe or some other form of collaboration that they don’t want and won’t be successful making work and it looks like Gretchen and her posse try to throw Michael C under yet another bus when he has immunity.

* An astute reader pointed out that it is not Bluto who will “gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today”, but Wimpy. Therefore and henceforth, we will be referring to Michael C as Wimpy.

We begin with a recap of last week’s episode, where Michael C (Bluto: I’ll give you couture tomorrow for a burger today) won and all the prissy divas (Ivy, Gretchen, Christopher) rolled their eyes, pouted and talked trash about his skills. But that was then and this is now. A team challenge, where there will be no team leader, but a group of 6 designers, who must work together. One member of the losing team will go home. As last week’s winner, Bluto picks first. He picks Gretchen, which prompts April to ask: “Do you wanna hire Hitler? Seriously?” Which is totally wrong. Gretchen’s style is much more Stalinesque.

The next designer chosen will be the first member of the second team, it’s April and she picks Mondo. Each freshly picked designer gets to chose the next team member. Gretchen picks Christopher. The final teams consist of Michael C, Gretchen, Christopher, Andy, Ivy and AJ are “Team Luxe”, or as Miz Shoes calls them, Team Prissy Divas. The other team is the classic high school lunch table assortment of freaks and geeks: April, Mondo, Casanova, Valerie, Michael Knitwear and Peach. April assesses Team Ego Freaks as a clusterfuck of personalities waiting to clash.

Tim gives the challenge: a 6-piece collection that is on trend for Fall 2010. There is a Chinese menu of trends and color stories. Pick one from each side, bring them together and create a collection. Gretchen signs that this will be a piece of cake for Team Masters of the Egoverse. They have an hour to sketch and a cool thou to spend at Mood. It’s another one-day challenge.

Over at the Lunch Table of Losers, Michael Knitwear encourages respect and individuality and being a team. They all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. On the other side of the room, Michael C is immediately ignored by the rest of his team as Gretchen has gotten the bit between her teeth. With Christopher as her trusty gay lieutenant and Ivy as her sniveling Renfield, they decide to do menswear in a palette of camel and beige. Miz Shoes wishes to weep. Some of the fabric choices were plaids, metallics, lace and jaguar/animal prints. But what did Team Our Futures’ So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades opt for? The most predictable and overdone for menswear: camel and beige and grey. Oh, the innovation is killing Miz Shoes here.

Team Loser votes to do military, using black (not green) lace. They share their drawings, and each picks up a design element from another team member. They are each doing their own thing, but working off of each other. Clever. Democratic. They discuss every fabric concept and assign areas of Mood shopping responsibility. Clever.  Mondo is Notions Boy. Miz Shoes suspects Mondo has that particular costume already prepared and hanging in the closet at the Atlas. The RLA says it has a blue cape. And he also wears Jason the Droog’s tool corset, but in purple cracked patent leather.)

Team Gretchen & the Sniveling Minions abuse Michael C. Bluto, sweetiedarling, Miz Shoes could have told you that the short, chubby Hispanic kid would never be cool enough to sit with the popular kids in the lunch room. You would have been better served to be on Team We Are the Losers Who Lunch.

The next thirty minutes are painful. El Nino del Infierno goes on the couch, curls up in the fetal position and weeps from the Critique of Tim Gunn. His model finally is able to rescue him from his dark mood and he goes back to the workroom to rework his concept. Team Gretchen is The Shit So Say We All treats Michael C with contempt and disrespect and when they see the way they were edited for this episode, Miz Shoes hopes they are suitably ashamed of themselves and apologize to their families for appearing on national television to have been raised by wolves. They talk trash and cannot envision a future where they are not the top of the heap. Let’s just skip that whole thirty minutes and go straight to the runway.

Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and guest judge Georgina Chapman, Founder of Marchessa. First collection is Los Losers, and the show leads with Mondo’s little black lace stripes top and shorts or mini-romper with no sleeves but plenty of brass and braids. It’s kicky. Miz Shoes wishes she could find another word for Mondo’s aesthetic, but kicky is the most accurate. Peach has left her comfort zone behind, making a sleek high-waisted skirt in blue with buttons and chains across the front, and a beautiful tank top of black lace over cranberry. It has a lovely sweetheart neckline. April has made another of her patent leather, lace, visible zippers, post-apocalyptic Klingon dresses. It fits the challenge perfectly and nods back to Mondo’s look. Valerie has used white and blue, and made a sharp little cropped jacket and skirt. There are lace insets at the shoulders. Next is El Nino del Infierno’s sheer, backless top and skin-tight white pants with a brass zipper and brass buttons all down the side seams. It is easily the best look, and well-made. Huh. And we end with Michael Knitwear’s LBD.

Team We Need To Get Over Ourselves Already leads off with AJ’s sheer linen big shirt over jodhpur-style leggings. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to French seam that puppy, because those are not well made. For the record, Miz Shoes’ has sewn French seams before and they are not as hard as little AJ tried to make it appear. Christopher has made camel pants and a drapey blouse and a floppy jacket. He is certain that the tailoring is flawless. Andy’s “Grandpa” sweater has been belted with a narrow belt. This causes it to look like it’s been buttoned wrong. There is a huge brass exposed zipper all the way down to the hem. There are lots of zippers.

Heidi calls each member of Team Freaks and Geeks by name. They are the winning team. They have a group hug. Heidi sends the popular kids back to the green room to wait and consider how this could have happened to them. They are shocked. Christopher says that not being on top is uncomfortable. As they sit and talk about the fact that the judges were clearly insane, the same judges are pouring the love on Team Even The Losers Get Lucky Sometimes and explaining why they won. Eventually, Casanova is named the challenge winner and there are more group hugs.

More evil plotting and pinky swearing to have each other’s backs by Team We Still Don’t Know How We Could Have Lost to the Uncool Kids. On the runway, Gretchen continues to wank and lecture the judges. Then she cries. All the minions cry, too. Michael Kors rolls his eyes. Gretchen lectures the judges to be “mindful” of who they send home, because she won’t name a name. Until she does. NinaGarcia lets loose and explains that every garment has a proportion problem, that this is in no way a cohesive collection, and as for the color choices? NinaGarcia has to take a breath and look to the heavens for strength before she can utter the final “ghastly”.

There are another ten minutes where Gretchen and her minions all trash Michael C and declare he was the weakest link and immunity or not, should get sent home. Despite repeated warnings that the judges didn’t care about Michael C, and to name a valid victim, none of the cool kids do, sticking together and insisting that they are the shit. The judges, the blogosphere, the viewing audience and all sentient beings in the known universe see right through that bullshit and Gretchen’s endless stream of crocodile tears, but in the end it is AJ who gets sent home for only making one garment (damn those French seams of hard work), and not even putting any of himself into the design. The final confessional of Gretchen saying that he brought it on himself by making a shitty garment should make her mother proud.

PEE ESS: Tim Gunn comes into the green room snorting fire and brimstone (albeit in a very lovely suit and without so much as a hint of anger in his calm voice) and tells Team No, Really, Get the Fuck Over Yourselves that they should be ashamed of themselves for their behavior on the runway and that Gretchen is a bully and an asshole and they are too for following the Mean Girl. Ivy has the blinders lifted from her eyes. Or so she says. We’ll see next week how this week truly plays out.

Item the first: Miz Shoes did not receive her i-Tunes download of this episode until late Saturday night, making it impossible for her to meet the Blogging Project Runway Recapalooza deadline. She is not happy about that.

Item the second: Miz Shoes doubts sincerely that any of the contestants this week had ever heard of Philip Treacy, or else they would have shown some respect and imagination. Because she is so late to this particular rodeo, Miz Shoes is going to give her gentle readers the down and dirty overview and not a play by play.

The clothes hangers are all brought out to the runway wearing Philip Treacy hats and the usual black slips. The designers, starting with Andy who has immunity, get to chose which hat they want to work with, and as an after thought, the model wearing the hat. This is the first place that Miz Shoes’ blood pressure rises. These idiots do NOT look at the hats. They do NOT respect the hats. They are not inspired by the hats. Every single one of them sticks with their previously used model, hat be damned. People. This was not about the models’ feelings. It was not about how this nameless human clothes hanger is your (and they throw this word around as much as Gretchen uses “aesthetic”) “muse”. Please. You’ve been working with them for what, two weeks?

There is sketching time and money and Mood. Kristin, who was the last designer and had no choice but to work with her usual model and her unusual hat, is totally and completely flummoxed by the enormous orchid. She thinks it looks like a giant vagina and she has no idea what to do with it. Honey, if yours looks like that? Green, protuberant and striped? Whatever. She goes with black and hot pink. El Nino del Infierno is also perplexed by this challenge (but when isn’t he) and calls the hat a costume that is not a hat.

