A confession: my dear, dear, darling Paul of the House of Gallofornia tried out for this season, and a slightly crabby Tim Gunn told him to tighten the portfolio and try again next season. My immediate reaction was a knee-jerk fuck you that caused me to throw my martini glass across the room and declare that I would never watch PR again. Paul told me to get a grip, and make another shaker of drinks, so it’s back to the couch for another season of our favorite show.

Annnnnd, open on the Atlas, as our newest crop of designers arrive. The first is Jerell, a former model. I think I recognize his pictures. Former models don’t usually do well on this show, but we’ll see how it goes. Blayne is a barrista from Portland or Seattle or somewhere in the PNW, with a tanning addiction and a stupid knit hat and I hate him already. This is not to be confused with the stupid twee hats of last year’s cry-baby, whatsisname. Joe from Detroit is our token straight guy who is going to talk about his daughters right up until he gets auffed.

In the girls’ corner, the first to arrive is Stella, who is too old to dye her hair that black, and who looks like a first runner up at a Halloween Patty Smith look alike contest, circa 1978. Is it too soon to say that the stringy punk with black polish and tattooed eyelashes look is over? If those aren’t tattooed eyelashes, then Twiggy wants her 1966 make-up back. And she has a bad Jersey/Brooklyn accent. I hate her already.

Jennifer says that her style is Holly Golightly meets Salvador Dali. Kelli claims to be the love child of Vivienne Westwood and Betsey Johnson. She does seem to like loud colors and plaid. And she has a great arm piece tattoo involving a tape measure. Terri is wearing a black cat suit, and looking pretty road worn for under 40.

Back in the boys’ pad, Jerry Tam announces that he is on the verge of being the next big thing. Christian used that line last year. Jerry has a faux-hawk. Suede has a real Mohawk, with bleached blond sides and a blue plume. Suede says that he’s been making millions for other people and now he’s gonna make money for Suede. Suede talks about himself in the third person, and I’m all ready sick of him, too, and want to toss him out the window. Also? That beadazzled jacket with his name on the back ain’t gonna make money for nobody, no how. Keith goes by so fast I have no notes for him.

Rounding out the girls we have Korto, who is from Liberia by way of Little Rock, Arkansas, Leanne from Portland who wants to be the silent but deadly designer assassin, whatever that means, and Kenley who says something about smoke and mirrors and does the Bettie Page retro glam thing.

Finally, the men close the loop with Daniel and Wesley. Daniel is sort of a Daniel Franco Lite and Wesley is another one who impressed me so little that I have no notes.

UP ON THE ROOF

The designers get to drink the usual champagne and size each other up. Heidi looks pretty. Tim Gunn looks like he has roseacea.  Tim manages to pop a champagne cork right off the roof. He tells the designers that they are the most diverse group ever to be on the show. I think that they all look like they have the same sort of urban/punk/deconstructed gestalt. But I’m not Tim Gunn. And I would have put Paul on the show. (I know, get over it)

Keith (at least I think it was Keith) tells Heidi that the question he asks himself with every design is “would Heidi wear this?” The RLA, the two surrogate daughters and I all gag in unison. There is then some footage of him allowing as how he has a gift that other designers would kill for, and he? he was just born with it. And no small amount of ego, either.

Daniel claims that if he weren’t a fabulous designer, he would have been a fabulous zoologist, and that nature is his muse. Nature and show stopping glamour. Because those are two things that naturally go together like milk and Oreos.

And so to bed, and just as quickly, back up when Tim rings the doorbells at 4 A.M. At that hour, even he isn’t looking quite dapper, but he is nowhere near as ragged out as our designers. The sun is up as we make it to our destination: Gristede’s. Yes! A do-over of the infamous grocery challenge, and who better to judge than Season 1’s Austin Scarlett, who won that challenge with an ephemeral corn husk concoction. At the sight of Miss Scarlett, Daniel lets out a little gasp of “Glamour” and allows as how she was his favorite contestant ever. The designers are given $75 and half an hour to ransack Gristede’s and until midnight in the Parsons’ workroom to make the magic happen.

Jerry walks in and has a vision of “April Showers Bring May Flowers” and knows that he’s going to do something with a shower curtain. Terri grabs a million string mop heads. Stella thinks that black garbage bags will translate to black pleather and she plans on a vest and jeans, her stock in trade (and her entire wardrobe, apparently).

Suede declares the challenge “whackadoodle.” Meh. It’s no wickety wack, but it’ll do for a night. The designers get back to the workroom, where they find the measurements of their models and are told that the winner of the challenge will get immunity for the following week. That’s always a motivator.

CUTS LIKE A KNIFE

In the workroom, we get the first sweep of the designs and ideas. Joe is working with dry pasta and oven mitts to create an Italian antipasta dress. Kelli is using bleach and dye to transform vacuum cleaner bags into green and brown batik, in preparation for producing a garden party dress. DanielLite is making a cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline entirely out of plastic cups. He’s ironing the plastic to make it malleable, and to melt elements into one another. It’s a pretty impressive undertaking, and he’s working on it like a terrier, not letting go of his vision for a minute.

Blayne, in a desperate attempt to be noticed, is squealing that his design is “Girlicious”, ignoring completely that it’s a word the Pussycat Dolls have pretty much invented, patented and registered as a trademark.  He’s also ignoring the fact that the word means nothing, and that his idea for a garment stinks like rotten eggs. He’s using jump rope, place mats and what appears to be Depends to make what could only be described as a monstrosity of a unitard? Bathing suit? Onsie? Blayne confesses that in an attempt to be different, he may be different and obnoxious.

Leanne is upset that so many people (other than her) are using tablecloths as the basis of their garment. Well, a tablecloth is sort of a gimme. This is a challenge to think outside of the box, people. Where are the non-fiber materials? Other than the ziti, I mean.

Stella unfolds her garbage bags and is shocked to discover that they don’t look like patent leather, but like cheap, thin garbage bags. Well, honey, here’s a clue: don’t buy generic. Look at the millage on the side of the box. If you want a thick black plastic, buy a freaking Hefty bag. This discovery so unsettles her that she spends the rest of the evening until the midnight deadline whining and pissing and moaning and complaining about the unfairness of the challenge, of the quality of her choices and of life, the universe and everything.  Have I mentioned that she has a monotone on top of having that awful Nu Yawk accent?

Jerell proves he can mimic Tim Gunn. But who will play Andre to his Santino? And can he be Santino without the stupid hat/do rag combo and mean-spiritedness? That could be fun. And he’s prettier than Santino, but then, my dog’s ass is prettier than Santino. Hell, Santino’s ass was probably prettier than Santino.

Kenley is working with a dodge ball. We don’t see much more than her materials, though. Suede is using a tablecloth accented with bright blue plastic doggie poop bags. Yeah. It’s as pretty as it sounds, and in his attempts to make it flashier, he keeps making it uglier. Korto is using a yellow tablecloth, and lots of it, to make a sort of dashiki/kimono shape. It’s actually interesting and she has a platter of kale, yellow bell peppers and cherry tomatoes waiting to be used as decoration.

Jerry’s shower curtain is lacking a wow factor, and Tim sends him back to work. Keith is using yet another tablecloth and Tim gets pissy. There are entirely too many tablecloths. The judges are going to see this and think you all are a bunch of slackers! INNOVATE!

Jerry can’t even contemplate going home in the first round, and redoubles his efforts to create fabulosity. Stella says that if she is the first designer eliminated, that will make her the biggest jackass in America. I say she’s already working the odds on that distinction, but that Blayne is going to give her some stiff competition, jackass-wise. He has the tanning addiction, he has the stupid knit hat with flair (aka buttons) and he is possessed of great heaps of the stupid, but Stella has the monotone from hell and the overworked, over-age punk aspect nailed.

MORNING HAS BROKEN

And we see, in the cold light of dawn, that Jerry has accessorized his white lab coat/raincoat with bright yellow rubber gloves. Someone points out that this gives the ensemble a whole “American Psycho” vibe. Blayne has to sew his model into the romper, and tries not to pierce her ladybits with the needle as he does so.

Off to the runway, where Heidi is wearing a silvery grey brocade dress that is basically vulva-length and a pair of totally killer spike heels. She looks great.

Kenley sends out something with balloons as fringe and baubles and a face-eating ruffle. Terell has used lawn chair webbing and trimmed the neckline of his dress with fleurchons of paper drink umbrella tops. The one sleeve is made of squishy spike balls. It’s colorful and cute. Korto’s kimono with the spectacular crudité neckline actually works. She’s used a cross section of yellow bell pepper as a belt buckle, even.

Jennifer has made a cocktail dress out of paper towels, creating a pattern of lipstick prints. It’s pretty ho-hum. Daniel’s cobalt blue cocktail dress made entirely out of plastic cups is a tour de force of workmanship, and his model, who seems slightly at risk of leaving the bodice behind every time she moves, works the hell out of it on the runway.

Terri claims to have crocheted her mop tops into a bodice, but it looks more like macramé or simple braiding to me. It is interesting, whichever process she used to create it.  Suede’s boring picnic cloth dress is still ugly and boring, but now with more blue spots. Stella’s black plastic bags have been sewn together with giant Frankenstein stitches and has side boob exposure. It is Santino without the whimsy and the wickety wack.

Wesley’s miniskirt is made from a yellow tablecloth, accessorized with cut down yellow rubber gloves and looks like a trim Big Bird. Kelli’s mini is amazing, and the midriff is studded with push-pins, and the whole thing finishes with an awful top made of scorched coffee filters. Keith has added netting to his tablecloth.

COMING TO THE END OF THE LINE

The designers are sorted into safe, and fabulous or doomed. The best and worst are: Daniel, Jerry, Korto, Stella, Kelli and Blayne. I think we all know which is which.

DanielLite is lauded for working with bravado and confidence, using something as stiff and unintuitive as plastic cups and making them into a cute, well tailored cocktail dresss. Austin says that he stood out for not using the easy fabric substitutes.

Jerry’s piece is described as a bridal nurse by Michael Kors, who also says it looks like Handi-wipes gone wrong or something you’d wear in a slasher movie to kill someone.

Korto is praised for her use of fresh vegetables, her chic sense of style and her workmanship. It is impeccably made, says NinaGarcia. The judges agree that it is the right girl in the right dress with the right look.

Stella is clocked for throwing any old piece of shit together just to have something on the runway. You took the easy way out and still failed, says Heidi. Butt ugly, agrees Michael Kors.

Kelli points out that the hook and eye fastener on the back of her dress was made from the spiral binding out of a notebook. MK is impressed by how far she could push the envelope.

Blayne says he didn’t want to bore the judges. NinaGarcia and MK almost jump out of their chairs in unison, both wagging their fingers at him as they say “Oh, you most certainly didn’t bore us.” MK says, was it provocative? Yes. Pretty? No. Austin Scarlett says that he wrote one word on his notes as Blayne’s girl walked out: HIDEOUS. Yep, I’d say that was the one word to use.

So. Karto, in. DanielLite, in. Blayne, his tan and his stupid knit hat, in (why?). Stella, in (why?). Jerry, out. No need to ask why. If Michael Kors says you’ve designed something to wear while killing someone in a slasher movie? Probably not a good look. That leaves Kelli our winner. I think her work on the skirt was masterful, but I really like Jerrell’s funky, colorful dress a lot more.

But that’s OK, because we still have the rest of the season to cut, sew and blog. Until next week, keep the scissors sharp.

This is a cheap Blogging 365 Entry, but it’s an SNL skit that makes me think, for the first time in years, that I ought to be watching the show.

Open, interior apartment morning.

Jillian is wearing her best Rosie-the-Riveter mini rompers. Christian is doing his hair. Rami is blissed out. Enough of that, we’re off to Parson’s work room.

There is much eyeball rolling and darting glances as our final three try to see what the others have. Rami allows as how Christian is surprised by the scope of Rami’s collection. Jillian shows Tim a striped, u-neck sweater with sleeves that look like she took the pelt off a Komondor. Or micro-fiber dust mop. Rami has toned down the garish baby-shit yellow of the collection he showed Tim. There’s some glamorous antique lace that is a two-piece evening dress. Christian offers up a caveat to Tim that not all the pieces in his collection are wearable. It is, however, all black, ivory and brown. He’s nervous, and not the odious little queen we’ve grown to love.

Christian interviews that Jillian’s collection is soooo innovative, and Rami is soooo good, that he just doesn’t know how he can compete with them. With the snarky wit and wicked fast sewing skills you’ve shown all season? We see the designers playing with each other’s designs, and Christian is wearing the most fabulous black felt cloche with a crest of black feathers. It’s very helmet-like, and at the same time evocative of Dior’s bubble hats from the 60s, and flappers’ cloches from the 20s. Miz Shoes would like to order one in several colors. Jillian is nervous about casting, because she’s never done it and Christian says it’s her own fault and too damned bad. There’s some amusing footage of the three designers all trying to hire the same girls. Christian says that he needs fierce tallness and walks for days. Tall and dark.

T MINUS 2 and counting

Collier Strong comes to do the hair and make-up. Rami is looking for chiseled faces and deep shadows. Christian is going for pale eyes and strong brows and mouths. Jillian wants natural but dramatic.

Rami interviews that everything Christian does is over the top. Can Christian design for real women, and not just models? Rami wonders. The models come in for their fittings and Christian is cramming his girls’ feet into 7 inch heels. They cannot walk in them, and Christian scorns them for their inability, saying that he wore them around his apartment for days and he was fine in them. This is not as funny as you would think. He is calling the models bitches and telling them to not be late, and not to eat; he wants them skinny. This isn’t as funny as one might hope, either. In fact, even Miz Shoes, the old fag hag that she is, is finding this a bit over much and a maybe more than a little rude.

Jillian is now in a dither, second guessing her model choices and calling the casting agency to switch up girls. She’s warned it might not happen, but this is the cycle of bunnies and rainbows and love, and so she gets her wish. Tim calls the designers together for a last “Gather round.” There are group hugs and everyone tells everyone else how much they love them and how talented they are and Tim Gunn sheds a perfectly formed tear.

SHOW TIME!

We approach Bryant Park in the dark, and Rami tells us that Bryant Park during Fashion Week is the heart that pumps the blood of the fashion industry in America. Dude. Word dat. We have another group hug.