Gretchen is insufferable. Ivy is also insufferable. Peach is perplexed and goes back to her pink/yellow/boring pallette. Christopher is using a silver and black over-sized rose taffeta and making something that sorta kinda echos the shape of his hat. Tim loves it. Miz Shoes loves it. That’s a kiss of death these days. Michael the Knitwear guy is doing something that looks like corrugated cardboard mated with Edo-era armor. It is beautiful and worthy of his spade-shaped hat. Bluto is doing something awful. Andy is working with heavy magenta satin. Ivy is making something inspired by the fucking privacy curtains in the ER where she had been briefly treated for dehydration. Bitch, please. You have a Philip Bloody Treacy hat to work with, something that the average designer, much less the average American woman of style, will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS BE ABLE TO HAVE HER HANDS ON, and you are inspired by the polyester privacy curtains? Go home. And while Miz Shoes is on the subject of Ivy, has the woman ever met a color she liked? Give her beige, nude, ecru, sand, greige, ivory and anything else with less than 10% shade to it, and she’ll whimper like my dog begging for a biscuit, but an actual color? Not in her “aesthetic” apparently. Mondo is making something with upholstery-weight double knit in white/black polka dots and gold and black leopard stripes and a purple sateen. It is beyond hideous. AJ is doing a frothy little number in navy and white polka dots. April is making resort wear for Hooville. The concept works with the hat. The execution does not.

At the runway, there is an excruciatingly twee bit involving Heidi, a PT rose chapeau and an audio over of Seal’s Kiss From a Rose. Everyone involved looks embarrassed. Philip Treacy is the guest judge and proves himself to be quietly well-spoken. So.

Photos: 1). A.J. 2). Andy 3). April 4). Casanova 5). Christopher 6). Gretchen

7). Ivy 8). Kristin 9). Michael C 10).Michael D. 11). Mondo 12). Peach 13). Valerie

Photos courtesy of ProjectRunway.com. and collage lifted wholesale from BloggingProjectRunway.com

AJ’s bouffant cupcake. Andy’s magenta Michellin Man. HIDEOUS. He’s so lucky he had immunity, because that is one ill-fitting, badly-proportioned, hot mess. April’s Hooville diaper set. Miz Shoes found it to be a lot less horrible than the judges. The concept was strong and worthy of the hat. El Nino del Infierno made a simple black knit dress. BORING. Christopher ruined a perfectly good tunic by making lumpy grey satin leggings and a top that wasn’t seen except for the crotch which gave the model the look of a full diaper on backwards. Black tights and an armload of bangles, and he could have been a contender.

Gretchen’s too-literal interpretation of the feathers in her hat, and those ugly, ugly, ugly legging with built-in boot/spats. They are so ugly, she might have a career ahead of her designing leggings for Lindsay Lohan. Ivy’s boring beige nothingness. Kristin’s messy mess. Miz Shoes just doesn’t get it. IF Miz Shoes could draft a pattern, she would have looked for striped chiffon, and lime green and made a floaty garden party dress (think Uli-style).

Bluto’s last minute replacement dress is a basic bronze goddess. It’s sort of lovely, even if it isn’t new or exciting. Michael the Knitwear Guy’s understated and simple little broomstick skirt of orange silk and architectural top. Mondo’s bad acid. Peach’s bad Barbie. Valerie’s baby doll dress with a stupid, and she claims David Bowie-inspired bolero jacket. The baby doll dress has a big black exposed zipper in the middle of the back, which may or may not be functional.

The judges have all been smoking crack in the green room again, because they announce AJ, Andy, Mondo, Ivy, Peach, Gretchen and El Nino del Infierno safe. April, Valerie, Kristin, Christopher, Bluto and KnitBoy are the tops and bottoms. The judges savage Christopher’s grey tunic, and send him off stage as safe, but barely. KnitBoy gets love, but not the win (Miz Shoes thinks he should have). Valerie inexplicably gets major love for her baby doll with the handkerchief hem. She’s merely safe. Bluto gets the win and in the green room, the other designers resent him and hate him for it, and talk smack about him pretty much to his face.

Back on the runway, Kristin and April are the last two. April is saved by two things: she HAD a concept and Philip Treacy liked it. Kristin has no such luck, and is sent home. The end.

Before we begin, a final “Ode to Jason”, with apologies to Leonard Cohen.

With Jason gone,

Whose brain to compare to a small hard pea?

Not that I did compare,

But I do compare,

Now that he’s gone.

Thank you. Don’t forget to tip the waitress.

Previously on Project Runway, Gretchen wins, Jason is auffed and Nicholas cries. Now it’s another orange morning in Manhattan. This is no time to be cute. Gretchen is obnoxious, and the other designers hate her already. Model selection, where Gretchen keeps her muse and the two other hangers go home. Party! No, it’s the unconventional material challenge. This year, it’s a party supply store. Tim advises the group that using things that are like fabric (table cloths, wrapping paper, etc) is not loved by the judges. AJ, with his drag queen/Heatherette portfolio is generally acknowledged to have the edge going in. Will he crack under the pressure of expectations? Will Gretchen get her head out of her ass, or has the swelling become so bad that it is now anally impacted?

As has already become usual, Casanova, or as Miz Shoes has now dubbed him, El Niño del Infierno, doesn’t get it. He complains that he cannot make couture from party hats, so he instead buys plush puppies, table covers and anything else that looks like fabric. Gretchen tosses the word “aesthetic” around in every conversation. Bluto (Michael “I’d gladly make couture for you tomorrow for a hamburger today” Costello) is psyched. Mondo and AJ are both going with a birthday theme, but Mondo insists that a quince is different and AJ insists that it isn’t. AJ goes off to tweak his concept. Tim announces that the winner will have immunity. Gretchen continues to swan around the workroom, dispensing unasked for advice, glorying in her own genius and generally getting the bitch edit. Miz Shoes had her pegged as insufferable from the first. Casanova guts the plush puppies and drapes their little fuzzy pelts on his mannequin.

April is game. Mono is wearing yet another pair of outrageous glasses. AJ is back peddling on his claims of being able to design with innovative materials. He just won’t shut up. He’s one of those people who chatters when nervous. Valerie is working in black and white. Sarah’s sketches look a lot like her dress from last week. Same lines. But with cardboard palm leaves. En Nino del Infierno defends his use of plastic table cloths. Andy is making braids from ribbon. Another use of the word “aesthetic”. Gretchen is trying to psych out Christopher. More Gretchen bashing and Gretchen giving the editors plenty to work with on that particular story arc. AJ is panicking. Tim and Valerie bond over love of the Ascot Gavotte.

Andy is experimenting. Kristin is making a bohemian dress, and Ivy calls it a jelly fish. Dis. Kristin has bought bags of Animal Woolly Balls. She also has real balls. Tim prefers the wooly balls. It is just hysterical. Ivy is using mylar balloons. Christopher is making fabric out of his parts. Tim tells Peach that she needs to take the lump of coal she has stuck up her rear end, turn it into a diamond and pull it out. Miz Shoes considers the possibility that Our Mr. Gunn may be on pain meds. Bluto is doing something monochromatic and red. Tim calls it sensational. Sarah has used floral paint on her palm leaves, Tim loves the palette and playful shapes. Schiaparelli, he says. Gretchen hand cut “chevrons” in her fringe. Faux leather from crumpled paper bags. She is so smug.

El Niño del Infierno is troubled because the other designers have told him that he can’t use tablecloths, but that’s all he bought (except for the now-disemboweled plush puppies). Tim says that he never said “couldn’t” use, merely “shouldn’t” use. Did El Niño del Infierno not listen? Oh, he listened, he just, and we quote, “didn’t get the point”. Dude. Yours is not to wonder why, yours is but to do or die. And frankly, he is killing Miz Shoes. Tim tells him to make it work. He tells the room that the concepts are “profound”. Sarah is lost, and Gretchen gives her advice: scrap the pink. Sarah takes Gretchen’s advice. Bitch, please. Did Mr. Gunn not just say that he loved the palette? When the models come in, they are carrying bags of more party crap. For the added twist, the designers have to use the materials in those bags to create an accessory to their looks.

Andy only has his muslin for the model to try on. Sarah’s not happy with her dress, just wants to get it finished. Ivy is running out of time. Andy is running out of time. It’s midnight and there are a lot of unfinished garments left in the workroom as the designers go home for the night. In the morning, Mondo asks his roommates if he should wear a fake mustache or not. Predictably, the only one who responds well to the atrocity is Casanova, who advises that Mondo wear the press-on facial accessory to the runway. Gretchen pretends that she doesn’t think she is going to win again. Valerie says that if she’s in second place again, she’s just going to be the Susan Lucci of Project Runway. That would be Korto, who was robbed twice for the big check, thank you. Still, Miz Shoes recognizes a good line when she sees (and can steal) one, so good for you Valerie.

Workroom before the runway show, and Sarah is resigned to her fate and there is general mayhem about. We see more Gretchen swanning around getting the bitch edit (understandably, sometimes it’s just too easy not to run with the plot line you are handed by the subject…but for those of us in the audience too oblivious to be annoyed by her, there is a long pause on a rhinestone tiara that spells out “BITCH” as Gretchen has a bossy-girl voice over). AJ whips out a fabulous necklace in minutes. Gretchen bosses around the make-up staff. Ivy says, like my face, only professional. Sarah is still waffling. Peach realizes that Andy has genius going on on his mannequin and clearly not enough time to finish, so she helps him. April has also finished her dress, and she comes to his aid, too. Gretchen sniffs about some people have time management issues, but not her and we are off to the runway. Christopher has made this amazing fabric out of napkins and his dress is fragile. Sarah’s doesn’t fit, Andy has made a glove out of a balloon.

Heidi is fabulous in beige and ivory. Challenge review. Judges are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and a very special guest: Betsey Johnson, who defines the word “fabulous” and deserves her description as icon. Christopher’s dress is a simple little party dress, but he has created the fabric out of napkins. That sentence does not do justice to what he did, though. The base is mustard yellow, but there is something shiny going on, too. Did he fuse circles of mylar tulle onto the base? There are shiny tiny stripes of individual shreds of mylar in purple, gold and teal that he has placed vertically on thethe stripy tulle. It is just an amazing piece of fabric. Stunning. Michael the Knitter sends out a foil skirt and mylar fringe top. Andy’s ribbon dress looks like leather and chain. And has anyone talked about his model Cassie? That girl can work it. AJ’s Hello Kitty flamingo cupcake. Ivy’s petal ballerina/garden party/cocktail dress. Bluto’s flamenco dress. He has used at least three different textured items in the same shade of crimson to make an evening dress. There is crepe paper used as tiers of ruffles from about knee down, above that to the waist are silk flowers? maybe, and the bodice of cut plastic cups that create paillottes, one shoulder and fitted beautifully. This is the first knock-out from him.

Peach has used zebra print, white and hot pink and made a saucy little number with a matching purse. Gretchen’s flapper skirt. She says that she could see herself wearing it. In the make up room, she said the look was “the girl everyone wants to be”. Bitch edit. Hot pink party dress from Mondo. There is a bustier of hot pink plastic plate edges made into armor, and a mini-poodle skirt of darker oranger pink plastic leis. The less said about what Mondo himself is wearing, the better. El Niño del Infierno has also made a flamenco dress, his has alternating panels of dolphin grey “thousand of ruffles” and what used to be a Transformers tablecloth. Bizarre graphics and matte grey. A bodice made of mylar fringe.  Kristin has made a baby doll bodice out of stripes that remind Miz Shoes of Fruit Stripe gum.

There is some sort of green plastic swagging that makes a grass skirt like fringe-y thing. April talks about her Klingon “aesthetic”. Sarah’s sad little dress is sad. She’s just happy that it isn’t falling off. Valerie’s Ascot Gavotte is well-made and graphic.

Peach, Bluto, Ivy, Kristin, Michael the knit guy, Mondo, Christopher and April are safe. They leave. The models come back out. Valerie, Gretchen of course and Andy are the tops, say the other designers. Ivy thinks that AJ and Sarah will be the last two standing. This challenge, the model will be automatically out if her designer is auffed. Valerie explains that she took the judges comments to heart with her styling. MKors says that she’s taken a complete 360. Oh Noes! Mr Kors a 360 would put her back where she started. You mean she made a complete 180. Gretchen deigns to nod sagely during MKors’ critique. Betsey Johnson is whack. AJ says he is inspired by NYC Club Kidz. Heidi says it looks silly, but she loves the necklace. NinaGarcia calls the dress a “hot mess” and AJ says thank you. Heidi gives him a short sharp course correct: That was not a compliment. MKors finds the fringe crotch to be tasteless. Betsey Johnson says that she’d wear it, and that it wasn’t over the top enough. Andy’s dress inspires MKors to say that he could see Heidi and Rhianna fighting over it. He has a very valid point. Betsey says that it is too pretty, and not enough party.

El Niño del Infierno explains why he was too good to use the materials he was asked to use. His model is wearing a plush puppy like a cowl/boa. He should have left the head and feet. That would have had Betsy clawing for him to win. Transvestite Flamenco Dancer at a Funeral. You have no taste. Sarah gives a half-hearted explanation of her sad dress. Heidi calls it sad. MKors gets to the very heart of it and says that it looks like she got so hung up on making the palm fronds work that she couldn’t let go and admit that they didn’t and move on to a new direction. MizShoes spent many years in therapy to be able to do that very thing, and relates to Sarah Trost. Gretchen uses finger quotes around the word “leather”, the top is made from a balloon. NinaGarcia wrote “fabulous”, MKors says that she uses herself as a template and he applauds that. Everyone else loves Gretchen uncritically.

Backstage, Gretchen dominates the conversation and AJ snaps and tells her that she talks all the time. (Miss Pot? This is Miss Kettle.) There is much shushing and eye-rolling and Gretchen says that AJ is just sensitive because he’s in the bottom. Oh, she did not go there, did she? She did. Bitch edit. On the runway, MKors and NincaGarcia ridicule El Niño del Infierno. Betsey says Sarah’s dress could have been more embellished, and MKors speaks up for Sarah, saying that she recognized that she had failed and adding that it takes a lot of strength to admit you screwed the pooch. AJ’s mess was a mess. Valerie’s dress was beautiful, sexy but not vulgar, and well-styled. It was Lovely. Andy’s look was well put together. Well cut. Gretchen’s look would be worn exactly as is by Kate Moss. And this is a good thing? It isn’t entirely unfactual or slang expressin to say that Kate Moss is often cracked-out.

Best. Worst. In. Out. Valerie’s in. Andy, Gretchen, one of you will be the winner. Andy, you’re the winner. Cut to Gretchen looking disbelieving that her minions didn’t recognize her brilliance once again. She leaves the runway. AJ is in. El Niño and Sarah are the bottom two. Casanova, you have no taste. None. Sarah, your dress was sad and boring, you should have trusted your instincts and not listened to Gretchen. The parade float gets to stay, and Miz Shoes’ early-season favorite goes home. Bummer. Air kisses. Bluto cries. He’s sweet. Tim comes in and loves the fabulous show, and Sarah calls him Mr. Gunn. She recognizes that she sent out a bad piece. Wait!!! Ambulances again???? At the Atlas? Someone is unconscious in the hallway. Ivy has fainted. She has to go to the hospital? Valerie says it seems serious and she doesn’t know if Ivy is going to have to go home.

Next week? Philip Treacy? NO FUCKING WAY!!! That is so huge. Miz Shoes lurves the Philip Treacy. We see neither Sarah nor Ivy in the remaining preview, and Miz Shoes wonders if Ivy does go home and Sarah gets to come back…

First thoughts are that Jason is more Christofuh Moltisanti than Alex the Droogie, and Mondo is an insufferable twink who actually uttered the phrase “sometimes I think my gift is my curse” on national television, which means that he could have gone viral and become a famous internet twink by now. Oh please, little girl, who do you think you are, John Leguisamo in “To Wong Fu”? Not so much, but Miz Shoes recognizes that Mondo can design and sew something fierce.

Morning in the Atlas and Peach is being Sweet Pea 2.0 and Savannah Art Student April is being cute. In the high maintenance boys’ room, Andy has a make up airbrush and Bluto from Palm Springs mocks him, all the while looking at the device with covetous glances. Mondo is already crying and moping and whining that he’s just too strange for anyone to love him. Butch up, bitch, you are not the only little gay poseur in high school any more. Mondo has already grated Miz Shoes last nerve very, very raw and she hopes sincerely that Gretchen does not do something that causes her to fling a martini glass at the laptop.

The designers go to the Atlas roof to meet up with Tim, Heidi and Joanna Coles, the Editor in Chief of Marie Claire (aka Ninagarcia’s boss). This challenge will be to design an outfit that embodies the Marie Claire woman…intelligent, driven, powerful, stylish. And too cheap or stupid to read Vogue, not that anyone would mention that out loud. The winner will have their design featured on a billboard in Times Square, which is, OK, huge in more ways than one. Christopher, the cute one from San Francisco, calls the prize “operatic”. That’s an, uh, interesting choice of words and not one that Miz Shoes could have come up with in a million years. It’s a one-day challenge, half an hour to draw, $150 at Mood.

What in the name of Coco Chanel is AJ wearing? A toddler’s sailor suit, unless our eyes deceive us. With a widdle captain’s hat, a yellow tie with blue anchors over a blue and white windowpane check shirt? Gah. What has been seen cannot be unseen. He is designing for an amalgam of Courtney Love, Gwen Stephanie and Blondie. All of whom individually and collectively wouldn’t be caught dead reading MC. Gretchen is smug about her choice of making pants, which she has never done, just to make things challenging for herself. While everyone else is sketching (and on the product placement computer devices, thank you), Mondo is making a shopping list of what he’ll need at Mood, which is the first time we’ve ever seen someone do that. Is it because we’re getting our extra footage, or because nobody has ever had that much sense before? It is interesting, and includes things like “pretty little buttons”.

Jason has created an homage to Season Eight, or a dress that goes to Infinity and Beyond! Is he developmentally challenged? No, really. Seriously. The bowler isn’t to intimidate people, it’s because he’s not allowed out without protective headgear. Short bus. Tim calls it a “shopping exposition to Mood.” Miz Shoes will not allow herself to believe he did that on purpose. Mmmmmmm, buttons. We see the designers scurry around Mood, grabbing shit at random and panicking. Casanova says that $150 isn’t enough to make a sophisticated gown. He doesn’t have a problem then, does he, thinks Miz Shoes. Nicolas has discovered geometry in the shape of a circle. Thank you, Mood.