Christian’s bitches are late, with the last girl wandering in with only 30 minutes to runway. Passive aggressive? Or just stupid, unprofessional and lame? We see Christian doing his hair ONE MORE TIME and he interviews that he kinda hopes he wins? Because there is nothing in the pipeline and he’s kinda out of options? Fierce.

As the entire world knows by now, the fabulous celebrity judge is no lesser a star than Posh. Mis Shoes considers stabbing herself in the eye with the little plastic cocktail sword which is holding her olives. She opts for just eating the olive.

Jillian’s collection is first. Jillian herself is wearing an adorable winter white, cable-knit, strapless, full skirted little dress. Her collection is coats, leggings, Apocalyptic Trench Coats, short anorak style coats with inside elbow cut-outs for emergency blood transfusions, a variation of her little gold final challenge dress, another coat, the Komondor-sleeved sweater, pleated little skirts and leggings. And maybe some other stuff that I didn’t see because JoJo, the dog of very little brain, jumped on the couch and did something to the remote control which turned off the teevee and made it almost impossible to get it back on and hooked up with the cable.

Rami comes out to introduce his collection and claims that it celebrates women. The blue coat with the weird-ass armored sleeved is sent out first. It’s an awful shade of blue, honestly. Then there is a suit with a tulip skirt and it’s boring and blue. An ugly baby doll. Then the dress that won the walk-off, the two-toned white on grey and grey on white polka-dotted heavily sculpted/draped dress. A blouse of the same dotted fabric, with puffy sleeves, and a leather bustier that looks sort of like the shape that Daniel V showed in season 2. Black and red, red and black. Jodhpurs with outlandishly large hip balloons. A dress with a quilted neck panel, and another gown in olive and bronze with a woven bodice. The two evening dresses, ivory with a fish tail, and the black with the hip pads that we saw him show Tim. The overall look is nice. I’m not crazy about his color usage. The RLA loved the colors, though. Of course, he’s a man and he acknowledged that the colors were traditional camouflage colors.

Christian bounces out and is (I sort of hate myself for saying this: adorable). He looks around at the tent and tells the audience that they all look fierce. Let the games begin. Tight black pants and an over the top cropped jacket with puffy sleeves. And another one. And another one. And a ginormous Breakfast at Tiffany’s hat with the foofy, organza petal, neck thing that Tim thought was a skirt. Peach skinny pants. A brown/beige/ivory sort of vertical version of the Avant Garde challenge dress. Pretty amazing. The last look, which is feathers and ivory and gold and chiffons and what’s another word for over the top? Crazy fabulous. Posh keeps poking Michael Kors and stage whispering that she loves this. Ya think?

Back at the Parsons runway room, the designers face off with the judges. Michael Kors tells Jillian that she made knitwear exciting. I guess. I still want the dress she was wearing. I’m not sure that anyone with arms larger than toothpicks could wear that Komondor sweater. NinaGarcia thinks that she had too many looks. Posh doesn’t say anything worth noting.

Christian, on the other hand, gets told that he’s MAJAH. Oh, hoho. Is that her trademark phrase? Who fucking cares? Fucking POSH SPICE was the best they could do? Why couldn’t we have had Roberto Cavalli for our final judge? I’d rather have seen Gwen Stephani up there. Anyway, Posh loves him and he loves her and offers to dress her anytime and she says OK, and you know she just wanted to stuff him in her pocket and take him home right then and there. NinaGarcia brings us back to earth by saying it was a tad repetitive and there was too much black.

Rami gets the love from NinaGarcia, but Michael Kors tells him that the colors he used sucked. And they did. I cast a triumphant eye over at the RLA when Michael made his declaration. NinaGarcia mangles the English language one last time by telling Rami that the area where he “really shined” was eveningwear.

With the designers back in the green room, the judges decide that Jillian’s show was accessible and feminine, but that she hasn’t really found her voice yet. Christian opened strong and kept going. NinaGarcia thinks that his work is overwrought and needs to look effortless, but the all agree he walks what he talks. Rami is given the brainy, cerebral tag, and NinaGarcia understates that maybe Rami has a challenge with color.

The winner is Christian, and I get the feeling that he, for all his fierceness and bravado, didn’t expect to. I suddenly love him to pieces. He cries. I love him more. Rami is a gracious loser. Jillian. not quite so much. Heidi kisses our little Christian and tells him he is “uber fierce.” And he is. We end with Christian telling us that he’s off for a breakybreak, cause gurl needs a vaycay. I miss him already.

Next week? Only ANTM, which is trash to this treasure.

It’s the Reunion Show on Project Runway, that zany episode where all the auffed contestants get to come back and talk shit to the finalists, and we get to see all the really crazy shit that ended up on the cutting room floor.

The show starts with Kit Pistol and Elisa talking about the fan mail they get from kids. Of course Kit would be the favorite contestant of the eight and under crowd. She looks like she still dots her “i’s” with little hearts, and probably carries a Hello Kitty purse. In fact, she’s wearing opera-length fingerless ivory gloves. Elisa, on the other hand, says that her fan mail comes from little girls who tell her she’s shown them that they can be different, and it’s O.K.

She says that. I don’t know that I believe her, because (jumping ahead a little here) when she gets her five minutes of flashback, never-before-seen footage, we realize that the editors were actually being kind and generous in their portrayal of her in the footage that did air.

When she says she took a blow to the head, I’m thinking it wasn’t the Porsche in London, but maybe she was dropped on her head as a baby. Girlfriend is scary out to lunch. Remember the spit marking? They didn’t show us that there was an incantation that went with it. Or the anti-bad vibes spritzer she used on her clothes. Or the vast and complex language of grunts and fwooshes and twitters and whatnot that she used…to Tim Gunn. But I get ahead of myself. Sweet P says that the best part of being on the show is being recognized and talked to by celebrities. Which celebrities? Jack Black, who told her she was his favorite. How cool. Jack Black watches Project Runway. Jack Black has the good taste to love on the P.

Anyway, out come the four finalists, and Christian is first. Heidi teases him about his hair, and he admits that he did it four times before he was happy with its fierceness. Jillian flounces out in patterned hose and a cute little mini-dress. Rami does some weird snaps behind the scrim and sweet, Chris March just shambles out.

We are treated to a replay of the final challenge when Rami and Chris learn that they will have to go mano a mano against each other, and there is a close up of Rami sort of stroking the back of Chris’ hand. In fact, there is a lot of touching and stroking throughout the hour between the two of them. Now. I love me that big ole’ Sweety Bear Chris, and my love of Rami’s Heavenly Arms is well documented. Did the two of them become an item behind our backs? I would love it. Because, really and come on, stank attitude or not, Rami is a hottie, and Chris, while sweet and loveable, is not. Wouldn’t it just be the best for Chris to score with the likes of Rami of the Heavenly Arms?

Recap of Jack (speaking of heavenly arms) leaving, and his propensity for sleeping in the nude, to the chagrin of Kevin, who is still straight, and would like to remind everyone that this is so. Montage of Kevin being straight moments. This brings us to the “you have no fucking idea exactly HOW whack Elisa is” montage. The crowning moment of which is the revelation that she writes backwards in her journal because of her childhood crush on Da Vinci. She tells Heidi that “Project Runway” backwards? Is YAWNER. That’s right, she repeats, in case we weren’t clear on how dissed we were getting: YAWN-UR. And cut.

The next montage is of Little Emo Boy Ricky and his stupid crying and his even stupider, little twee hats, one of which he is, of course, wearing for the reunion show. It looks like it was made out of Raspberry Fruit Leather. With black patent trim. It is, if it is at all possible, perhaps the ugliest, twee-est hat yet. Amazingly, even though we are all forced to watch him weep and cry and leak tears for at least five solid minutes, not a tear is shed (at least by him) on this night. He also defends his weepiness by saying that the waterworks surprised him as well, as he didn’t know he would get on teevee and “cry like a woman.” Hmmph. No? Well, you break just like a little girl. Rami, trying to prove that the Totally Stank Attitude was a fluke of stress, and that he really is sweet, says that he finds beauty and something or other in Ricky’s tears. Salt, Rami, and it reminds you of the Dead Sea, back home.

The closest we get to drama comes next, when Heidi or Tim asks the designers how they felt when they finally saw what the others said about them. Proving why they said what they did about her, Carmen gets all snippy about how nobody was sorry to see her leave. The designers try to be nice and suck up. Too little too late huffs Carmen.

Long montage of Chris’ laughter, with side notes of Jillian saying that his laugh got old fast, and other designers (and Heidi) trying to duplicate it. There is a shot of him in the Temple of Dendur, and boyhowdee, in an empty museum space of such volume? That shit echoes.

NinaGarcia and Michael Kors stop in for a little face time, and we get to see MK lose it over the wrestling divas.  It’s pretty amazing. He could not get it together and keep a straight face for a minute. I understand. The designers get to explain their wrestling diva names and signature moves. Then Heidi asks Tim what his diva name would be and he says (wait for it…) Polly Syllabicus. Miz Shoes howls with laughter as the crickets sound and the designers look blankly at Tim. NinaGarcia tells us that she has been called Meana Garzilla when fans of the show meet her in public. Well, that’s a little harsh, non?

Proving that he’s as good a sport as anyone, we get to see what Michael Kors looked like in the 70s and 80s. Holy tousled blonde curls, Batman, what happened to him? Too much time at Studio 54? Not to be outdone, Heidi gets her own greatest hits reel, and we see that she still has a hard time with English. And maybe speaking in a register that human ears can hear.

The rest of the reunion is even more drama-free and boring. Finally, we get to see who the fan favorite was/is, and it is Christian. By a landslide, says Heidi. Rilly? That annoying yet enormously talented little twit was the fan favorite? Eh. I would have thought Sweet P or Chris, which is why Miz Shoes does recaps on her virtually unknown blog, and not on Television Without Pity. Previous fan favorite, Mychael Knight (who has gotten his braces off and is launching a fragrance) presents the Big Check and then it’s Christian’s montage. We see him trying on every flouncy, puffy-sleeved thing he made. We see him annoying the other designers. We see him say “fierce” at least one hundred times. Fierce, Fabulous and Flawless, he says.

P picks Rami for the win. Steven goes with Christian or Jillian. Carmen says she thinks it’ll be Rami, not because he’s the best but because he would be the most palatable to the American public. Snap! And that’s why nobody missed you, Miss Thang. Kit opts for Jillian, Victorya for Christian, Marion for Rami. Jack is last and says it’s anybody’s game, and y’know? It just might be Chris. Miz Shoes kinda hopes so.

Next week: Tim visits the designers at home, and Rami and Chris have a muthafuckin walkoff.

I need to apologize in advance, but the RLA came home just as the show was starting and he was in a chatty mood, so I missed the first five minutes of dialog. Then he settled down and I only missed things sporadically throughout.

OPEN: INTERIOR: DAY

We’re with the girls and Sweet P is really happy that it was Ricky who got the axe last week, and not her. She was also really surprised that it happened that way, because she was sure that she’d be packing her bags. Oh, the sweet sting of foreshadowing. And then the RLA started talking and the only thing that shut him up was the vision of Heidi in a really big wig and cute dress, coming out on the runway to do model selection.

Chris keeps his model and there is no muthafuckin’ walk-off. Heidi tells the designers that there will be one final field trip, one final challenge and then two of them will be auff’ed tonight. Oooooooo. Drama. The field trip will be to 5th Ave. and 82nd Street, and I immediately get my East Side/West Side dyslexia and chirp: Oh! Are they going to Bloomingdale’s? And the answer is no, idiot, they are going to the Met.

On the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art the designers meet Tim and Miz Shoes gets all twitterpated, because in the background is a banner for the Poiret show down in the Fashion Basement. But alas and alack, this is not to be.

The designers enter the Greek and Roman Sculpture Gallery and Rami of the Heavenly Arms and Totally Stank Attitude gets a full-on draping chubby. They are completely alone in the museum, well, except for Tim and the camera crew, and Tim explains the challenge. We have chosen three galleries to open for you: The Greek and Roman Sculpture Gallery, the European Paintings and the Temple of Dendur. Take your cameras; photograph things that inspire you. Pick one item and use it to create a couture vision. You have x amount of time. (Sorry, the RLA was yapping, so it was half an hour or 45 minutes.) Predictably, Rami doesn’t even leave the Greek and Roman statuary. He comes up to a sculpture of Aphrodite (sans head) and declares that it is a “soulmate situation” and that he need look no further. This is his love, his life, his inspiration, his schtick. OK. Maybe he didn’t say the last one.

In the European paintings, Christian, Chris, Sweet P and Jillian all find their directions. Christian is inspired by a portrait of a Spanish something or other. He says that it is a military portrait, but I don’t see that. I just see black and severe and nobleman. I can understand why it drew him in, and it certainly had a lot to work from. Chris is drawn to a French portrait of a noblewoman in pewter and oyster-colored satin. It, too, has a great deal of drama and could be the starting point of something big.

We next see the designers in the Temple of Dendur , and none of them, in Miz Shoes opinion, is suitably impressed. I was at the Temple when it opened for the King Tut exhibit. It’s outrageous. You have these enormous windows overlooking the park, letting in all this light, and you have an entire Egyptian temple/tomb that was lifted up out of the Valley of the Kings and set down in the middle of Manhattan, two or three stories up. People. Get a fucking grip. This is where you should have been taking pictures. Instead, we get Chris making a joke about Joan (Crawford or Rivers, I missed it thanks to the happy commentary the RLA was delivering on the other end of the couch) scratching her name on one of the pillars when she was a little girl.

I HAVE YOUR PICTURE

Back at Parsons, we get to see the designers’ choices. Chris’ painting he thinks looks like Zorro. I suppose. Rami has his draped Aphrodite, P has chosen a painting of a peacock, and has some yummy satins in ocher, teal and a rusty red, along with a muted print that contains all of those colors. It’s yummy, yes, but it isn’t saying peacock to me.

Jillian has chosen a military painting, too. Hers is the Master of the Argonauts, and it’s one of those great early Renaissance pieces where something historical is painted in the clothing style of the period and the patron is inserted as one of the main characters. When I was in college, I always wanted to paint a crucifixon, with a graduate student on the cross, and all the professors as the centurions and onlookers, in totally modern garb.  But I digress. Jillian has fastened on to a man in a black coat, brocaded in gold, seated on horseback. She’s going to make a coat. Are you shocked?

Rami is draping the hell out of some purple fabric. Ho. Hum. Jillian is pressing pleats for three hours. Christian is giving her shit for it. They are over each other in a big way. P asks Jillian for help in drafting her neckline and Jillian sweetly tells her that at this stage of the competition, honey, you need to be doing it your own self.

 

So she does. And the models come in for fitting, except for P’s because she’s having some sort of personal crisis. Hey, unless you get hit by a bus, ain’t nothing should be keeping you from Parsons. Bitch. Jillian’s model is doing some weird new-agey hand jive to send her peace, tranquility and the winning lottery numbers. Where’s Elisa? Christian is creating an entire collection around his idea: giant, puffy shirt, cropped little jacket (SHOCKING!) and tight pants. In black. It’s just so totally like nothing he’s ever done before, right?

Rami just keeps draping shit and saying over and over and over that just because his design isn’t screaming and loud, doesn’t mean it isn’t fabulous. No. The fact that it’s just the millionth variation on the same old theme is what makes it less than fabulous.

Christian trash talks Chris for doing something so evocative of the design they did together. Jillian has finished her jacket (not an Apocalyptic Trench Coat, but a short, fitted jacket with a peplum and some fancy cutout in the back over the nipped waist). OK. OK. It’s really nice. There. Are you happy now? I said it was nice. Of course, her dress isn’t even started.

The L’Oreal Make Up Guy, Collier Strong, comes in to do the makeup look with the designers. Eyes. Eyebrows. Big hair. Androgeny. There are four hours left till the end of the day. P still hasn’t seen her model and is in a panic. Chris is happy with what he’s got and goes off to take a nap. Christian dissses him for that. We get to see Chris sleeping and snoring on the sofa in the break room. Nice, editor guys. Make fun of the fat, snoring person. It’s not like a person can help it if they snore, you know. Miz Shoes is just a little defensive about the snoring thing. Christian expounds on his history: Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, blah blah, I’m so European in my aesthetic, blah blah.

Tim arrives and has a minor stroke at finding Chris asleep. You can’t be done! Is it wowable? SHOW ME!!! And then he pokes a hole in Chris’ confidence, or at least tries to, and tells him to add more shit and at the same time, make the garment more refined. Chris owns it, but Tim’s worried.

Tim then rounds on Christian, and questions the mini-cape-jacket thing. “Is it an obfuscation? In term of cohesion? Does it make sense?” Christian assures Tim that it does make sense, that he has created a look out of separates.

P is the next designer under the Gunn, and is told to make it more exuberant, more apparent that it’s a peacock. Jillian has produced yet another fine looking jacket and needs to do a lot more work before she is ready for the runway. Which leaves…Rami, who says that his dress is stunning. Tim, however, reminds Rami that NinaGarcia is going to pass out from boredom if she sees another draped schmata from him. Rami says, hey! You people gave me the challenge and put me in the museum with Greek and Roman sculptures of togas. What do you want? I’m a draping junkie. Don’t ask me to put down the draping. I need the draping. Or, at least, that’s what I heard.

With two hours to midnight, P’s model wanders in. The dress fits, but there is still so much to do. Wah. They all go home.

SHOWTIME

It’s the morning of the runway and Christian is making sure that his hair is extra fierce and fabulous. This involves random blow drying and ironing. Meh. Back to Parsons, where P dashes straight to her sewing machine. Jillian and Rami discuss how and if they will kick ass today. Tim tells them all that they need to bring the magic! Knock NinaGarcia’s shoes clear across the runway! Make it work! Rally!

Jillian engages in a little smack talk about Christian’s “marshmallowy” poufy, extravaganza of organza. Chris says that going to Bryant Park would be like winning the lottery, and he’s not counting on it, but he’s not counting it out, either. Way to be decisive there, big guy. Jillian has a nervous breakdown regarding a broken iron that won’t steam, and then tries to steam her garment right on her model. Nice. She also cuts the hem on her model and then panics a little more because the hem looks like crap. P’s model has feathers in her hair. P is cutting threads. Everyone is nervous.



Heidi is on the runway, looking as amazing as ever. Sigh. I think I have a little bit of a girl crush on Heidi. The guest judge tonight is Roberto Cavalli. Wow. He requires sub-titles.



Chris’ giant collar and drapery and bows comes out. Then Christian’s over the top androgynous black and white. The hat on his model comes down all the way to the middle of her nose. So much for her exaggerated eyebrows. Rami’s draped grape. P’s sorta cool dress which is hardly haute, and not couture. Jillian’s sharp looking jacket comes off to reveal a mini-toga in gold lame.

Cavalli is impressed with Christian. He knows how to show. He is impressed with the whole male/female play. He loves when the jacket comes off to show the puffy shirt.

Cavalli is more impressed with Chris. He flat out says to Chris that he is the most artistic of the five designers. I can see you in Paris doing haute couture. The other judges are all, Meh. Seen it. Roberto stands by his statement, and praises Chris once more. HAH! Take that!

NinaGarcia says of Jillian that she consistently surprises in a good way. Cavalli offers her a position on his staff. Jillian says she’d be honored…because being on Ralph Lauren’s staff is a shit job, right?

Cavalli is disappointed in P. It is too commercial. This is what you put in your showroom, not on the runway.

And Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude and yet still Heavenly Arms gets his drapery handed to him on a pita bread platter. Too normal, says Cavalli. Kors expected more, not more predictable draping. NinaGarcia wanted to see him come out of his box.

The designers are sent backstage and the final confabulations take place. Jillian gets more praise for her jackets. Christian is seen as having the whole package: he can give you an over-the-top, emotional piece for the runway and turn it into a workable, real life garment. The judges agree that for an obnoxious and still green little twit, the boy has some serious and enviable style chops.

P can make dresses that every woman would want to wear. This is called damning with faint praise.

The other judges want to toss Chris out for doing the same outrageous collar that they saw in the couture challenge, but Roberto is having none of that. I saw ART, he states. He is my number one. He has drama in his blood, admits NinaGarcia, grudgingly. He IS a showman. And Cavalli just says again, that this, my friends, is real couture, drama and fashion. Ppppbbbbbbttttt.

Rami can drape and make a technically good design. But he doesn’t take risks. So.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE

Christian wins, and (although it hurts to admit it) rightfully so. Jillian and her never-ending series of coats and jackets, is in. P, although the judges love her and believe in her talent, is out. So. Rami has consistently safe and well-made work. Chris brings the dram llama, but he did the same thing twice, and the judges wanted to see change. Not so much change that they ever said anything even once to little Princess Puffy Sleeves. She of the fierce, cropped, ruffled and slightly leg-o-mutton sleeved jackets.

Although they would rather he not be, Chris is in. (Thank you Mr. Cavalli.) But, since Cavalli wouldn’t budge on Chris, and the other designers wouldn’t budge on Rami, there is a deadlock. Both Rami and Chris will go off and produce a line, and when they all get back to New York, the judges will look again, and see who gets to have a real show, and who gets to be a decoy.

Miz Shoes is a little disgruntled about this, but thrilled that Chris gets a show, one way or another. Next week? Reunion, and everybody talks smack to each other’s face. Good times.

OPEN: MORNING: INTERIOR

Morning at the girls’ apartment and Jillian is telling Sweet P that Fashion Week absolutely cannot be an all-boys affair. The girls must gird loins and be fabulousness incarnate to the death.

Over in the boys’ cabana, Christian is holding forth, as usual about what a tragedy that rag of Ricky’s was, and how his ruffle wasn’t even seamed, but attached. Quel horror!

With the introduction out of the way, we are whisked to the runway where Heidi is her usual dazzling self in a little cocktail dress.  There are models, there are choices. Ricky stays with his stupid little twee hat and his girl, the other model is sent away. Heidi asks if the designers are ready for their next challenge. They cautiously say yes. Heidi laughs and tells them ain’t that a shame, because the challenge ain’t ready for you. See you tomorrow. Have a nice day.

We meet the designers the following morning in the workroom. Tim sweeps in and tells them they are going on yet another field trip. Christian demands that it be someplace fabulous and fierce. Tim assures him that it will be. They go downstairs to the runway auditorium.

RING AROUND THE ROSIE RAG

Loud noises, banging, thumping, and screams. P describes them thusly: Crazy war noises…Scary, killing people noises. Rami and Jillian are also leery. Christian calls the racket “sex moans.” Miz Shoes, in all her years, has never heard any sex noises like that, unless it came from a particularly large cat in heat , tossing garbage cans and pursued by an even larger, and possibly rabid, raccoon. Miz Shoes wonders anew about our little Christian.

The doors are thrown open and we see: The Divas of the WWE. Chris, with admirable sang froid, says that there are six women, wrestling, pulling hair, kicking…pretty great, actually. And he snickers.

The women introduce themselves, and explain their professional wrestling personas. There is Maria, who is rock-glam. There is Layla, who is a pretty limber dancer/wrestler, as she shows off a very high kick. There are two girls who claim to be the girl next door, and another who is a sex kitten, but “classy”.

The challenge will be to design something for each of these women to wear in the ring.  The designers get to chose who they want to design for. Ricky goes first and picks the dancer. P gets the classy sex kitten. Jillian and Rami take the girls next door. Maria goes to Chris, and Christian takes the girl whose schtick escapes me, but seems to be another sex/rock/glam thing.

Christian’s girl tells him she likes leather and lace, and he is transported immediately into a world of leather chaps with lace cutouts. This is a pairing made in one of the nether regions of heaven. Ricky is all about a one-piece with ruching, and I see the lipstick on the wall.  Chris and his wrestler are another pair. He likes leopard, she like leopard. He likes over the top trannies, she may be one. It’s all good. P is a little overwhelmed by her wrestler, whose whole gimmick is the “robe and reveal”… what ever that may be, but it does come up several times in the episode. It seems to be her signature move: come out into the ring covered up in a big ole robe, and whip it open to reveal…her wrestling onesie. Sparkly and over the top is what her model wants, much to P’s chagrin.

Rami has chosen Barbie-On-Acid magenta/pink spandex for his Girl Next Door Wrestler, and acknowledges that the color is a love it or hate it, make or break with the judges, but that he’s sure he can drape a pair of hot pants that they’ll love.

Christian tells P that her outfit looks like “tranny ice cream” and he’s not sure about the feather boa. P isn’t sure either, but once more she grimly faces the confessional-cam and says that she’s not letting a trailer-trash aesthetic take her out.

KUNG-FU FIGHTING

Day two opens with Jillian dropping her mannequin with a single kick-boxing move. Who knew? Chris is just happy as a tranny in Cher drag over this challenge and is sewing along with his sparkly black spandex and green leopard skin. His vision is “animal in a cage.”

All of a sudden, P realizes that she hasn’t arm wrestled anyone yet. How could this be? She calls out to Christian “Come over here you skinny little twit,” and the two of them get down to some arm wrasslin. In the biggest shock of the episode, he beats her, and then says to the room that “I’m a beast you guys, you just don’t know…” No, but calling the noises of six women in an open ring free for all “sex moans” should have been the first tip.

Tim brings in the models for a fitting and Chris and his model are locked in a love fest over the leopard and black shiny stuff. Christian and his model are equally enraptured with the lace cutouts in her pleatherette chaps. Predictably, he makes her a little jacket with puffy sleeves to go over the top. In more ways than one. But, she loves it. Christian tells us that: “it’s really kinda amazing? She’s rilly fierce, and I’ve met some fierce bitches.”

P’s model, however, is less than thrilled with P’s work. She complains that it is no more than what she could find at any old Strippers Am Us. She wants star-shaped cut-outs over the ass, she wants more, more, more rhinestones and sequins. She wants it all, and she wants it all in one outfit.

Ricky is making a one-piece bathing suit out of orange lycra, with gold braided straps and gold o-rings. Tim is less than blown away. In fact, his jaw is hanging a bit slack in disbelief. He manages to say merely that he is “worried” and “concerned”.

Ricky asks Christian for a snap. Miz Shoes kind of expected Christian to give Ricky a big hand circle finger snap, but he gives Ricky the little fastener he asked for, all the while confessionalizing that he didn’t want to, but Ricky’s piece is just a bathing suit and sucks so bad anyway, what’s the dif. Let him hang hisownself. Tim says that Ricky’s piece looks a little Wonder Woman. Chris looks up from his work station with a look that clearly says, Oh, doesn’t Ricky just wish it did.

Tim tells Rami that the color he’s chosen is iffy, and that he’d hate to see it be Rami’s downfall, but Rami just rolls his eyes and thinks, like that’ll happen. Over at P’s mannequin, Tim is telling her that the bra top looks unrefined and the whole ensemble sort of reeks of Eva Gabor in “Green Acres” and that he really doesn’t want to see her get sent home, either. At all. In fact, Tim shows a great deal of concern and personal affection towards P. Now P’s crying and saying that she isn’t giving her client what she wants because what she wants is criminal, and yet, what she is giving her, the judges are going to hate anyway, and that she is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Actually, what she says is that she’s stuck in a Catch-22, and Miz Shoes wonders if P or anyone else in that room (other than the excellent Tim Gunn) have even read Catch-22.

Chris indulges in a little bitchy back stabbing as he asks about Rami’s hot pink micro shorts, “What are the judges going to say? What can they say? What is Nina Garcia going to say about hot pink spandex pants?” And then he collapses into giggles over the whole concept.

The models come in for their last fitting. P’s girl wants more rhinestones. Christian’s girl is thrilled with her S&M chaps. Chris’ girl calls hers a Superhero outfit. Miz Shoes shudders to imagine what that super power might be, but thinks cracking coconuts between her thighs might play into it somewhere. Ricky’s girl shows off an orange bathing suit with a sequined mini-tent cover up.  Jillian is showing off an electric blue and white strappy thing that’s actually quite good, as rock and roll wrestling clothes go. Rami’s model is happy with her Barbie pink outfit and Jillian is still sewing as Tim calls everyone to the runway.