Back in the workroom, they have until midnight and Peach is already pouring flop sweat. The designers are beginning to bitch about each other already. Valerie is yammering about about her trench dress with extras. There is some weird interaction where AJ loses his shit over Casanova asking about a simple design problem. We see Casanova ask a lot of advice from a lot of the other designers. AJ might have been provoked is all we’re saying, despite the editing.

Tim does his walkies and really responds well to Valerie’s dress, but calls her zipper brassy. Tim gives Mondo a pep talk, and asks to see his sketches, but Mondo doesn’t have any, and Tim tells him that based on his dress from last week, he’s willing to go on blind trust. Really, Tim? Really? It is during Tim’s interaction with Jason that we realize that Jason is channeling Christofuh. He is belligerently, proudly stupid. He may be functionally retarded or merely OCD. For that matter, are half these people retarded? They are designing for a billboard and they are using black and navy and beige and grey. A billboard in Times Square, which means there will be a lot going on around it, visually, so you had better design something that will read at 40 feet high. Ooh, trash talk about Casanova from the rest. Nicholas has made a big old copy of Gretchen’s dress, she says. Big circle of fabric. Bluto is using a black and silver leaf print that Tim calls Blanche Deveraux (don’t be dissing, Blanche, Tim). Peach is still panicking, and starts over, and then panics some more and starts over again. There is a twist, of course. They have a photo shoot with a Marie Claire photographer and their model to capture the image of their design and the MC Woman. Jason’s a putz. Casanova is a tool. Nicholas foreshadows his own departure by talking about how he’s forming friendships.

Valerie, Sarah, Ivy and Gretchen are girl bonding. AJ points out that there is just something wrong with Jason and calls him shady. Peach is resigned to being sent home. Mondo keeps to himself, while everyone asks where he is, and that’s when he starts crying and says that his gift is a curse. It’s at that exact moment that Miz Shoes screams GET OVER YOURSELF. More girl bonding. Ivy yaps about her vision thing. Mondo has had a good night’s sleep and is wearing the most hideous ensemble ever seen on Project Runway, and we have seen Stella’s Dr. Seuss leggings. Mondo’s little skirt and top, however, are magnificent. Hair and makeup. Gretchen and her swatches.

Peach says her model is covered in Barbie’s sofa. Photo shoot. Jason runs out of time and makes the design decision to use giant safety pins as closures along the front seam of his dress. Bluto says that Jason is creepy, so he agrees with every thing he says, then makes Psycho shower scene knife stabs and accompanying sound FX. April’s dress is has Klingon shoulders. Andy’s plum and grey dressy pant suit is stylish. Valerie’s dress is hot. Sarah’s dress is sculptural and the colors are very sophisticated: plum, coral and steel. Mondo is good as an art director, nails the shoot and uses the product name almost naturally. Jason is a putz and has styled his model like a boxer, then choses the worst possible shot. He goes on to confessionalize about how the judges have to look past his disabilities like not being able to sew when he is a contestant on a sewing show. He is a speshul snowflake, isn’t he?

Runway. No immunity. Judges. Michael Kors, Ninagarcia, Joanna Coles. Photos will be taken into account when they score. Nicholas leads with his thing, and he is stunned to note that the judges are not impressed with the fluttery, badly sewn back of his top, nor with the tortured hemline of his skirt and they openly despise the cape. Christopher’s made a black pencil skirt and a dark top in chocolate brown with mustard gold facings and a narrow, yet plunging scoop neck. If they were doing a cover and not a billboard, it would be perfect. Jason is delusional. Bluto has made another Vegas hooker turned politician’s wife dress. AJ has made an utter failure in school bus yellow and black. Peach is OK with her dress. Michael the Knitwear guy is terrified by the fact that he’s made a tunic, not a dress and pretends that he meant to make it that short. Ivy made an ivory tank dress, ho hum. Valerie’s dress leaps off the runway, because it is red, well made and fashionable. Sarah’s plum, coral and tweedy brown/black are gorgeous. Andy has made origami sleeves of his purple organza. Pretty flashy. Casanova’s made a matronly navy top and a white pencil skirt. Kristin, peaches, ivories, pink. Gretchen’s paper weight navy linen romper. Mondo’s really cheeky little ensemble, with bounce and energy. From the front, April’s taupe and midnight blue organza is interesting. From the back, the exposed large-scale zipper is jolting.

Mondo, Peach, Nicholas, Jason, Valerie and Gretchen are the tops and bottoms and you can see where this is going. AJ breaks down and cries. Huggies all around. Bluto predicts that Valerie will win, everyone laughs at Jason’s combat boots and safety pins, then assure the viewers that Jason is a really talented menswear designer who just happens to be off his meds at the moment and they don’t want to anger him.

Peach tries to defend her yellow and pink dress. Matronly. Peach lets the judges know how many other dresses she made before she admitted defeat and sent this out. They are suitably impressed. Valerie’s fire engine red dress is gorgeous. Ninagarcia gushes over it. Joanna Coles loves it. MKors loves it. Jason gets eviscerated. MKors calls it a walk of shame dress, and Jason is a putz.

Gretchen talks about filling the page, and says that anyone from 22 to “way into their 40s and 50s” would want to wear it. MKors says that she’s a modern girl and the judges claim that the Marie Claire reader is intelligent. Nicholas gets savaged by NinaGarcia. Utterly unsexy, says Joanna. They ask for the cape to come off and then realize that the blouse is so awful that she needs to keep the cape on. Mondo calls his look young, flirty and with touch of whimsy, claiming inspiration from the opening credits of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Joanna says that the opening credits are what inspired her to move to New York and NinaGarcia loves the whole look, and then Joanna says that this is the first time in history that she and NinaGarcia have ever agreed on anything except for Gretchen’s jump suit two minutes ago.

Jason says that his model sucked and that the judges didn’t get his concept of Infinity and Beyond and that he doesn’t give a damn about his bad reputation, and the other designers all look uncomfortable, probably what the other folks in Christofuh Moltisanti’s AA group looked like when he was on a tear.

The judges love Mondo’s look. Confident and whimsical, and not at all like a bad catalog. Getchen’s jumpsuit is deemed sophisticated but not old. Seasonless, timeless, ageless. Joanne calls Valerie’s dress an “old friend”. Has Jason ever spoken to a woman, asks Joanne. Nicholas was a disaster. Peach was desperate housewife, well made, but hopelessly old lady. So how many go home?

Mondo, we loved everything about your outfit, you’re in. He gets much love from the other designers and stops whining. They like him, they really like him. Gretchen, you made a jump suit. Valerie, you made a killer dress and styled it perfectly. Gretchen, you win and Valerie, you’ve been screwed. Gretchen admits to feeling prideful. Then she says she has set a very high bar. Bluto deservedly mocks Gretchen’s tone and then says that Valerie should have won. Miz Shoes agrees.

Peach, too old or too young, but not right. Nicholas, you threw everything including the kitchen sink at this and it all blew chunks. Peach, you are barely safe.  Jason, you are a sociopathic jerk who may be borderline retarded, go home. Jason is a putz backstage and leaves. Nicholas gets sent home, and sobs and sobs. Everyone loves on him, including Tim.

Billboard model turns out to be Coco Rocha, who is apparently a big name in models. Next week, the unconventional material challenge takes place in a party supply superstore, and somebody faints.

Well, Miz Shoes caved. The desire for Project Runway overcame sense and sensibility and she paid for a season pass on i-Tunes. What? She’s a junkie, she admits it. This also means that for the first time, I can watch without taking notes, just absorb the action and get a visceral response. Geek goddess that I am, I am watching the show on my i-pad and taking notes on the laptop using a new app that is supposed to be the bomb, Evernote. We’ll see how this works out, non?*

And we’re off. Orange Manhattan. That’s new. It used to be a lurid shade of green. And what’s this? Heidi and Tim as the all-knowing talking head narrators? Oh look, it’s Alex from Clockwork Orange.

AJ, Andy. April, who looks like my school friend Psycho Patti. Kristin who makes mistakes and Mondo with an Emo cut. McKell with white girl dreads and a baby. Gretchen. Christopher. Ivy, who thinks this is going to be the Ivy show. Casanova from Puerto Rico, who is now in New Jork. He looks like the bastard child of Ron Perlman and a mule. Sarah Trost has a bling belt with her name on it and a Gwen Stephani vibe. She mixes materials. She and AJ (Daniel Vosovic V.2). He’s obviously watched this show. Peach is 50 and from Wake Forrest. She designs for the Ladies Who Lunch. She’s kinda funny. She meets up with Nicholas. More contestants meet other contestants. McKell delivers the “I’m doing this for my brand-new baby to give her a great life” reading. That never works well for the hamsters on ANTM, honey. You might want to have a life plan that involves something other than winning the lottery.

Jason, AKA Alex the Droog.

He’s straight and he boxes. He is wearing a derby hat to intimidate the other contestants. Uh-huh. Well, at least it isn’t one of the twee little army caps in plaid, Logan’s knit rasta rag, Santino’s pork pie over do-rag, or any other version of the stupid twee hats we see every season. At least it’s a new hat. Miz Shoes is not so sure about the intimidation factor without the eye lashes and white cod-piece, but maybe Jason the Droog can work it. He’s a little stupid, asking Gretchen what nationality she is. American, a-hole.

Oh, lord. Mondo makes hand gestures, wears a twee bow tie and a twee hat when he’s not doing the emo hair. Nicholas used to be an architect. More meetings. If this is the extra half hour, Miz Shoes is unimpressed. April makes dark beautiful, destroys to create. Michael is from Palm Springs, and makes a haute/hot joke. He says that he’ll gladly give you a couture gown tomorrow for a burger today. He makes little devil horns over his head. Snooze.

Lincoln Center. Heidi and Tim. There are 17 of you. Only 16 will get a bed in the Atlas. There is one more challenge before you are really a contestant. Open your suitcase and pull out one item you would like to incorporate into your garment. Now pass that item to the person to your right. Casanova stands like he’s been gobsmacked. He’s given his $1700** pair of Dolce & Gabbana trousers to someone who is going to cut them up. Gretchen is a sustainable clothing designer from Portland. She is dragging that beaded blouse through the gutter, totally disrespecting it. Valerie was poor so she learned to retrofit crap from the store. And they are in the workroom. Brother sewing room. The HP touch notebooks. Mood has brought fabric to them. Randomly selected models. 15 minutes to sketch. Andy is from Hawaii and used to design pageant gowns. Miz Shoes notes that the designers are drawing in their sketchbooks, the little computers sitting all alone and unused on the tables beside them.

Gretchen is already starting to work Miz Shoes nerves. Casanova is miserable watching his Dolce & Gabbanas get shredded. Droogie is not doing anything to his kimono, Peach is panicking over the fact that Michael’s machine knit is unraveling. Michael is a bit of a bitch about it. McKell has taken a man’s shirt, cut it away into a racer top and paired it with a fluffy print bubble skirt with raw seaming. Nicholas has been working with a polyester

bomber jacket. He’s turning it into an evening gown, using the ribbed knit bottom band as an off-the-shoulder neckline. Tim is intrigued. Cassanova has made something that he calls sexy and Tim is concerned that it might be a little slutty, slutty, slutty.

April has turned her man’s tuxedo jacket inside out and is working spontanteously. Valerie talks trash about April. Droog is wearing a corset that Miz Shoes is certain he designed himself. It is, admittedly, sorta kinda cool, in that it is actually his tool belt. Sort of Batman/bondage/carpenter. Miz Shoes may possibly want one for herself. Droog hasn’t done anything other than turn the kimono inside out and drape the sleeves around the neck. Tim is concerned. Tim rolls his eyes.

Gretchen has already used the PiperLime accessory wall thoughtfully. No, really, Gretchen may turn out to be our winner, and she may be pretty and terribly self-contained and self-aware and even well put together, and she may have that Portland-Off-The-Grid aesthetic going on, but there is something about her that makes Miz Shoes grind her teeth. She is discussing the essence of the piece and what is the story that the piece is telling.

Peach, talk to me. The scarf has “no forgiveness.” Even Our Mister Gunn is appalled by the qualities of the fabric of Michael’s knit scarf. Machine knit. Miz Shoes is tempted, as a hand-knitter to opine at length about machine knits and the kind of people (there’s one here in Miami) who use knitting machines and deliberately jam their prongs and do other horrible things to them to force the machine to knit in rips and runs and irregularities as integral parts of the fabric. Miz Shoes considers machine knitters who have never held a stick and are more concerned with using materials that were never meant to create fabric to create fabric than with the usable qualities (drape, hand, next-to-skin wearability) of that fabric to be something less than the artisans they think they are. But she digresses, and veers close to a rant. We’ve only seen 5 minutes of Michael. Let us not judge…yet. Tim suggests layering the brickish red scarf under the tulle. Peach is grateful. An aside regarding Peach. She may be the sweet, light version of Mila. So far she has only been seen in black and white, she gave away a pair of black and white toile pants (which she KISSED! before passing them to April, so clearly they are her lucky pants or some such shit) and she is using an equivalent black and white modern print for her garment, which is cute, in a young-ladies-who-lunch sort of way. Maybe she’s another Wendy Pepper?

Mondo is wearing a polka dot head wrap. Tim finds his dress matronly. Really? say Mondo and Miz Shoes in unison. Workroom. Models. Hair and makeup. Styling with the PiperLime stuff. Droogie is a disgusting pig about his model’s BOOBIES!!!! Whoo, boobies. Way to go, Jason the Droog. Peach is panicking. Droogie wants his model to have Medusa hair. He clearly hasn’t noticed that his model has bleached blonde hair that is at most, two inches long. Droogie must not have looked higher than her BOOBIES!!!! NAKED BOOBIES!!! (And they belong to him. He said so.)

Casanova can’t tell the difference between the hair salon and the make up room. He wants something that is dreadfully close to the girls on the roof in West Side Story. Getchen is giving the make-up designer exacting instructions, down to swatches that she wants him to match. She ueses the word dewey. Really. Annoying. Fifteen minutes to runway. Kristin has forgotten her model. She’s still sitting in hair, and never got to make up. Nicholas is freaking out. McKell has sewn her model in, and the model’s hair is awful. Droogie is stapling his model into the dress. Everyone goes down to the runway, except Casanova. He wasn’t finished. The model comes out. Tim isn’t sure that he’s really done? Oh, yeah, he is.

Shiny runway is shiny. Heidi threatens that more than one may go. Recap of the challenge. Only 5 hours to put the look together. List of prizes. Yippee! No more Blow Fly. Now it’s PIperLime. Michael Kors, NinaGarcia, and Selma Blair. Which came first, Selma Blair or Zooey Deschanel?

Valerie’s dress is from the D&G pants is olive green, coral pink and gold. The color blocking is amatuerish and the hem is wonky. The back is worse. Peach’s little dress is cute. McKell’s fabric looks cheap and the model is carrying a huge hot pink purse, and we see one of the other designers say that it is perfect styling. That would be Kristin the graphic designer who makes great mistakes. Uh-huh. Andy sends out a black on black ensemble with a Chinese coolie hat and hair held up with chopsticks. If anyone other than Hawaiian Andy did it, it would be as suspect as Casanova’s big hair and red lips. In the frame that is frozen on my i-pad, NinaGarcia is in the background, holding her red scoring card over her eyes. Or maybe shielding her eyes from the glare of the lights. Or maybe doing a little cropping. Holy shit, his model just busted a move.

Sarah Trost seems like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. She has made a romper out of a man’s shirt. Forgive Miz Shoes her sartorial sins, but she has a fondness for rompers and jumpsuits. Miz Shoes was still young in the 80’s and honestly, she had a putty-colored jumpsuit from the original version of Banana Republic, when it was still selling government surplus. She rocked that jumpsuit six ways from Sunday, with big belts and a pair of ankle-high leopard-print suede boots that were baggy and had wrap around laces of chamois. (Miz Shoes still has them, as a matter of fact. Want to see pictures?) Anyway, despite the scorn that will deservedly be heaped on her for admitting this, Miz Shoes like Sarah’s little mini-romper.

Nicholas’s dress is a dress. It has an exposed back zipper and a built-in waist purse. Mondo’s dress is still ugly. He has paired a pea-green jersey with what looks like the upholstery from the couch in the dorm room that always had a beer-bong going. Mondo loves it, even with its wonky hem. Ivy loves her Capri pants with the over-shredded, not-quite-matching top she has made to go with. Meh. Michael “give me a burger and I’ll give you couture” from Palm Springs sends out a skin-tight leatherette mini skirt and a pretty hot pink blousson tank top with a cowl neck and a surprise back. Michael says it is a classy, sophisticated look. Miz Shoes thinks that those words don’t mean what Michael thinks they mean. Kristin has taken Mondo’s little emo skirt and used it to make a dramatic collar for a sleeveless coat dress of heavy material that she has not so much draped into interesting folds at the skirt front, as hammered into shape. Christopher has completely reinvented the dress he had to work with. It’s cute. April’s tuxedo jacket dress is too short, has an irregular hem and looks like student work. She’s happy with it.

Gretchen gives a smug voice-over about nailing it, winning it, working it. It’s a little black dress with beaded flaps for sleeves and a sheer, cropped back. Michael the knitter loves his dress. It is a silk kimono-sleeved tunic that wraps and fastens at the front with a bit of beadwork taken from the original garment. The back is very interesting, with the beadwork that was probably the bodice now forming the focus at the neckline and the kimono sleeves connect in a swoop of fabric. It’s very cool.

Droogie sends out his dress and the staples are falling out as the model walks. AJ has made a black dress with tulle and foil, a Hot Topics prom mini for the happy shiny little goth girl. And here comes Casanova’s thing. He thinks it looks prettier than when it was on his table. Again he asserts that it’s sexy, but not vulgar. Miz Shoes says these are not the words you seek. NinaGarcia is stunned speechless.