The guest judges this week are Richie Rich and Traver Rains of Heatherette. The RLA kept asking who and what, exactly they are, and what, exactly their line looks like and has he ever seen anyone wearing it. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask and no.

ROLLING AND TUMBLING

The women of the WWE stomp (and not in a good way) down the runway. We finally see the whole of Christian’s outfit, and true to his design sense, not only are there puffy sleeves on the bolero, but there are ruffles on the ankles of the chaps, as well. Except for that bit of excess, his is a very hott, very successful look for the wrestling ring. Jillian’s girl is wearing thigh-high white spats that give the whole look this sort of Dirty Alice in Wonderland feel. It’s kind of hott.

Ricky’s girl drags her unhappy ass down the catwalk in her ugly orange bathing suit, and even uglier sequined mini-tent. Chris’ Sheena of the Punk Jungle comes out and sells the shit out of his outfit. She is showing some major love, and when she whips off the little leopard hoodie to reveal the black spangled lining, you can hear even NinaGarcia swoon. Hell, Miz Shoes would wear that hoodie.

P’s girl comes out and does the Robe & Reveal and meh. The last model is Rami’s WWE Wrestling Diva Barbie, wearing a draped micro skating skirt over her boy shorts.

The judges make these judgements: Michael Kors thinks that Jillian’s sexy tomboy next door has sizzle and plays a riff on a classic look. Rami’s flirty girl next door had no reference to the Americana theme, and NinaGarcia hated the color. Christian’s outfit was much loved (Miz Shoes bets that Richie Rich tried it on after the show) and it is seen as a sort of Prince/Purple Rain era look. P went for Retro Glamour Girl, and failed: it wasn’t dramatic enough for her client. Chris’ girl is the “Kiss-Cam” girl (who knew?) and the judges are amazed that he was able to make glitter spandex look expensive. Michael Kors notes, with some dryness, that he doesn’t think that Chris was as challenged by this challenge as the other designers. No? And Ricky comes in last with a universally despised tent and orange bathing suit.

Further discussion among the judges finds that Christian’s outfit was somehow sexy without being trashy. And really, in a lineup of assless, leather and lace chaps, these would be the nicest.  NinaGarcia says that her first favorite was Jillian’s costume, and Miz Shoes can totally see NinaGarcia in those white pleather thigh highs. Tragically, Ricky missed the boat – yet again- and the awful mini-tent is dismissed by Michael Kors as a funky, disco hair-cutting smock. Rami’s costume is labled a frou-frou Paris Hilton wannbe (oooh, sting!) and P is called out for giving her girl a Vargas disco ball when she wanted a Zigfield costume.

Jillian is in, Chris is the winner and Christian bares his teeth in what is supposed to be a happy-for-the-other-guy smile, but looks more like he’s getting a tattoo and trying to be butch for his friends. The judges try to make up for his loss by telling him that he did a good job. That and a show in Bryant Park, bitches. Rami is in. P and Ricky are the bottom two, and even though P’s work had no drama, the judges and the viewing audience have had quite enough of Ricky’s stupid little twee hats and constant weepy drama and we finally and at overdue last get to say good riddance by to Little Emo Boy. Quite unpredictably, Ricky does not cry at his auffing.

Next week, another field trip and Jillian is still sewing/gluing when Tim calls the models to the runway.

MORNING: OPEN ON GIRLS’ DORM

We see Victorya making coffee, and calling to her roommate “Kit, are you going to have more coffee?” Except, oops, not Kit, that’s Sweet P, who kind of whines, “I’m P, not Kit.” And then we repeat the exercise, this time with a sandwich instead of coffee. Kit, would you like? I’m not Kit, I’m P.

Let’s discuss. Is Victorya being super-creepy passive aggressive and trying to get under P’s skin? Or is it just that all bleached blonde, blue-eyed white women look the same to Victorya?  Or both?

Well, it doesn’t matter, because we’re off to see the boys, where they are discussing how their apartment is the only one with all the original occupants. Do we care? Ricky is sniveling about being in the bottom two again and how nobody likes him or his work. Here’s a clue, Nellie, take off the stupid, fugly little twee hats and butch up a little. Oh, and another clue? Make something that doesn’t suck.

Off to Parson’s to see Heidi, choose models and hear about the next challenge. Christian turfs last week’s model and takes back the model that got stolen from him. I think. Really, I have no idea with these girls. I know that Jillian’s model wears glasses when she’s not on the runway and can sew by hand, and that is about it for me and the models. Maybe next season I’ll care enough to learn their names. Or not.

As for the challenge, well, Tim is taking everyone on a field trip, so scoot. And they do, complaining all the way. A field trip, Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude tells us, can be something fabulous like a trip to Paris, or something tragic, where you end up in a garbage can, trying to find stuff to make a wedding dress. He frets and pouts. Although we don’t see it, I’m sure that Ricky is crying.

ON THE WATERFRONT

Into a van and then over the river and through the boroughs, to a warehouse on the waterfront we go. Another warehouse on the river? Is this another trash challenge? Oooh, that’ll go over big. But no, there is a woman, and she is Caroline Calvin, and she is the Vice President of Design for Levi’s. The warehouse door slowly rises to reveal… well, Jillian doesn’t even want to know what’s behind door number one. But in the end what’s behind the door is a warehouse of gigantic proportions, with multitudes of clotheslines like spider webs throughout the space, on which, Tim tells us, is more than 500 pairs of Levi’s 501 jean products and bolts of white cotton. The designers have three minutes to sprint across the acreage, scooping up denim and white cotton and stuffing it into laundry bags.

P loses one flip-flop. Chris hates life. Rami-OTTSA makes a point of only taking the dark washes. Jillian takes all the lightest jackets and jeans. Christian takes the dark? and the jackets? And Victorya steals stuff from Chris, rationalizing her behaviour as being highly competitive in a competition. Although Miz Shoes didn’t think it was possible given the vastness of the space and the short amount of time, the designers manage to strip the clotheslines bare.

IN THE WHITE ROOM

In the workroom, Tim shows the designers the heaps and piles of baggies of notions from Levi’s: buttons, snaps, zippers, labels, and although I didn’t see it, I’m sure that there were spools of the signature gold thread. The designers have twelve hours to make a new iconic denim look. Ricky, wearing one of his stupid little twee hats, tells us that this is going to be fun for him (for a change) because he makes some of his hats (OH, NOES!!) from denim. And he’s going to play to his strengths (he has any?) and make a corset dress.

Jillian, riding high on last week’s spectacular and spectacularly received Apocalyptic Trench Coat (band auditions coming soon) will make a futuristic jacket and use the little red tabs as epaulets.

Rami gives us some background on himself: blah, blah, blah, Jerusalem, political hot spot, three religions, blah, blah, blah, fashion forward from the age of five because of that, blah, blah, blah.

P laments that her denim is filthy because she let it hit the ground in that warehouse, and asks Chris, whom she says is smart about this stuff, how he would recommend getting the dirt out/off. Chris tells her to make up the garment, then damp wipe it. Christian tosses in his two cents and says not to wet the fabric, because then the dirt will absorb. Then Chris and Christian proceed to get into a pissing match over who knows better and it ends just short of Christian calling Chris a big fat doo-doo head.

We are then treated to a way-too-long montage of all the idiosyncrasies of the various designers. Chris says that Christian needs to be given his bottle and sent to bed. Christian opines that he is going to and I quote: “die of barfness.” Then he whines that this is not how fashion really is. Oh, really? You think? A reality teevee show isn’t like real life? Miz Shoes has to fan herself a little and think about that.

Victorya is going to make a classic trench coat. Jillian is pissed about this and whispers heatedly that Victorya is stealing her shit from last week when they worked together on the Apocalyptic Trench Coat.

Christian says that working with denim makes him feel so manly. Miz Shoes chokes on her martini, and almost misses him announcing that he’s going to make a fierce, edgy biker jacket for women. Who wants to bet that this will include some ruffles and/or tucks and that it will be cropped?

P wants to make a denim wedding dress, and we see her wedding photo from a year or so ago, and let me tell you, that woman must have been spending days per week at the tattoo parlor, or her husband is a tattoo artist, because none of the ink she’s sporting now is visible in her wedding pix.

Christian is chirping about how only the annoying people are left, and he isn’t a happy little camper, and in walks Ricky. Schnort. Christian hones the point by interviewing that Ricky has no vision, and that he should have been sent home, not Kit. And the rest of America, hating itself for having to agree with such an annoying little queen, agrees. Ricky is then given face time to make his case, and he tell us that he used to be the Vice President of design for Vera Wang lingerie. Really? Did you cry all the time there, too? And did Vera let you wear those stupid little twee hats at the office?

P and Christian look into the other workroom, where Chris is working by himself. P asks Christian if he thinks Chris is lonely, and he says, no, not at all, he’s talking to his dress form. Cut to Chris, who is, in fact, talking to the garment, and he tells us that he’s making an iconic Little Black Dress. But in blue denim.

WHEN THE WHIP COMES DOWN

Tim enters and does his grand tour of the workroom. He starts with Ricky and says he loves it. Miz Shoes checks to see if a combination of TheraFlu and vodka is a hallucinogen.

Tim asks Chris why his dress has a raw edge on it. Chris says because he likes it. Tim says that it is incongruous and he isn’t so sure about it. Miz Shoes kind of likes it, but Miz Shoes is not a judge.

Jillian has a long way to go, as always. And her piece is looking awfully familiar. Rami has used zippers to create a binding on his seams. Tim thinks that this is terribly innovative and that this has the potential to blow away the judges. Miz Shoes calls foul and jumps up and down on the couch, saying ORIGINAL? INNOVATIVE? Have you already forgotten that Jeffrey-The-Pinheaded-Shmoo did that last year on his green awning striped dress? NOT INNOVATIVE, DERIVATIVE!!!!!

Victorya is looking a little “patchwacky”. And P? Well, Tim says that it’s looking “happy hands at home granny circle”. He tells her to “resolve the skirt”. P blanches, and then tells us that she takes Tim’s advice to heart, and promptly cuts the bottom of her wedding dress off and rethinks the whole project.

Jillian is having a nervous breakdown, whining about the lack of time, like this is a new condition, and crying and saying that she’s cut herself (on purpose? Miz Shoes wonders) and when Rami comes over to see the blood (and lap it up? Miz Shoes wonders) there is, in fact, none. She’s in a total panic and someone (Chris? P?) tells her that she can freak out all she wants in ten minutes, but to put a sock in it until the little hand and the big hand line up. Christian sighs that he is sooooo glad that he has immunity this week.

IT’S A NEW DAWN, IT’S NEW DAY

In the boys’ room, Rami is spritzing his face. The girls are getting ready to leave. Then there we are at the workroom, and Jillian is sprinting in her heels (good for her) towards her mannequin and we see the denim version of last week’s near-win. Only, not as good. Nowhere near as good. Victorya is adding an inside out skirt to the bottom of a totally off-the-rack jacket.

Ricky is cooing over his dress and doing the finishing. It may not be what the judges want, says Ricky, but it is what Ricky wants.  P is sure that she’ll be safe with her dress. She’s done some amazing stuff with the different washes, using them to define the outline of the dress.

Jillian and Victorya are hating each other and each other’s work, and whispering that the other one stole their idea. Ho-fucking-hum. Christian has made a jacket and a pair of jeans, and he tells us that he will just puke if he sees another tube dress. People are hot-gluing like there is no tomorrow. Oh. There isn’t. There also is absolutely no more time, and once again, Tim is standing in the doorway, telling Jillian to move out NOW!!!

IT’S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE

Heidi takes the runway in a fabulous shimmery brown baby doll dress, and tells the designers that the competition is getting “tuffah” and so there will be no more immunity for the winners. She smiles gloriously as she says that. There are all the usual judges, and Caroline Calvin.

Chris’ dress has this sort of halter made of the raw-edges waistband, I think and it’s a cute little dress, but not a Little Black Dress. It’s too casual for that.

Ricky’s dress is strapless, with a short, pleated skirt from a very dropped hip, and the front uses and extended button fly. Meh.

P’s dress is clean and polished and the color blend with the different washes is beautiful. There is nothing hippy, Woodstock, granny or crunchy granola about it at all. See, people? This is why you should Always Listen to Tim Gunn.

Victorya’s trench coat is a huge nothing, and the skirt is way too full.

Rami’s dress has kicky pleats and zipper bindings and looks better, to me, than Ricky’s. At least there is no draping.

Christian’s jeans and jacket are as fierce and fashion forward as he thinks they are. The jeans are pencil thin, and from about the knee down, he has finished them with long, buttoned cuffs off a jacket, so that there are these big brass buttons down the back of the leg, opening to allow one’s foot through because they are cut that close to the bone. Anyone larger than a size minus two could not wear them. But by gad they are hothothot. The jacket is cropped and ruffled and there is some weird mini-leg o mutton thing going on at the shoulders.

Jillian’s Not Quite Apocalyptic Trench Coat is not quite sucky.

The judges ask the designers about their motivation. Christian says that he was going for trucker/biker/motocross chic. Michael Kors asks about the material. That isn’t stretch denim, is it? No, it is tailored to within an inch of its life.

NinaGarcia sees Chris’ Little Black Dress as dated rather than timeless. MK says if he was going to do frayed and distressed, then he should have gone wild with it, and not just a tentative little edge. Heidi sniffs that it looks a little “home sewn.” (Which may be why Miz Shoes is having such a hard time finishing that dress in her studio, fearing the curse of looking home sewn.)

Since the judges are all suffering from amnesia regarding last season, Rami is lauded for his originality and creativity by Michael Kors and Caroline Calvin. NinaGarcia is happy that he’s finally done something different and that it is sharp and clean (and just a little bit like his candy dress.)

Ricky, they declare, has made a denim cocktail dress: denim done up. He has styled his girl like Amy Winehouse (see last week’s review, where he chose a giant bouffant as his inspirational look). Caroline Calvin thinks his dress is “really cool”. MK gets the Amy Winehouse reference. The judges all exclaim over his “impeccable workmanship” and Ricky, predictably, cries.

Jillian is called out for doing the same thing two weeks in a row. And told that this weeks is a feeble attempt compared to last week. Caroline Calvin says there are too many labels and NinaGarcia points out that Jillian has managed to make her model look stumpy.