AJ, Andy, Valerie, Sarah, Peach, Kristin, Michael Designs for Burgers, Mondo Emo, Knitting Machine Michael, Christopher. You are all safe. They go backstage and have the giggles. One of you is the unanimous winner, and that would be Gretchen. NinaGarcia tells her her styling is perfect. She goes backstage and does the victory dance. No top three or bottom three, you’re all bottoms. None of you should feel safe. Ivy has to defend making pants out of pants. Michael Kors says “no offense to Peach, but I don’t know why she packed those.” Ooooh, SNAP! And he hates the blouse. The blouse looks “mumsy” says NinaGarcia. “Small town, hick outfit at the bar” says Selma Blair. Dudes, Peach kissed those pants when she gave them away. Respect the pant.

Jason tries to defend doing nothing. Looks like the cape at the hairdresser, says Heidi. Selma likes it, sort of. It’s sad, but she likes. NinaGarcia asks if he really thought they wouldn’t notice that he didn’t do anything. April defends her raw edges. The judges question if April even knows how to sew. Hot mess says Heidi. Michael likes deconstruction, but not this deconstruction. 80’s street walker says NinaGarcia. McKell and her blue bag skirt and huge hot pink purse. McKell says that it’s fun, flirty and good time. Styling, says NinaGarcia, is a train wreck. It’s a DISCO APRON!!!! (Hey, do you need to download more Project Runway Bingo Cards?) “Side cleavage is a rare thrilling moment for any woman,” says MKors. Heidi says that it is just flat out butt ugly. McKell says that she never designs looks like this. Nicholas explains the polyester bomber jacket origins. NinaGarcia likes the idea. But he didn’t take it far enough. His voice quavers.

Casanova. Mother of the bride belly dancer. Pole dancer in Dubai. Questionable in taste. Fascinatingly bad, says NinaGarcia. I loved it and I loathed it says Selma. Heidi asks Casanova to defend himself. NinaGarcia has to hablar espanol to him. He doesn’t get it in Spanish either. Ivy has been beaten down.

Ivy made pants out of pants and the judges ridicule her for it. MKors just can’t get past the original hideous garment and is dumbfounded that a real woman really bought them and actually loved them enough to bring them on the show. Ivy can sew, but does she have taste. Casanova can’t speak English. Taste level is scary. You couldn’t dream of wearing that in daylight. It came from a mall store named RazzleDazzles where they sell wigs and dresses. What was the car crash?? Casanova you are this season’s Crazy Person!!! Congratulations! Droogie Boy had all the fabric and didn’t use a sewing machine. They liked the styling. A lot of story to not much outfit. April was frazzled by the time constraints, but she’s got a modern point of view. McKell lives in a different world. They like her idea, but not the execution. The hair and accessories were terrible. Nicholas had a girl who could wear a bag, and there was nothing there. He sent out a boring dress, but he can make clothes.

April, we want to see more from you, you’re in. Nicholas, can you push yourself, given more time. He’s gonna cry. DroogieBoy, we are intrigued. Leave the runway. McKell, we were perplexed by your design and poor styling choices. Casanova your look was fascinatingly bizarre and we question your taste. Ivy, you made bad pants out of bad pants. McKell, you’re out. Take your blonde hippie girl dreadlocks and go home to your baby. Ivy, Casanova, you’re both getting another shot. Leave the runway. McKell shoots a look of death at Casanova and Ivy. Tim Gunn tells her that he stands by his judgement that her dress was cute, but it didn’t fit her model and the styling was unbelievably bad, so go clean up.

Atlas. Kristin says that there should be alcohol in the fridge. Ivy says she doesn’t sleep. Casanova is hugging an armload of hangers. Good night John Boy. Next week, it seems that there might be more than one person eliminated.

*Actually, Evernote WAS the bomb. I clipped web pages, photos and stuck them together with the draft of this article and did a quick cut and paste into my blog. Sweet.

**The blogosphere is in disagreement over the price of his pants, no doubt because his English is so awful. $1007? $1070? Whatever. They were over a grand and there was a seven in the mix somewhere.

And it’s about damn time. One day to runway. Mila is in and Emilio is smug. Mila sizes up her competition: Seth Aaron has made glamorous Hot Topics and Emilio’s collection is Harlem, 1993. She decides that she can win. Tim comes in and goes first to Seth Aaron. How many looks has he brought. 24. No, not pieces says Tim, looks. 24 says Seth Aaron again. (And is it merely cosmic coinky-dink that the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42? The mirror of 24? Miz Shoes thinks not, but then Miz Shoes needs something to think about while she waits for the runway shows and the final proclamation.)

Emilo has not listened to Tim and is showing his teal, red, mustard puce and his brand print ESOSA. Emilio declares that Tim doesn’t always know what the judges like, so he’s not listening to Tim, but hedging his bets on the judges. Mila drags out black on black texture blocked (as opposed to color blocked) sixties drag. Short, wide top in black mohair? Cashmere? Hairy fabric with a wide vertical stripe of black patent leather. Wake Miz Shoes when it’s over.

Model casting, Blow Fly plug. Hotel plug. Hair and make up consults. Mila wants edgy rocker models. Emilio wants multi-cultural models. Mila wants a “gritty dirty” eye instead of her usual “smokey” eye. Miz Shoes thinks that sounds painful. Seth Aaron goes for cobalt blue raccoon eyes.  Back in model fittings, Seth Aaron is putting his red wool on his muse hanger. Emilio is editing. Mila drones about how cray-yay-zee it is in the workroom. Blahblahblah designer final thoughts.

Morning of show, Seth Aaron crawls out of bed at quarter to three, and proceeds to give himself the worst Oompa-Loompa hair in the history of the universe, or at least Project Runway. The designers get to the Bryant Park tent and Seth Aaron throws himself down on the runway and makes a snow angel. Miz Shoes adores Seth Aaron, because it is a basic belief in her life that the universe would benefit from a great deal more whimsy. With an hour until the show, Emilio is missing one of his models and stamping his widdle feet and demanding a replacement be brought to him now. Mila is missing three models and is as hair-tearingly panicked as we’ve ever seen her, which is to say that she monotones something or another about needing back up girls.

Heidi gets on the runway and introduces the judges: The orange Michael Kors, the lovely NinaGarcia and the random country music superstar, Faith Hill, who is dressed in some nondescript thing or another and doesn’t look at all like Patsy Cline or June Carter or even Minnie Pearl. Hell, Miz Shoes would have settled for Dolly Parton or Hank Williams because those people dress like country stars are supposed to dress. But she digresses.

Seth Aaron sends out a black, red and white collection inspired, he says, by the German and Russian military uniforms of the 1940s. After a collective gasp and ensuing uncomfortable silence, the entire blogging and fashion-watching world pretends not to have heard that, and/or to give Seth Aaron the benefit of believing that he was just totally clueless as to how that sounded. In the event, the clothing is stunning. He starts with his red wool and black patent dress over patterned tights , then a black and white dress that has a slightly draped boat neck and a full skirt. Next is a dress with spots and tweed and the black striped hose and Miz Shoes’ notes read WOW!!!!1!! A grey trench that is somewhat reminiscent of Korto’s seat belt coat. Hey, look, there’s Nigel Barker.

Mila. Shadows. Black and white. Her family and boyfriend (who’s wearing the fingerless gloves), Black and white stripes, black and white herringbone and striped, dark and medium grey in color blocked stripes. High water pants in white with a black racing stripe. Black, more black, some black and a single piece of aubergine, a purple so dark as to be black. The disco fish scale dress with the patent leather dog collar.

Emilio says that the next 45 minutes are going to change his life and introduces his “Color Me Bad” collection. If by this he means bad color, then Miz Shoes concurs wholeheartedly, although she has to grudgingly say that that first mustard/puce car coat with the ¾ sleeves is great. It’s over a wiggle dress made from his signature print, which he has dip dyed or sprayed into a solid black lower third. Red dress, blue short coat over black tights, low hip length red coat over another signature print dress, this with a chartreuse patent leather hem. Suit. Boring blue knit. More knits and signatures and a final evening dress that is green, glittery and really, really pretty.

D-List celebrities pick their winners: Nigel likes Seth Aaron, Ping is wearing a silver/white wig or hair. Irina (copy cat) loves Mila, of course. Over in the judging area, NinaGarcia decrees that these were the best three final collections in the history of Project Runway and that all of the designers were mature, focused and had a clear point of view. We lead with Seth Aaron and his Unfortunate Inspiration. Michael Kors is impressed by SA’s ability to craft clothes. He finds the stepped up luxury exhilarating, yet still youthful. The collection was filled with clothing people could wear. NinaGarcia loved the black and white parachute dress, and the polka dot and tweed with the striped hose. She, too, declares it a great show. Heidi wanks something about the purple was out of place but admits that the whole show was exciting.

Emilio goes blahblahblahGreatAmericanSportswearblahblahblah in a pathetic shout out to Michael Kors’ métier. Faith Hill claims that his show knocked her out. Like, out of the park or like, under ether, wonders Miz Shoes. Heidi still likes his logo print, but Michael Kors is edited so we only hear him say “priceless” but not the context, which one suspects was less than flattering. Can the word “pretentious” be edited to sound like “priceless”, do you think? Michael says that you could put the whole show on a rack and roll it into the Macy’s buyers and they’d just lap it up. Miz Shoes believes this is called damning with faint praise.

As for Mila, the judges all agree that updating the make up helped a lot. NinaGarcia says that loosening up the look made it cooler. MK got turned on by the play of texture on texture. Heidi loved the stupid tee shirt with random black stripes.

The final caucus: Mila made great leggings. She showed great potential, but did nothing today that was surprising. Seth Aaron was surprising. His work had much more sophistication than he’d shown during the season, even if NinaGarcia found it veering to costume. The judges all agree that his work would even sell on a hanger. NinaGarcia calls him fearless, and Michael admires the fact that he put on a SHOW. Faith Hill found Emilio to be clever. Michael Kors found him to be too rooted in commercialism. Emilio made a LINE, he says, not a COLLECTION. The judges have to decide if they are making their choice based on what they saw that day or the entire body of work.

The designers return to the runway. Seth Aaron amped up his sophistication but maintained a signature style. Emilio had consistent taste and workmanship. Mila finally shook herself out of 1966 all the way to 1969. Way to soften up and make it more modern, Mila. You’re out. Seth Aaron wins! There is much rejoicing, except by bitter, bitter Emilio who cries that if the judges liked his work, why didn’t he win? ESOSA will be a world brand, he declares, and then misquotes Anthony by saying that one doesn’t need the crown to be the king. Seth Aaron tells his children that this just proves that hard work pays off. Seth Aaron picks Tim up in a bear hug. Hugs all around. And for once, the nice guy and the most talented guy are the same guy, and he wins.

An apology if I’m late to the Project Runway recap party, for those of you who come for that. I was participating in RJ’s Share Our Strength, Great American Bake Sale yesterday. Despite a certain “Hey guys, let’s put on a show” impromptu, we raised $700 selling baked goods at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens. When you put together a group of food bloggers, foodies and cooking-as-a-competitive-if-not-blood sport women, and ask them to hold a bake sale, this is what you get: strawberry jam, strawberry with an infusion of mint from the garden jam, chocolate-chocolate-chip biscotti, pistachio-cranberry biscotti, framboise brownies, lemon sweet rolls, strawberry sweet rolls using the aforementioned strawberry jam, and a raffle basket of a full pan of the framboise brownies, a bottle of the raspberry wine secret ingredient all the way from Oregon, and the recipe (laminated so you can use it to cook), chocolate chip banana bread and rum-raisin/white chocolate chip/macadamia nut cookies, zuchini bread by the loaf or slice, double chocolate brownies and brown sugar cookies, spicy cheese crackers, ginger/apricot biscotti, mango-pecan rugelech, chai tea bread in mini loaves, key lime cookies, banana bread by the loaf or slice, wheat-free/oat bran muffins sweetened with maple syrup or agave nectar or honey, in various flavors, and donations by Dunkin’ Donuts and a brand new bakery in South Miami, Sweetness. And one of my quilts for the raffle.

Next year, of course, we’ll have time to really put something together. Back to your regularly scheduled Project Runway snark.

Heidi congratulates the remaining designers, and tells them they have $9K and four months to create 10 pieces. Mila and Jay will each show three, and one of them will continue to Bryant Park and the other will not. Tim gives everyone a pep talk and sets up the home visit segment. Mila says that she and Jay are both strong, but that she’s stronger. Jay says that he can beat Mila. Emilio is smug and Seth Aaron assures us that “Fuck A, I can win this.”

Three months later, we see Tim Gunn in Vancouver, Washington, where he will visit Seth Aaron and his family. He has a lovely home and a lovely wife, and lovely children, and lovely parents, and lovely photos of himself growing up next door to the woman he married. Amazingly enough, this much sweetness and light and Tim jumping on the trampoline in his suit does not make Miz Shoes nauseated in the least. It is testament to Seth Aaron’s skillz and engaging persona, as well as Mrs. Seth Aaron telling us that the children are on notice that if Daddy wins, they will all be in therapy immediately to deal with it. As for the purpose of the visit, Tim goggles at the sheer quanity of work that Seth Aaron has produced and tells him that he’ll never win with this collection. That as good as it is, it is just more of the same that got him to this point and he needs to stretch to find another level, something new and unexpected. Tim tells Seth Aaron that he can do this. Seth Aaron holds his head and says that half the money is gone and two thirds of his time, but he’s going to Listen to Tim Gunn. Tim leaves Seth Aaron some final words of advice: “Reflect. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Next, Tim is allowed to return to New York City, where he hooks up with Emilio and his two brothers. They all have the same speech impediment. They all sort of look alike, too. Emilio gets the winner edit of how his parents were poor immigrants and he grew up in the poor part of Harlem and blahblahblah. He is inspired by color and himself. He is using turquoise, mustard and red. He has made another one of his logo prints. He argues with Tim. He says nasty things about Tim and whether he can have any knowledge of what women wear, when he does not wear women’s clothes. And Emilio does? Is that what he just said?

Back to Los Angeles, where Tim will be forced to endure Mila’s company. She has clearly had a make over, as her hair is no longer black number one, but has some tone to it, and her bangs sweep to the side. There’s a softness to her face, too, as if she’s had a little help there too, or maybe it’s just that she’s stopped wearing that stark red lipstick. Either way, she lets Tim into a black and white house, with a black and white dog, with black and white photos on the white walls, and she talks about her inspiration: stark black and white shadows. It is her intent, she says, to introduce aubergine. Tim calls it matronly, and she asks the camera if he’s fucking kidding her. It is during this confession that she says that she does not want to lose to Jay and calls him something with two syllables and an opening F. It is beeped and Miz Shoes cannot tell if she has used a derogatory epithet connoting sexual identity or merely a vulgar verb/noun. Either way, it isn’t pretty and seems to indicate that the editors don’t like Mila any more than any of the other contestants do.

Finally, Tim heads up to San Francisco to meet Jay, his parents and extended family. Jay is doing a black and white collection based on samurai and geishas. He has introduced aubergine and a dark red. Tim holds up a sleeve that is made of tabbed segments on a band (think of a fish skeleton when you fillet a whole one). Where is this woman going in this? he asks Jay. I dunno says Jay. Tim calls it koo-koo. Jay says Koo-Koo Channel, girlfriend. There is gay hilarity. Then there is a Filipino feast. Jay cries and says that he just wants to be able to pay his hard-working (and long suffering) parents back for all they’ve done.

At last we return to New York City, where Mila is the first to arrive at the Product Placement Hotel with their trademark named sleeping furniture. She swans around the suite, pretending that she’s won. Next is Jay, who will also be staying there. They are roommates. How awkward. There is an attempt at reconciliation, wherein Jay is made to feel as though he is now Mila’s friend. Seth Aaron arrives, having taken Tim’s advice and made an entirely new collection. Emilio comes in and says that he made a new collection too, even though he would rather die than admit that he took Tim’s advice.

Morning! Workroom. Jay and Mila have to share a work table. Awkward. Tim looks better than ever. It ‘s his collar. He’s wearing a higher collar. It isn’t a Karl, but it’s higher and tighter. Mila and Jay have three hours to put their three looks together and send them out to be judged. Jay’s shin guards won’t zip up. Mila’s going to do a smoky eye. Does she ever do anything OTHER than that damned smoky eye? Hofuckinghum. With five minutes to go, Jay cries and Mila pretends to.

Our judges are only Heidi, Michael Kors and NinaGarcia. Mila sends out a sharp grey coat over a black and white, stripes and herringbone sixties shift. A horrible fish scale (black and white) paillot disco dress with an attached black patent leather dog collar, and something else black and white. Stripes. Bat wings. 60s. Jay puts out a purple tunic/minidress with black leggings and sculpted shoulders, a pair of pants with a silver top and a bolero in black that looks like football shoulder pads, but in a totally new and sorta hot way. A jacket and the thigh-high spats that he’s made out of that fish-spine technique over blood red leggings/pants. So hot. So innovative. So very, very, very hot.

Mila talks about her shadow inspiration. NinaGarcia and Michael hate her styling. It’s OK to be retro, they say, but make it a little modern by styling the models to look less like you.  NinaGarcia says that separates are good, but this is just the same old same old, and she isn’t seeing anything new. If she had to put out six collections a year, says NinaGarcia, and all she uses is black and white, what could she possibly do? Michael likes the fingerless gloves she had made.

Jay points out his Samurai influence. You really pumped up the volume, says Heidi. Can I have that purple mini-dress, please? Michael Kors is totally stealing the gaiters. He’s finding them to be very hot. NinaGarcia says that the tailoring is impeccable, but the taste level… Nothing retro here, says Michael Kors, pointedly. Nothing but of its own time.