P’s dress, says Michael Kors, has the “slimming voodoo”. We’d all wear it, says NinaGarcia, well, except, you know, maybe not Michael. And Kors says, well, you know, with the right shoes? They all love the “super chic” mix of denims.

Victorya’s attempt is assessed thusly: you have glued a party skirt onto a denim jacket.

YOU’RE IN OR YOU’RE OUT

Rami is in. P did a good job, she’s in. Christian is in (and robbed of a win, even if the little twit annoys me). Chris is in. Ricky is the winner, and my notes read “Get the fuck out”. His little dress will be sold in a limited edition on the Levi’s web site. Ricky weeps but somehow manages not to say “you like me, you really like me.” Miz Shoes knows, however, that he’s thinking it.

The old team of Victorya and Jillian are left in the bottom two, and Jillian, though her work was unfocused and unflattering, is left in. Which means that Victorya and her dull, uninspired coat are out. She takes this with as much enthusiasm and verve as you would expect, which is to say none. She gives an exit interview devoid of affect.

Next week? Ricky cries and Christian is really annoyed by everyone else in the room.

OPEN: INTERIOR: GIRLS DORM

And just as quickly flash on the boys’ dorm, where the shirtless vision of Little Emo Boy assails us. Oh, please, girl. That is not Rami of the Heavenly Arms, nor is it Kevin. It is weepy Ricky and the best that can be said of this is that he was without the twee little hat. But wait! There’s Rami sitting all backlit and shit, asking Christian how he felt about being in the bottom two last week. Predictably, Christian is in denial that he deserved it, saying that there was such uglier, shittier stuff on the runway and whatever like, he knew there was no way he was going home. And though I am loathe to say this, she has a point. That twittering little queen is most excellent teevee. And then we are swept off to Parson’s where we will see Heidi on the runway, telling the designers about the next challenge. And so she does. The challenge this week is to design an avant garde look based on the avant garde hairstyle of your model. And now, let’s shake things up a little more by bringing out the girls in their little black slips and outrageous hair, and THEN let last week’s winning designer choose her model. Good times. Victorya sticks with her model, but since I’m not keeping track of them, I can only guess by the pissy/pained looks on some designers’ faces when other designers’ call out names, that there is a lot of model switching going on. Ricky is last, and he has to choose between three girls. Since the models weren’t used last week, we have two spares. Ricky makes his choice based on which hair he thinks he can design around and then cries. Are you shocked? And I must point out that he went with an Amy Winehouse on crack (wait, that IS Amy Winehouse).... an Amy Winehouse by way of Hairspray, the Musical bouffant that I would never have chosen in a zillion years.

Back to the workroom to hear from Tim. It doesn’t have to be practical. It doesn’t even have to be wearable. It must be out there. Over the top. Ambitious. Wild. Haute. And because

the producers hate the designers

the challenge is so complex, the designers will have to work in teams of two. Which teams will be chosen at random by Tim via the evil velvet button bag. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. They will need to pick a leader, and decide which of the two hair looks they will work from. And the teams are: Kit & Ricky; Sweet P & Rami-OTHA, Chris & Christian, and Victorya & Jillian. Sweet P is thrilled, and Christian even more thrilled because he has astutely figured out that the only person in the room who can do and has made a career out of doing Over the Top Excess is his new best friend, Chris. Chris, on the other hand, has figured out that for all his annoying ways, girlfriend can sew like a motherfucker, and they’ll be needing all the mad skillz and fast sewing that Christian has been flaunting around the workroom.

There is one half hour to figure those leader/look things out, and then there will be $300 for the trip to Mood. Christian gets to be the leader of Team Fierce, because Chris has watched the show and knows who gets sent home in a team challenge. So does Christian, but for once his obnoxious self-adoration does him a favor. Kit is the leader of her group because, really and come on, is there a question? Little Emo Boy in the stupid twee hat? Oh, puh-leeze, Nellie, he’d break down in tears at the very idea of a decision. Kit says that her models hair looks like a bird’s nest, and that they will be doing garden something. Rami-OTHA doesn’t even give P a chance to volunteer to be the leader because he assumes command and tells her that they will be using his model, her hair, his ideas and his choice of fabric, and his time schedule. And anything else, explicit or implied, that he thinks of between now and when they take their look down the runway.

A DIGRESSION, IF I MIGHT

By now, we all know that Rami is from Jerusalem. He is an Israeli, even if he is not a Jew. I say this because in this episode he proved to be a true Israeli, which is to say, an egocentric, misogynistic, overbearing douche. Ask anyone who has ever known an Israeli man, gay or straight, and they will tell you that last night, Rami of the Heavenly Arms was straight out of central casting. When you see P checking if she has enough cigarettes for another day of working with him? Even if she’d never smoked a day in her life, after a day in the employ of an Israeli male she would have hied herself straight to Nat Sherman’s. I say this as a woman who has done so.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT ANOTHER TABLE

Victorya and Jillian are in a battle to the death over who will become their team leader. Neither is willing to just say no, so it goes to a coin toss. Except that wasn’t a coin. Whatever it was, it landed with the Victorya side up, and she became the team leader. The model they choose to use has a funky-ass Mohawk thing going on and one of the two whispers these words: Apocalyptic Trench Coat. Which is totally the name of my next punk band.

Christian and Chris have a shared vision of 50 yards of organza, cut into hundreds of circular layers and building up the model to an organza Venus Rising From The Waves Clam Shell flying off her shoulder. Flying as in a flying buttress, not as in winging away. Chris is building the superstructure for the flying clam shell out of wire. There’s a wonderful exchange where he says that he’s trying to make an antenna to call out. And someone (P? maybe) asks if he’s trying to contact Elisa’s planet. And Chris says that Elisa left him the instructions. Brilliant. They could come drink and hang with me anytime.

Rami-OTHA is announcing that they will have a corset and attached gown over a pair of fitted trousers. P will do the trousers, because the corset and draping requires the hand of the master and he cannot, as commandant, allow anyone to sully what may be his chance to win big. And then he proceeds to micro-manage Sweet P into an early grave, all the while complaining that he has to micro-manage her and that is eating up his valuable time.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering and dithering and dithering. And fretting. And dithering. And then, just like that, it’s time to go home.

MORNING: DAY TWO

We see P packing up her smokes and wondering how horrible her life is going to be today, and says, ever so politely, that Rami may have heavenly arms, but to work with, he is a total dick. Girl, we hear you. Once in the workroom, P offers a few bits of feedback which are blown off and ignored. Maybe thrown on the ground and kicked a little, too, just for good measure.

Tim comes in and because

the producers hate the designers

the challenge isn’t hard enough, tells the designers that, GUESS WHAT? You also have to send a second look down the runway: the commercial, prêt a porter version of your avant garde look. They will only get $50 and 15 minutes, and only one of them will get to buy the fabric.

Kit says she’ll pick out the fabric and Ricky’ll make the dress. Jillian and Victorya are not even close to being finished with the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (Oh, I love that name. Do you think the band should be Japanese? Like the 5.6.7.8s?) and Victorya says that she feels horror and nausea. That’s funny, ‘cause, like, that’s what she engenders in me! Christian offers to go to Mood because he’s fast. And he is.

Back over on the Gaza strip, Rami-OTHA is telling Sweet P that no, they won’t be using navy as she suggests, and that unless she shows him sketches (and he approves them)  he won’t let her make the dress, either. I wonder if P started biting her nails when she ran out of smokes, or thought about cutting herself with the Olfa? Or cutting him, because didn’t she used to be a biker? Sadly, no blood is shed, and P buys some silver shantung silk. Mmmmmmm.

FITTINGS

The models are sent in for fittings, and we see Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude sticking whickety-whack all over everything while P rolls her eyes and accepts that she is not going to have one word of say in this.

Jillian has nothing finished, and Victorya only has the pants mostly done, but she also has immunity and that’s giving Jillian hives, because if they are the bottom team, she’s saying bye-bye-bye.

Chris says that he just wants to send out a dress that makes the judges’ jaws drop to the floor and never forget it till the day they die. OK. I can accept that as a goal. The second best footage of the night comes next, as Christian gives his model some lessons in how to walk a couture catwalk. It’s all about the broken back and the thrown out hip. Hey, haven’t we heard Tyra or Miss Jay say that, like a million times a season?

And over in the corner, we have Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude brow beating P over her time management skills…or his perception of her lack thereof, and all the while she’s sitting there steadily working on the ready to wear dress. He storms off, and the model pets P’s hair while she cries.

UNDER PRESSURE, PRESSURE, PRESSURE

Surely we haven’t had enough sturm und drang, so Tim comes in with a special guest, Nathaniel Hawkins, the Tresemme guy. He’s there to help them get a street version of the avant garde hair. He’s also there to tell them that the winner of the challenge gets a Tresemme ad in Elle magazine with their models.

Then Tim circles the room, striking fear into the hearts of those wise enough to listen to his advice. Team Fierce (Chris and Christian) he tells that their day look looks cheap and that it worries him. They fret. To me it looks like another version of Daniel V’s winning flower pot pencil skirt and poofy blouse, except not poofy, just ruffled. Tim tells Kit and Ricky that their effort looks very costume-y, and not in a good way. It needs some more work and some more exuberance, because right now it’s looking a little Mary on the Prairie.

When he comes to Rami and P, he tells them that this is another Rami draping exercise and it’s starting to get a little old. This also worries him. Rami tells him that the problem is that he and P think differently, or to put it another way, that she doesn’t know her place and she keeps trying to have an opinion.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering, but Tim is encouraged by the look of their coat…if they can finish it. They are moving as fast as they can, but you know, hamsters in a wheel. They haven’t even started their second look as the day ends.

Rami and P are no longer talking. I think that this may be a good thing, but it’s making Sweet P sweat. Still, having heard Tim dis the draping, she is working like a fiend over the ready to wear dress, so that she will have something of her own to hold up should their team go down in flames on the runway.

RUNWAY DAY

As the girls prepare to leave their apartment, we hear P saying that she doesn’t want to end up in a fist fight with Rami. I should think not, sweetie, we have ALL seen the size of those biceps. Assuming that he uses them, and doesn’t slap fight.

In the workroom, Jillian cuts a spiral of black jersey. The high concept models are already in hair and make up. The designers have two hours for fitting the ready to wear look and getting those girls off to hair and makeup.

Ricky and Kit are making a cute little sundress (or so Kit says) but Ricky is worried that maybe it isn’t so cute and that their haute look is not so haute. (Oh, man, I just couldn’t NOT do that, could I? I’m sorry.)

Christian is bouncing up and down, sure of the win. Jillian has somehow managed to get a dress on her model, but she thinks it looks like an afterthought. I think it looks a little, what with the pink silk plaid edging and funky layers and levels, sortakinda like Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo’s yellow plaid haute couture dress. But Team Last Minute has done a most excellent avant garde look.

On the runway, Heidi comes out in a brown dress with a big old belt, an asymmetrical neckline and some weird-ass bunching in the arm pits to start the fashion show. Judges tonight are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Alberta Ferretti.

First up we see Team Rami’s drape-y, corseted thingie with the long flowing skirt over a pair of plain black trousers, and a great little silver short dress that has very little to do with the haute couture look, but is absolutely wonderful on its own. Go P.

Team Fierce’s model comes out doing the broke down doll and thrown out shoulder, just like Chris taught her and sells the shit out of a giant flounce. And there’s a skirt and blouse with a ruffle to go with.

Ricky and Kit send out Scarlett O’Hara by way of Forever 21 and a forgettable sprigged cotton shift with pockets. As the model exits, we see that there is a ginormous hoop and train with furbelows and bows and whickety-whack that actually looked sort of cool. Well, the one red bow, did.

And in the evening’s shocker, the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (no, really, like punk covers of Broadway show tunes? In Japanese? There is nothing like a dame…with a Ramones’ kind of guitar riff?) rolls down the catwalk like a fucking chrome-plated Peterbuilt. That thing is awesome. I mean, fucking brilliant. Black with a pastel pink silk plaid lining? And oversized lapels? And a white equestrian, bustle-backed blouse and jodhpurs. Where the fuck did that stuff come from? How did they manage to sew all that and we not see even the first glimpse of it? Oh, you evil, naughty editors.

Ricky and Kit, and Sweet P and Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude have the lowest scores, and will be dealt with momentarily. For now, though, we will revel in the gloriousness of the two top teams.

Christian chirps that they wanted old-world romantic, and Michael Kors just comes undone. It is beautifully crafted, he coos. Soignée, even, he sighs. The skirt on the day look is a throw away, but the blouse is yummy.

Victorya and Jillian say that they were going for punk equestrian, and they surely succeeded. When the ATC comes off, and the judges see the little plaid ruffled peplum, they just fall off the director’s chairs. You have three looks here, says Michael Kors, and Victorya agrees, adding, “so we should win.”

The losers are called up to answer for their sartorial sins. Ricky is getting weepy. Rami steps up and says that they wanted to combine corsetry and flowing, like the model’s pleated hair. He admits that he made the corset and gown, and that the pants you don’t even see came from P. NinaGarcia is bored. She says that the judges know Rami can drape, but really, and come on, can he do ANYTHING else? And they say that the little silver day dress was much more avant garde than the same old draped rag he keeps showing them. And much more fashion forward. Then they look at the pants, and say that the model looks like her ass is on her front. P ventures that she wanted to put that fullness or bustle shape on the back of Rami’s piece, but he told her to stuff a sock in it.

Alberta Ferretti disses the Ricky/Kit effort by saying it looks like a cheap Scarlett O’Hara. Michael Kors says that Scarlett took her momma’s drapes and made haute couture, but that what they are showing looks like Scarlett ripped the sheets off the bed and ran out of the house. Schnort. And your day dress sucks, too, he adds.

IT COMES DOWN TO THIS

The Team Fierce of Chris and Christian, despite everyone’s misgivings, turned out an amazing piece of work. NinaGarcia is ready to give it the cover right now. Team Last Minute cranked out something that women would want to wear, says MK, and Miz Shoes says damned straight. Where can I get that coat, and where can I possibly wear it?