The judges have one last pass, with the designers off stage. Michael Kors says that this went to Jay. Heidi says that it went to Mila. NinaGarcia says she can’t decide. Michael says that Mila is nothing but retro, and all black and white. The only word he can use for Jay, though, is ungapatchka, Yiddish for all over the place patched together. Who do we want to see more of? Michael Kors looks so pissed when they say that they’ve made their decision, that Miz Shoes knew right then what happened: apparently the Powers That Be decided for NinaGarcia, because inexplicably, the win goes to Mila. Both NinaGarcia and Michael Kors tell her that they have one big tip for her: style young for Bryant Park.

We open on the men’s dorm room, where three of them are singing a morning song in falsetto, whilst Seth Aaron clutches his head. MizShoes feels his pain.

Mila, despite having devoured Maya’s soul and sent her fleeing for her life, is still droning on and on in an atonal manner devoid of affect.

“Blahblahblahvisualizingbeingthefinalistblahblahblah.”

Heidi tell the designers that they will be taking one last field trip to a tent which is not in Bryant Park, but will get them there… or at least, only three who are still in the competition. The reality is different than the reality show, so let’s pretend that she’s right.

Coney Island! The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus!!! Tim in the center ring! Designers of all ages clapping their hands in delight and wonder. Water! Feathers! Acrobats! Clownsare going to eat me! Miz Shoes loves the circus, despite the presence of clowns. Today, the designers will be treated to a special show (lucky bastards) and their final challenge is to design a high-end runway look inspired by the show. Mila claims to have been hoping that they’d be going to the circus. Jay is mesmerized by the well-muscled, well-oiled torsos of the half-naked male acrobats, as well he should be. Seth Aaron is mesmerized by the motorcyclists whizzing by each other in the Wall of Death, as well he should be.

They have half an hour to sketch, $300 at Mood and a final two days to sew. Emilio is going to go with stripes, polka dots and scale. He was in the theater, you know. He has an edge, you know. Mila is inspired by the ringmaster’s costume and so is going to make another basic pant, another basic top and one last coat that will constitute the entire look, no doubt in black and white and color blocked. Anthony loved the girl on the high rope, and wants to bring that sense of weightlessness and movement to the runway. Jay returns to his personal well, the pants with volume on the hip and thigh, although in this instance he claims inspiration from the clown pants, and a jacket. Seth Aaron is in his element. Tim tells Anthony to pump up the volume.

In the workroom, Emilio and Mila are annoying each other. Emilio is all blahblahblahI’mthebestblahblahblah and Mila is rolling her eyes and going, what an ego you have Mr. Kettle, and Emilio is making choo-choo train noises and gloating over his string of wins and blahblahblah. MizShoes thinks those two deserve each other. Anthony looks around the workroom and he’s the only one using blue. Jay gets a foreshadowing edit of “Oh, would it suck to get this close and not go.” Emilio is doing something with stripes that he thinks is brilliant.

Tim comes for his walkabout (engage with me) and has to clutch his pearls when Seth Aaron tells him that he’s thinking of making a top hat to go with his ringmaster-inspired coat. Emilio is engineering (choo-choo) his black and white look with a Watteau back (cut to Mila rolling her eyes, because she didn’t think of saying something classically referential first). Tim chokes and asks how Emilio could go to the fucking CIRCUS and come out with a look in black and white. Where is the color? Emilio disses Tim and tells him not to worry, little man, I’ve got this. BlahblahLISTENTOTIM,ASSHOLEblahblahblah. Tim tells Anthony to let his viscera rule. Anthony blinks rapidly.  Mila is doing shiny. A shiny coat over a shiny pair of tight pants. She’s planning on using ivory at the neck and Tim tells her to ditch it and use the stripes instead. She immediately sees how she can color block stripes and so listens to Tim. Jay explains his clown pants and military jacket and there is gay merriment as he and Tim decide who’s the good bitch or the bad bitch.

Jay gets another loser edit as he talks about the faith his friends and family have in him. Emilio sews ruffles. Seth Aaron isn’t sure about Mila’s shiny, shiny, shiny. Anthony thinks that there is a lot of costume in the room, and goes over to Jay to tell him that his jacket looks like a Michael Jackson jacket (which it does, but, dude, play nice, eh?). Mila says it looks like a Michael Jackson jacket, but nobody expects her to play nice.

Morning of the show, and Mila pretends to show emotion by playing back the “I’m nervous as hell” chip on her speech program. Emilio says blahblahblahwhimsysexydramablahblahblah. Mila says that Jay and Anthony need to go home. Jay says that Mila doesn’t have what it takes to do a show, but then he loathes her as a human, so that may have colored his opinion somewhat. With 10 minutes to show time, Seth Aaron is freakin, Mila is atonal and Emilio is insufferable.

Heidi comes out in a giant print that probably couldn’t be shown on teevee in prime time, or maybe that’s just my Freudian interpretation of those hairy pink vertical ovals. Something about a double elimination tonight. Judges are Michael Kors, Ninagarcia and Cynthia Rowley, who may or may not be wearing the same pink satin pillowcase Heidi was wearing when she announced the challenge.

Jay’s model walks out in tight black pants and a Michael Jackson waiter’s jacket. Mila has paired her hot pink cigarette pants with an electric yellow tank top and a black and white striped ringmaster’s long-tail coat. The coat’s stand up collar is backed in the same hot pink satin. Anthony’s blue dress has an unfortunate line of gathering up the front of the model’s stomach, a plunging neckline and oversized ruffles for sleeves. Except for the sad attempt at ruching, the skirt is pretty much the same as last week’s black and white cookie dress. Emilio sends out a Moulin Rouge (Jose Ferrer version) can-can dress with stripes and polka dots and a short front and a Watteau back and more stripes and declares that his look is not costume, but couture. Seth Aaron’s version of the ringmaster jacket is black and white stripes with yellow trim. The sleeves are great sweeping, swooping bells that extend a good foot beyond the model’s finger tips. The pants are red leather.

Heidi loves Seth Aaron’s look. Ninagarcia finds it a tad costumey, but loved the fantasy elements of it. Cynthia Rowley finds it interesting. Michael Kors calls out the crazy crotch and suggests that Seth Anthony could fill it out better, if you know what he means. Miz Shoes DOES know what he means and finds it a little creepy that MK went there, if you know what she means. And then another Project Runway first. Michael Kors is so appalled at the fabric that Anthony used that he goes up and feels it. Dropping the fabric like it was hot, he shrieks: it’s POLYESTER!!1!!, which prompt Heidi to run up and feel it, too. And with that, the entire world knows that Anthony is so not going to Bryant Park.

Mila gets a little love from Michael, but Cynthia Rowley thinks the color should have been toned down and Ninagarcia simply says that she hates it. Emilio gets petted and fawned over as Heidi finds the dress stunning, and MK says (echoing exactly what Emilio predicted in the workroom) that it is his favorite garment of the entire season. Blahblahblahgushgushgushblahblahblah. Next the obligatory why should you go and who should go with you segment. Seth Aaron says he’s well-grounded and can design and he’d want Emilio and Jay to go with him. Jay pleads that he really can do this and that Seth Aaron has a strong point of view and that he’d need to share the moment with his BFF Anthony. Sniffle, sniffle. Mila is strong and thoughtful and it’s her time and she doesn’t want to throw the fight and get a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

She’d like to take Emilio and Seth Aaron, and in a fair fight, she might win, if she uses her android strength. Emilio thinks they should just anoint him the winner already because of his genius and skills, but to throw a sop to the requirement of another two episodes, his majesty will graciously allow Seth Aaron and Mila to continue. It doesn’t matter what Anthony says, because he used polyester.

The judges continue to ponder. Emilio was sophisticated, but Seth Aaron not as much. Still, Seth Aaron never played it safe. He was innovative. The judges are all curious as to what he would do as a collection. It wouldn’t bore Nina, whatever it was. Anthony used polyester. Michael Kors says that Mila’s work is flat (sort of like her voice and her hair). She isn’t always relevant, but she can tailor. Jay’s work is a matter of taste and who is he as a designer? Miz Shoes says, he’s the guy who wants to put turkey legs on women everywhere.

In the biggest shock of Project Runway, ever, they declare Emilio as their unanimous favorite. Emilio says that he’s humble, inside. Seth Aaron has shown time and time again how creative he is, and his tailoring is consistently good. He goes backstage and engages in a pillow fight with Emilio. Miz Shoes is mesmerized. Back on the runway, Anthony is told that he won some good challenges to win, but that DUDE, POLYESTER???????? Go home and consider your sins. Mila was impressive throughout, except for tonight, when she was disappointing. Jay played it safe when he shouldn’t have. So, instead of a double elimination, we’re going to have you both create collections, but only one of you will show and compete at Bryant Park. (Remember, this is a reality show, not reality.)

Next week, Tim visits the designers in their homes and tells Seth Aaron to rethink, Mila that her work looks matronly and Emilio tells the audience that he doesn’t give a rat’s pattootie what Tim Gunn says about anything. Oh, please. ALWAYS LISTEN TO TIM GUNN.

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.

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.