Rami, it is generally acknowledged, was a shit and tried to throw P under the bus, but the judges saw what he was doing and won’t let him. Besides, her dress was beautiful. Over on the other hand, we have Ricky, her tears and her stupid little twee hats. And Kit Pistol, who is firing blanks. What they sent down the runway was rank amateur, from start to finish.

Team Fierce wins!!! Christian gets immunity! Christian does the chicken dance of joy. Miz Shoes loves how he worked with Chris and doesn’t hate him anymore. At least until next week.

Ricky gets to keep his stupid little twee hats and stay. P gets to stay. Rami gets to keep his heavenly arms around for our viewing pleasure, even if he was a jerk and a lousy team captain. And that means that poor Kit Pistol gets fired.

Next week looks like the recycled trash challenge again, and Ricky cries and Victorya hates the challenge. As they say on 7th Avenue, so nu?

A BRIEF UPDATE

Before I start in on Project Runway, let me say that Ming has begun eating again, and drinking out of the water faucet. He’s doing fine, but now I have to put JoJo, the dog of very little brain, on a diet. She’s gained a little weight, probably from eating all the fallen avocados.

CUT TO FIT

Open on the girl’s dorm where Sweet P is missing the joy that Chris brought to the work room. And just that fast, we are over in the boy’s dorm, where Jack has a hugely swollen upper lip. He mentions that he thought he’d had a pimple in his nose, but that he’s starting to think, what with the horrendous swelling and pain and all, that it’s a staph infection. The Number One Surrogate Daughter mentions hand washing and keeping one’s fingers out of one’s nose as a possible preventive measure. I remember, but do not discuss, a dark day in the late 70s when cocaine consumption caused me to get a nasal pimple, and just the memory of that pain makes my eyes water. Trust me when I tell you that if you ever get, or think you have gotten, an internal nose pimple, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO POP IT. Or even touch it. I just can’t imagine that Jack stuck a finger up his nostril to get at something he thought was a pimple. And if he did, well, I won’t say he deserves what he got, but I will say that there is no more likely consequence than that which he experienced.

Ice pack applied, and jokes made, we are ready to head off to Parson’s. Once more, there is no model selection because the regular models will not be used. Instead, a parade of normal, off-the-street (oh, STOP, not that kind of off the street) women come onto the runway wearing grossly oversized clothes. We are told that these women have all lost tons of weight and that what they are wearing is their favorite outfit from before the loss. One woman is wearing a wedding dress. A typical, leg-of-mutton-sleeved, polyester satin, cinched bodice, train and lace and sequins and beading wedding dress. The designers’ challenge will be to take the old garments and make new looks for the woman with whom they

are saddled

paired. It should be a design suitable for the everyday life of the woman, and yet still express the designer’s style.

Laura, who is the woman in the wedding dress, gets Squinty Steve. Squinty Steve is not happy with this. In fact, his words are: “Oh. Dear. God… Death on a stick.” The rest of the names are pulled out of the button bag, and as always, Sweet P is the last puppy in the box. She’s become sort of stoic about it at this point.

The designers have until midnight to work. But first, they have to complain about not working with model-sized women. Victorya starts. Then Kevin, who is straight and wants you to remember that, announces that this challenge is just for him, because he loves, loves, loves to design for real women. Christian, predictably, is not so chuffed. He gets as his model someone with as many issues and demands as he himself: no sleeveless, no color, no patterns, no skirt. Deal, darling. Steven whines about the poly satin, acetate lace, sequins and beads that he has to repurpose for daywear. They get $10 and 15 minutes. Whoof.

Jack is looking scarier and scarier as the morning goes on, and calls to his primary care doc result in him having to take more aggressive treatment for his staph. Which translates into, you gotta leave and go check in to a hospital, sweetie. He is devastated, as are we all, because this means no more shots of him waltzing around the dorm in nada but his towel or his briefs. No more piggy back rides for Christian. No more stripping off his pants in the workroom. Rami of the Heavenly Arms better step up to the plate here and supply us with more nudity or semi-nudity. Or Kevin, who, while he is straight, has some meticulously sculpted facial hair and a body that seems to have been around the gym more than not. Not that I watch this show for the hot gay men, because let’s face it, until this season, there weren’t any. Santino in a towel? Ewww. Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-shmoo? Even and especially clothed, double Ewwww. Jay McCarrol? Who are we kidding, people? And poor Daniel Franco never lasted long enough to get down to his tighty whities, and who knows how that would have worked out, anyway? But I digress. There is crying, there is hugging. There is Christian saying, with a complete lack of affect: what a nice guy. how sad.

WEIRD INTERLUDE

Ricky is wearing his pants, or his model’s pants, inside out. Rolled up to capri length. And prancing around in strappy gold sandals which he claims he is doing because he and his model are about the same size.

BUT FIRST, A SURPRISE

Tim comes into the work room to tell the designers that the models are there for a half hour fitting session. But first, gather round. We have a surprise. This elicits as much enthusiasm as you would expect by week five, which is to say there is groaning, eye-rolling and a sense of dread. Mais non! It is a happy surprise. The powers that be needed a certain number of contestants week by week, and with Jack’s unexpected departure (at the beginning of the hour) they have decided (and purely to keep the competition high, they assure us) brought back Chris! Yay! And there is much rejoicing. Since he came in late in the day, Chris gets to spend the night in the work room.

And so the models come in for their fittings. Chris is most sympathetic to this challenge, because as a person of size, he has experienced the yo-yo weight thing. We see Christian with his model, where he not so sympathetic to the issues, and is telling his model that he is not (again I must quote) “a miracle worker, lady. I can’t give you an ass.” No, but he can play one on tv. Chris sees the struggle that Squinty Steven is having with the wedding dress, and he is jealous. What he could do with that, he sighs, if only they could swap.

Tim makes his turn around the room, and showing the wit and panache we love, asks of Christian, “How fierce is this?” Very, says Christian. Yes, allows Mr. Gunn, it is very you. As is Elisa’s design. Which is not so fortunate, because her model is not a crunchy granola eating, airy-fairy space alien, but instead a normal woman who wants normal clothes. Tim tells Elisa to edit herself, to clean up her design and to actually respond to her client. Next, Tim checks up on Squinty Steven. In an understatement of enormous proportions, Tim tells Squinty Steve that not using any of the wedding dress but a little bit of lace for collar and cuffs on a black dress is “very courageous.” Snort. When he finally makes it to Chris’s station, Tim warns him about his (Chris’) tendency to design costume rather than couture. And then he says “I’ve made more bad decisions at 3 o’clock in the morning than I can count.” This makes everyone in my living room howl, and ditto for the designers in the work room. We want names, says someone.

It’s time for Christian to make one of his egotistical pronouncements. And so he says the following: “Don’t these bitches know? that I am way better than them?”

RUN RUN RUN AWAY

It’s the morning of the runway, and fear and insecurities abound. Chris, who woke up not even sure if he had worked, sees that his outfit is done, but wonders if it’s good. Squinty Steven says that he just can’t sew fast enough. Kevin, who is straight, is also confident. Jillian says that she didn’t want to use the material she was given, so she was able to find the exact same shade of red at Mood, and she bought that and has made a dress (which is, admittedly, kick ass). Christian is confident that he’ll be the winner and then says that what Chris made was pure costume, and that what Elisa and Steven made was godawful hideous. And, damn but I hate when that little emo elf is right. Ricky cries that Penny (his model) made him remember what he loves (other than those awful twee little hats that I wish he’d 86 already). Then all of the designers pitch in and help Squinty Steven pin, glue and staple his dress onto his model and get her shoved out the door for the runway.

The guest judge today is Patric Robinson, the head designer for the GAP. Really? It takes a designer to make cheap chinos?

The first model out is Sweet P’s. She has on a nice olive halter dress, made from her old tent. She looks happy and good. Jillian’s red dress is hot. The only part of the original garment that she used shows up as black piping along the seam lines. Ricky has retailored his model’s clothes into skin tight capris and a gauze-y tunic top with some nice trim. She too, looks happy. She is not wearing the strappy gold sandals Ricky tried on. Chris, bless his little heart, has made a fair enough top and a pencil skirt. With a floppy red bow at the waist and a red fishtail godet in the middle of the back. Oh well, you can take the boy out of drag, but you can’t take the drag out of the boy. It fits the woman, though, and is nicely made. Kerry is a fierce walker. That would be Christian’s model. She is fierce in her fierce ensemble that looks remarkably similar to the fierce ensemble that he made for Bitten and for the three-bad-trends-in-one challenge fierce ensemble. In fact, I will go so far as to say that for all her bravado, Christian is a one-trick emo pony, and that trick relies heavily on the sense and sensibility of Miss Vivienne Westwood’s atellier.

Victorya has made a lovely bottle green velvet/silk sort of tank dress for her model. Elisa has made layers and layers and layers of crap and accessorized with some really awful boots. I think they are the same awful boots that Brittney Spears is always photographed wearing. Yeah. Those. Kit’s model comes out in a fresh little short dress with a chiffon under-layer that sticks out below the hem. Kevin has made a strapless, architectural bustier with black leggings. The woman wearing it is thrilled to pieces with the look and her smile and her walk make it absolutely clear how she feels. She sells it. Squinty Steve’s nasty, glued together dress comes next, and nobody looks comfortable or happy. The final look belongs to Rami, who’s been hiding the arms lately, and it is a simple, tailored skirt and a top with some interesting draping. Draped, and yet fitted. It’s a nice top.

LINES FORM ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT

Six designers are pulled from the line. Squinty Steve, Christian, Chris, Kevin, Jillian and Elisa. Without Heidi saying it, we know that these are the top and bottom scores. Kevin gets the first critique. When asked, the model says that she feels incredible in her outfit, and Michael Kors says that they could tell. That she looked like she loved it, and isn’t that what fashion is all about? And in my living room, the girls and I say “Amen and hand to god.” Elisa explains her outfit for her model thusly: she is a mom, and so I wanted to create a “day trousseau” for her. Now, ignoring for the moment that that phrase makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, it is still an awful mosh up of nothingness. Heidi and GAP guy point out that the look looks nothing like what the customer would wear. Michael Kors says that one never, ever wants to chop up a figure like that, and certainly not someone who just lost a ton of weight and is trying to show a new, sleek figure. NinaGarcia puts in the final nail by saying that this outfit is ALL Elisa and NO Tracy.

Jillian is called out for not using her material, but as she hoped, the workmanship of what she made and the fact that she was able to match the color so accurately overshadows that little faux pas, and the dress gets raves. “Sexy without hootchiemama” is what the judges call it. Sexy and tasteful. Two words that one so seldom hears together on a reality show.

On the other hand, Squinty Steven is not praised for what he did when he ditched the original garment. MK says that his model looks like a French Maid. NinaGarcia says that she looks like a French Maid at a funeral. There is nothing anyone can add to that.

Christian and his model get points for fun. The judges say that the design is pure Christian, and yet purely commercial. The model says that she’s not taking it off. Ever. Good lord, woman, don’t encourage him.

Chris hopes that his look is sexy but sophisticated. His hopes are dashed when Michael Kors says that all that’s missing is a beret and a cigarette and the woman would look like Shirley Maclaine back in the 50s playing a French hooker with a heart of gold. Ouff. That’s harsh. Accurate, but harsh. And we roll right into deliberations, where the recap goes like this: Kevin’s model was loving her look; Christian used his model’s clothes to make a Christian outfit; Jillian made an impeccable/beautiful dress; Elisa has stumpified her model; Squinty Steven disappointed the universe by not taking advantage of those miles of poly satin and acetate lace; and Chis made a nice top for a Paris Hooker in the 50s.

YOU’RE IN OR YOU’RE AUFF

Jillian is in. Kevin is in. Chris is in (huge sighs of relief are heard from Miz Shoe’s couch). Christian is the winner and gets immunity in the next challenge. Christian interviews that: “Winning is great? Because I can be a commercial hack if I want to.” The last part may not be an exact quote. This means that Elisa and Squinty Steve are the bottom two, and although Elisa’s piece was more about her than about her client, Steve committed the unforgivable sin of turning something joyous (a wedding dress) into something fit for a funeral. And even worse than that? It was boring. So say goodbye to Squinty Steve. Awww, he was funny. Good thing we have Chris back. Next week looks like it’s going to be one of those recyled/organic/not known to be suitable for sewing materials challenges.

Over at the NEW GOTHAM apartments, Kit Pistol and Sweet P are talking. They were sad to see Carmen leave, but well, screw it, more closet space and Sweet P says, you know? better her than me, so wtf. In the boys’ room they are talking about what a Project Runway perfume would smell like: fear and Chinese food. Nice, I can’t wait to see that on the market. We head back to Parson’s and right in to a model selection. Jack can choose to stay with his girl or take someone else’s. So he does. He takes Ricky’s model. This means that Ricky now has Jack’s former model. Ricky manages not to cry. Heidi tells the designers to head to the workroom where they will find Tim and some old friends. True to reality shows everywhere, the designers immediately hit upon the totally wrong solution to the puzzle. OLD LADIES!!! We’re going to design for geriatrics! Whee! Actually, no. They find Tim and NinaGarcia and a bunch of photos from old Elle Magazines that display some of the most egregiously ugly fashion trends of the past. One of them is overalls. Jillian is wearing overalls and there is a moment of sweet embarrassment for all concerned.

Tim tells the designers to choose an ugly trend, and out comes the button bag to determine order. Jack as last week’s winner goes first. He chooses Brittney Spears on cracked out pleather. The rest of it goes like this: Victorya/underwear as outerwear; Christian/a Zoot Suit (playing to his strengths as a Vivienne Westwood drone); Rami/Poodle skirts; Kit/fringe; Elisa/cut outs; Jillian/overalls; Ricky/neon; Kevin/70’s elephant bell bottoms; Chris/Joan Crawford shoulder pads (oh, come on, could you please be a little less of a drag queen cliche Chris?); Squinty/dance wear as day wear; and Sweet P wonders if her button is glued to the bottom of the bag, that she’s always last as she takes the baggy, oversized sweater.

The challenge will be to update the look. The twist is that the designers have one minute to organize themselves into teams of three, and the three bad trends must be combined into a collection. They will show together, and they must use all three trends in all three looks or figure out some other way to make the three pieces into a cohesive collection. They must choose a team leader. They have $250 to spend and two days to work. Your minute starts now. When the dust settles, the teams are: Kit, Christian and Jack (fringe/zoot suit/pleather); Rami, Kevin and Jillian (poodle skirts/bell bottoms/overalls); Ricky, Victorya and Elisa (neon/underwear as outerwear/cut outs}; Squinty, Sweet P and Chris (dance wear/baggy sweaters/shoulder pads). I have bolded the team leaders.

Christian names his team “Team Star” because they are all FABULOUS!? There is the usual scrambling at Mood, with team leaders making bad choices and worrying about time and money. Ricky chooses duchesse satin for his team. Chris picks some horrible beige knit. Jillian’s team is into denim and Liberty of Londen tiny floral prints (also with a beige base). Christian’s team is working the black and white pattern on pattern to death.

In the work room, Sweet P is going for a sack dress to update the baggy sweater. Chris is doing some little bolero/shrug with what looks like black and brown upholstery cloth all the while telling SquintySteven that “Girl, this jacket is going to be fabulous!” I hereby request a moratorium on the word “Fabulous”. Ricky interviews that he isn’t concerned about working with Elisa because he used to be a dancer, and so he has lots of experience in talking to people who sound like they just smoked an ounce of sensimilla. You just have to speak to them in a language that they can understand, he says, and promptly does, talking about centering to Elisa and showing her how to mark her fabric with a pin as opposed to spit. She has a Helen Keller “water” moment, and it is a beautiful thing.

Over in Jillian’s corner, Rami is doing a denim dress, Kevin is making bell-bottom, high-waisted hot pants (Hey! I think I had those in the 70s!) and Jillian is being a nag about fitting the muslin to the mannequin and time management and whispering shit to Rami about Kevin. Don’t you miss high school sometimes? I know I don’t. SquintySteven does a Tim impression that lacks the spot-on tonality of Santino, but has better text: “Designers?” he says “I’m here to tell you that you are all screwed.” I howl. I love SquintySteven. He’s Miss Personality this season, at least for me, and it isn’t some toxic, evil thing like The Pencil-Necked Shmoo or Satan-ino.

Victorya is up and interviewing that her team decided to put all three looks into each piece. And she is micro-managing Ricky, her team leader, in a passive aggressive manner that we all can agree is inappropriate and annoying. Tim comes in to give the designers 30 minutes with their models. When she sees her design on her model, Victorya hates it, decides to completely redesign and redo, and dissed Ricky all at the same time. She neglects to tell him her choice to redo, and since he’s the team leader and will have to take the hit if everything goes wrong, this is rude and bad form. Jillian doesn’t think Kevin is working fast enough. She doesn’t say anything to him though, she whispers away in Rami’s ear. Since this requires her to lean up against those yummy arms of his, who can really blame her, except me, who thinks that if you have a problem with someone on your team the most efficient way to manage it is to speak to the team member in question. Rami inviews that Jillian should have been pushing Kevin harder. Maybe you should have said that to her instead of the camera and instead of nodding your head and continuing to whisper in the corner with her. What do I know?

Over at Team Jillian, the look is coming together nicely. It all looks like something Jillian herself would wear. Is this a good thing? Discuss amongst yourselves.

At Team Ricky, nothing looks finished or refined. Victorya is telling Tim that she’s decided to change the sillouhette. Tim asks her why she’s making these decisions when Ricky is the leader. So then there is a scene where Ricky and Victorya are talking, and Victorya is saying that she ‘s glad that Ricky’s the team leader, she just thinks that he sucks at it. Nice. They continue to bicker over his leadership skills.

And it’s Runway Day.  Ricky and Elisa are finished, but Victorya went ahead and changed her design (see above) and is now doing final fittings on the bodice. It’s flat. Ricky steps in and with his expertise in lingerie, adjusts the whole thing. The model says it feels better. Everyone in the room can see it fits and looks better. Victorya says that she likes it flat, despite all opinion and evidence to the contrary. Then she sulks about it for a while and until she finally admits that Ricky helped. Kevin is still working on his bell bottom hot pants and saying that he has to pull a magic rabbit out of his

ass

hat. With two hours for hair and make up, we see SquintySteve worrying about Chris’ bolera jacket, which, it must be said “Girl? Is not so fabulous.”

Cut to Christian being a queen about his collection. I L-U-V it so mush. I L-U-V our collection. In all honesty, he says, Ricky’s is awful and Chris’ not much better. He may have a point, but that doesn’t mean I have to like hearing it from him. And cut to the runway where the guest judge is (without any ado or fanfare) Donna Karan.

Team Jillian goes first and they have put all three bad things into each piece. All three are made with the same denim/Liberty combination. The Liberty print is used as binding/finishing on the denim ho-down dress that is Rami’s interpretation of a poodle skirt. The high-waisted bell bottom hot pants are coupled with a shirt that looks like Daniel V’s blouse from his taken-from-nature challenge. (Remember the weird, poufy collar?) And Jillian’s overalls are adorable. High waisted, bell bottomed and with a sort of v-collared bib. In my youth, I either had them or would have worn them. If they were age appropriate, I’d still wear them.

Team Chris has chosen to unite the collection with their fabric choice. There is a wonderful sack dress from Sweet P, an Asian-inspired tunic over leggings from SquintySteve and a long dress with the awful bolero from Chris. Not so much a collection as three things in the same fabric coming down the runway at the same time. Meh.

Team Star (Christian) is a forgettable melange of black and white and stripes and nothing.

Team Ricky is a mini-ballerina tutu with a very nice boned bodice from Victorya, a hot mess from Ricky and a simple black sheath dress with neon splashes looking like cut outs from Elisa. Worse than meh.

The judges don’t even waste time on toying with the designers. The clear winner is Jillian’s team, since they had a vision, cohesion and well made garments. Done and done. The only thing left to do is to savage the crap from the rest of the designers. Christian escapes with his team. While there was no there there, there was also nothing to make Donna Karan or Michael Kors lose their lunches. Unlike, say, the designs of Team Chris and Team Ricky. With Team Chris, the pieces were seen as sort of OK, but not from the same show. There was a clear discrepancy of visions. The dance wear wasn’t fluid enough, the shoulder pads not modern enough, and hello? A bolero/shrug should be tight? Donna loved Sweet P’s dress, as well she should, because it looked like it came from one of her own collections; drab beige and black and knit and slouchy.

As for poor Team Ricky, NinaGarcia thought the concept was good, but badly sewn. Victorya actually stepped up and gave the credit for her fit and design to Ricky. Elisa jumped in to Ricky’s defense as well, saying that if his garment was poorly made, it was because as the leader, he had spent so much time helping and guiding her. But then it is the “Who goes home” question and Victorya gladly pushes Ricky under the bus. Elisa offers to sacrifice herself (of course) because that’s just the way she is. And Ricky glares at Victorya and opines that the workroom would be a better place without her passive/aggressive behaviors. Over on Team Chris, Steve says that Chris should go because he was the leader, Chris says he should go because he was the leader and Sweet P tries to take a pass. When pressed, she sort of squeaks out that Steve should go, but I forget why. Because he turned on Chris? Because his garment was weak? Because he squints?

The judges don’t like Victorya’s attitude (neither does Miz Shoes). They say that Chris failed as a leader by not making the collection cohesive, while Ricky failed by making bad choices and making decisions that made the challenge more difficult (Hel-lo? Duchesse satin? Are you mad?). Michael tosses out the Mother of the Bride insult for the millionth time and we hear the judges verdict: In are Sweet P, Elisa, Steve, Victorya (boo) and Ricky (who manages not to cry, which brings the total to two shows with and two without, weeping). Which means that Chris is out. Well, we’ll always have the salad dress.

Project Runway, Week Three

Open on the interior of the boys’ apartments, where Jack is being hott, buff and mostly naked. He is using an inhalator and sorting through a wealth of medications, as he voice overs that he’s been living with HIV for 10 or so years and has never felt better. I think I speak for all of us in the audience, gay and straight, when I say he looks just fine. In the kitchen area Chris and Kevin (who would like you to know, before we go any further, that he is straight) are discussing the auffing of Marion and opining that nobody would have cried if Christian had been auffed. Christian is standing there, but somehow, I am not offended by the dissing of him to his face. Christian says, in his annoyingly valley girl way, that after almost being auffed? he’s not as confident? as he was before? And we’re out the door (they need more V-8) to Parson’s.

On the runway, Heidi tells them that there will be no model selection, because they will not be using their models this week. The designers are headed up and herded out for a field trip to Rockefeller Plaza, where they end up in the studios of the Today Show. Waiting for them are Tim and Tiki Barber. For those of you who don’t follow professional sports (every one of the designers except Kevin (who would like to remind you that he is, in fact, a straight man) is included in that group), Tiki Barber is a former NY Giant running back, played in three Pro Bowls and in 2007 was voted one of the best dressed men of the year by Vanity Fair. Squinty Steve delivers up the following comment, and endears himself to me forever: I don’t know much about sports, except that it’s probably the only time that spandex is acceptable. Miz Shoes is now officially on the Steve love train.

The challenge this week, a PR first, and one that is easily the hardest ever, is to design something for Tiki to wear on air. Tiki says that he likes dark colors, texture and depth. He also is not afraid to wear pink or other pastels. Kevin asks, and Tiki answers, that he likes details. There is the usual 30 minutes to draw, and 30 to shop and the budget is $100. They will have the rest of that day and all of the next to work.

Panic at the Workroom

Back at the workroom, it soon becomes apparent that practically nobody has any idea how to design menswear. Sweet P is already sweating. Kevin says that he has done menswear, and will make a suit. Rami of the Heavenly Arms opts for a sport jacket. Kit, who has done on-air clothing, goes for British School Boy Khakis. Ricky, who amazingly does not shed a single tear this week, decides that as a lingerie designer, he has to step up and design a whole 3-piece suit, just to prove himself. Christian has designed a jacket and pant. Carmen is lost, lost, lost and keeps turning to Jack for help. Jack asks Tim if they can use existing pieces as design guides and Tim says yes. This means that Jack drops trow, and cuts up his pants to make a pattern. which he graciously shares with Carmen and Victorya. This causes much sniffing and tut-tutting and someone (you know by now that I take lousy notes and don’t own TIVO, so I don’t remember who, but I would guess Chris or Christian) says that oooooh, jealousy will bring out the ugly. Sweet P knocks over a mannequin and yells “MAN DOWN!” Why I found that so funny, I cannot say. But I laughed out loud.

Chris observes that people are starting to figure out that sewing up a man’s suit takes a lot more time than they have been given, and Christian chirps that he is a speed queen. Well, actually those are my words. His are just that speed is his greatest asset. It sure isn’t his haircut or his speaking style. Chris says that he is completely self-taught, starting in 4th grade when he snatched the pants away from his mother and said he’d hem them up himself. He also says (and again, I can’t tell you why I found it so funny) that he loves pants, because pants are just two big sleeves sewn together. Rami of the Heavenly Arms and suddenly pissy attitude models his muslin, which, he says pointedly, he DRAPED, and did not TRACE. And they do fit beautifully.

Also beautiful is the bevy of male models who now enter the workroom. Kevin who, as we are all now well aware, is straight, is unimpressed. The rest of us (straight women and gay men) all swoon a little. Squinty Steve delivers another howler, as he says that OK, NOW he gets why straight men are always asking him how he can work with all those beautiful women standing around in their underwear. Jillian has to completely re-cut her pants. Elisa, keeping up her track record of random weirdness, lectures all of us about how she only wants to see her man. She won’t let her model undress in front of her, and she won’t measure him, either. Not even a hand measure… although I have my doubts about hand-measuring a crotch length. Could be fun… And I suppose we should all thank all higher powers that she doesn’t spit mark him, either.

Tim enters the workroom, and calls the designers together. This causes a some consternation, as they all expect another twist to the challenge, and they are already freaking out. But it isn’t a bad thing at all. It is Ginny Barber, Tiki’s wife, and she is there to give the designers a critique and direction. She loves the color and the vest of Jack’s work. She tells Ricky that Tiki loves layering and will like his look, but that there is a lot of work left to do. Kevin is doing a dress shirt, a double-vented jacket and a matching pocket square. Dashing says Miz Shoes. Carmen gets a reality check in the form of Tim and Ginny telling her that her jacket looks too much like a 1980s Members Only. Tim suggests that she recut the pattern, but there isn’t enough fabric, so Carmen is hosed.

As the evening winds down, Kevin is saying that he’s not doing a jacket for lack of time. Jack is focusing on completing his shirt and pants, and Ricky and Sweet P are fighting. Squinty Steve has the final say, and it is brilliant…“What’s that thing that they had on the Titanic before it sank?” he asks the camera. “Oh, yeah, panic. That’s what we have here.”

Show Time

Morning has broken, and Elisa is doing yoga. Sweet P is continuing to panic, as she says she has 3/4 of a pair of pants and no shirt. Jack carries Christian piggy back into the workroom, and the two of them look like some sort of R. Crumb fantasy. Ricky says that if you are going to fall, fall hard on your ass. I don’t think that will make it onto a needlepoint sampler to hang over the fireplace, but it does convey a little attitude. Carmen still needs to make a shirt. There are two hours for hair and make up and then it is show time. We get a quick once over of how far the designers have come. Christian is pretty much finished. Kit has three pieces. Ricky is making his model sew on buttons. Sweet P has made a shirt for a Todd McFarlane toy, with a neck as large as the waist, and other weird and horrible things happening throughout. Victorya says that she has “panic in her veins”, which is too bad, because I think ice water might be better under the circumstances.

Now we see Ricky hemming everything with pins. This is not going to be good. Carmen is looking at her model. The pants fit like shit and she is sewing him into them. There is no shirt, and she tears a swath of blue oxford cloth and wraps it around his neck to simulate a shawl collar and throws the jacket on over. Tim calls time and ends up practically having to drag Sweet P and Carmen out to the runway. Christian looks around and questions that it is going to be hard? to judge? because there is so much that is awful? Yeah. It pains me, but I must agree.

Heidi looks more fabulous than ever as she greets the designers. Is that an Uli that she’s wearing?

As the models come down the runway, Miz Shoes observes that, as impossible as it may seem, the stylists have done worse things to the men than they have yet done to the women. Who is doing hair and make up this year? Jillian’s ensemble is nice, Carmen’s is a hot mess with no shirt. The look on Michael Kors’ face is priceless. Christian has done something with an asymmetric neckline and an awful jacket that reeks of Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner. Kit puts out a simple, but I think, too short jacket. Rami of the Heavenly Arms has a pair of beautifully tailored pants and a cheesy golf jacket. Sweet P has a mess. Squinty Steven has done a beautiful sweater, pants with a high waist, and an ascot. It is a lovely, retro look. Victorya sends down a white jacket with a black collar. Kevin has a nice vest, and a nice shirt. Kevin contributed the vest to the Bitten design, did he not? And his first dress had a waist cincher on it, sort of a ren fest wench affair. Is this a trend Miz Shoes is spotting? Chris has done a zipper front jacket. Jack has done some interesting things with pattern on pattern. Ricky should, but is not crying over the pinned-together crap his model has on. The model has the presence of mind to show the lining on the jacket, and it is the best part of the whole thing. Elisa has done three pieces: a nice enough shirt, a weird crunchy-granola vest that looks to be made from a kind of fuzzy pleather, and a nice pair of pants.

When The Whip Comes Down

The designers who can flee the runway with their chances intact are: Jillian, Christian, Rami OTHA, Squinty Steve, Victorya, Chris and Elisa. Flee they do. Gratefully, I may add. Kit gets the first critique, and Tiki likes the khaki and navy. The fact that the navy blazer is made out of fleece takes it out of the sleepy/boring place and makes it an interesting combination of textures. Tiki likes to use the word texture.

Sweet P is blasted by Michael Kors, who asks her how she could even send her model out in that crap. He acknowledges that she made a very nice tie…if the wearer was 7 feet tall. Her design is both conservative and messy, a bad combination in everybody’s book.

MK does love Jack’s shirt, which uses stripes vertically and on the bias, and is paired with pinstriped trousers. Tiki loves the pattern on pattern. Nina complains that there are only two pieces, and Tiki counters that they are two perfect pieces.

Ricky feels the wrath of NinaGarcia as she calls his work boring, dull, and held together with pins, as if we wouldn’t notice. Tiki says that it’s sloppy and that there is no way he would/could ever wear it.

Kevin, who is straight, you know, is told by Tiki that although he normally wouldn’t wear a vest, he’d wear that vest. MK clocks Kevin for time management skills and says that he should have left the vest open, rather than pinning it shut. There is a lovely and somewhat snippy exchange between Michael and Heidi when Michael says that Kevin’s look would look good on Seal and Heidi says it most certainly would not, because he would never be caught dead in it, but that it looks like David Beckham’s style. The way she says that is searingly dismissive. The RLA, who happily watches Project Runway with me, almost chokes.

Carmen’s jacket is too short, the shirt is too missing, and Michael calls the crotch “INSANE”. He has a point.

Are You In, Or Out?

Kevin, who is straight and wants you to remember that fact, is in. He had a nice, avant garde look. Kit is in for a unique point of view: doing a traditional blazer in a non-traditional fabric. Jack is the winner. Tiki says that the look was smart, and that Jack didn’t try to do too much. I could wear that tomorrow, says Tiki, and he will in fact, be wearing the look on the Today show. Good for Jack, although, for my money, I would have gone with Kevin. Sweet P remains in, despite having no concept of men’s wear or tailoring. Ricky remains in, despite his work being very badly made and very boring. Tiki even goes so far as to say it looked like his five-year-old made it. And that leaves Carmen. Her look was called unfinished, and that’s being kind. Michael Kors put it best when he said the problem is who would even put those things together? Her model was half naked and everything about her look was off. And now, so is she. Bye-bye little model girl. Bye-bye. Word to Ricky: good on you for not crying this week. But still, loose the little twee hats. They did Marion no favors and I fear for what they will do for you.

PROJECT RUNWAY: WEEK TWO

We begin the way all reality shows begin, with the people who remain dissing the person who did not, but in the speaker’s opinion should have, gone home. In the particular, Rami of the Heavenly Arms thinks that Simone le Fang was way better than Elisa. Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? And as quickly as that, we are back on the runway and having our first model selection. Rami, as the winner of last week’s challenge, gets to make the choice to stay with his model (Ashley) or change. He stays. This our second clue that Rami’s judgement is much less developed than his biceps. Chris takes Marcia, Carmen goes too fast, and according to my notes (and why would I actually look this up on-line for accuracy?), the remaining selections go like this: Christian/Lisa; Marion/Charol; Ricky/Blee; Elisa/Vive; Steve/San; Kevin/Amanda; Jillian/Lauren and Sweet P/Katie. You figure that out… I’m too busy trying to remember which designer is which. I can’t be troubled to remember the models, too.

The challenge this week is to create an outfit for a pop culture & fashion icon. Oooooh, who can it be now? Carmen guesses a singer who is also an icon and that would be Madonna. Or Britney, says an anonymous other, who then adds that the poor thing needs some sort of help. Tim comes into the workroom and says “Designers? Gather ‘round.” and introduces (wait for it) Sarah Jessica Parker! Jack and Christopher pretty much swoon. Chris starts crying and says that he moved to New York pretty much because of Sex & The City. To which I say, schnort. And also, who the hell am I to laugh, seeing as it is a known fact that I moved to New York City because of Born to Run? So, bravo to Chris.

The designers are challenged to make a two-piece look for SJP’s clothing line, Bitten. It should go in the fall/winter line and if it’s good enough, will enter into production. Bitten, says SJP, is (supposed to be) high-end American sportswear at an affordable price. That means this look needs to retail for under $40. And that means that the budget at Mood will be $15. To which I say, good fucking luck with that. And to which Chris says, what can we get at Mood for $15 other than toilet paper and scotch tape? The designers are given half an hour to draw. They will then present their sketches to SJP, and she will pick seven designs. The designer will chose a partner, and then they will produce the look. SJP gives everyone a dossier on what is in Bitten’s fall/winter line. Jack jumps on that like a trampoline. Christian goes for a dress and jacket. Ricky goes for the Kleenex box, because he has already started to cry. Oh, for the love of god, man, butch up a little. Maybe if you’d stop with the stupid, wee hats… Jack has some beautiful marker renderings, but we quickly pass over the drawing and thinking and go straight to the presentations.

Chris does a knit turtleneck dress, and my notes say “gush, gush.” They do not say, nor do I remember, if that was SJP gushing over the drawing, or Chris gushing over SJP. I somehow think it was the latter. Elisa delivers up an Angela-worthy blahblahblah about her dress being polymorphic and having a cape with variable flaps. Sweet P thinks that Bitten is lacking in skirts and offers one to beef up the line. Kevin has a “button story”. Kevin, who would like you to know, before we go any farther, that he is straight, is also lacking in social skills. He gets up and bolts off, leaving Sara Jessica Parker sitting there with her hand stuck out in empty air, waiting for a handshake. Oopsies. Gotta work on that, buddy. Christian makes up for it though, by having a “pleating” story and demanding a hug. Kit shows leggings and Ricky has a knit. Jillian does something flirty with a jacket. Victorya shows yet another freaking baby doll dress, and I for one, was tired of that look after seeing her portfolio in episode one. But this one has a vest over it. Quel difference! Marion does a fitted cape, which, I think is some what oxymoronic. Steven, who has that squinty thing going on that made French Stewart so funny on Third Rock From the Sun, even though it never translated to a career, does something in classic black. Rami has a shirt dress and tights and Carmen goes for a Juliette sleeve.

SJP makes her selections for team leaders and they are: Elisa and her Riding Hood Polymorphous Cape; Kit with the knit with low pockets; Victorya and her stupid baby doll with bow; Marion and his fitted cape; Ricky and his cropped top; Christian and his very complicated-looking jacket and Rami of the Dreamy Arms (nobody can resist the arms) gets props for being concerned about different types and styles of women with his shirt dress. Then SJP gets totally giddy and squeals “I’ll see you on the runway!” Can this show get any gayer? Would we care? Would we want it to be less gay? And the answers are: yes, no and no.

Off to the workroom for the excruciating game of “Last Designer Picked For a Team”. Marion of the stupid twee little hats chooses Squinty Steven. Ricky the Weeper opts for Jack, and who wouldn’t? Victorya picks Kevin and is probably the first to go for substance over style. Kit picks Chris, ditto on the skill set. Rami of the Arms of Legend picks Jillian, Christian takes Carmen (matching stupid emo haircuts) and that leaves Elisa with Sweet P. Elisa shows the same sort of class that Chris did in Bryant park and says that she got just who she wanted, ha-ha! and Sweet P wants to kill herself for being forced to work with Elisa.

Next stop: Mood

We see Kit telling Chris that they will be working with fleece and jersey. We see Elisa grabbing all sorts of stuff as Sweet P voices over that Elisa was grabbing all sorts of stuff that had nothing at all to do with the colors used in the Bitten line. Christian says that he’s ready to go, except he’s an awful up-talker, so it comes out “Ready?”“To Go?” And back they go to the workroom, where they have until midnight to cut and sew. Kevin and Victorya discuss shape. Rami instructs Jillian that he wants a loose fit so that all different body types can wear the garment. Squinty and Twee Hat Boy are talking. And talking. And talking. Elisa is trying to figure out how to make her dress with one cut. This is the same strategy she used last week, and it will soon come to light why. What we didn’t see last week, and what we can hope that we never see again, is how Elisa marks the pattern. She spits on it. She calls this “spit marking” and it is not as common a procedure as “hand measuring”. I need to mention that she spit marks the dress while Sweet P is holding the fabric up to her body. Elisa explains that she spit marks the fabric to “imbibe it with energy.” She means to imbue. To imbibe is what I need to do with a bottle of scotch if she keeps doing things like spit mark. Eek. Sweet P opines that she is from Earth and Elisa, some other planet, the happy planet of unknown name.

Ricky is crying again. Steve thinks that the design Marion has come up with is overly ambitious, but since he (Steve) is merely the sewing partner, he isn’t going to say anything, but he really is the one going to have to do all this sewing. Victorya and Kevin are doing fine, ticking along nicely. Elisa is hand-sewing the one seam (see? one cut, one seam. Can’t do a lot of hand sewing, so a minimum of seams is a requirement in a speed test like this.) The designers only have half an hour left, and there is still lots to do. Kit observes (astutely) that while she gets Elisa’s (my note says ‘intrigue’, but that can’t be right, so I’ll say) viewpoint, but that girlfriend is going to have to learn to use a sewing machine. And I say Amen and hand to G-d.

Runway Day

It’s the morning of runway, and now we see Jillian in a stupid hat. I’m telling you, this is stupid hats, stupid tats, stupid hair season on Project Runway. Carmen saunters over to chat with Sweet P, who is struggling mightily to iron the “handmade crap” and make it work. There is one hour for hair and make up. Jack says that Ricky has the “sickest model”, by which he means she is hott. Kit says that their sweater ended up looking a little French, so they accessorized it with a beret. Squinty and Twee Hat have made something greige, and not quite finished and ratty-tatty. It’s getting ugly, says Squinty Steve, and getting uglier, says Miz Shoes. Christian is primping and doing his own makeup in the L’Oreal makeup room. Elisa thinks that somehow, she and Sweet P made a perfect marriage. Kevin (who is straight, you know) and Victorya have made a little racer backed vest over the stupid baby doll and added a huge floppy bow at the neck of the dress. Christian, having finished his eye makeup says that he will be Surprised? If he doesn’t win?

Out come the models: Kit and Chris with their long-ish sweater and 3/4 leggings. Very cute on the model, it would look like crap on me or any other woman larger than a size two. Elisa and Sweet P’s dress is (and it sort of kills me to say this) really, really cute with a bat wing sleeve. The skirt is cut a touch too slim, and the cape is crap, but the dress is stunning. Rami and Jillian have made a meh shirt dress, with meh leggings. They have saddled their model with a purse the size of a Mini Cooper and an Amy Winehouse beehive, held in place by a ginormous head band. The whole look is awful. Twee Hat and Squinty send out their sloppy, floppy, fringed thing which makes me squeak: POCAHANTAS! As it turns out, it made Michael Kors squeak the same thing. Victorya and Kevin send out the sack and vest, and my note says boring/bad. Christian and Carmen have made a jersey turtleneck dress in almost the same color and cut (except for the batwing sleeve) that Elisa made. They have added a 1980s Euro-Trash fitted jacket over it. I notice that the cut of their dress has made their little stick-like model look like she has a poochy belly. Not a good sign. The last dress out is a sweet little scoop necked dress in a gorgeous shade of cranberry, and it was Ricky’s dress. Don’t cry, little emo boy, we love your dress, and we love the way you accesorized it.

Rating the Runway

The following designers represent the best and the worst: Elisa, Victorya, Marion and Christian. Victorya’s design is seen as “interesting” by Sarah Jessica Parker. NinaGarcia says that many types of women could wear it. Miz Shoes says that not many would want to. Twee Hat’s model is asked to remove the belt. This only makes it worse, because the sweater knit now looses any semblance of shape. The proportions are off. SJP says that the sketches look sophisticated. Michael Kors says the actual garment looks like Pocahantas and also, costume-y. It is noted that the arm holes are so huge that you can see the model’s bra, or side-boob. Heidi says that she just doesn’t get the whole thing, and it looks like it came off the basement floor. After the judges have finished flaying Marion, they move on to Elisa. Her dress, she explains, is polymorphic, which means it can be worn in many ways. The judges have been told about Elisa’s “spit marking” technique, and Heidi thinks that maybe she isn’t understanding the English words. Michael Kors looks like he’s going to vomit, at least a little bit. But, say the judges, the finished dress is great looking, and SJP declares the sleeves “stunning.”

Christian is called out for his full-on 1980s Addicted to Love look. Christian just sniffs his little emo sniff, and demands to hear what SJP has to say. What she says is that the dress is much more severe than his sketches, the color is different than what he showed her and that the dress itself is too short and too snug. Asked and answered, Little Emo Boy. This makes Carmen cry, so the judges ask her which designer she thinks should be sent home for this. Before she can answer, Christian steps up and says, I should. It was my design, and I take responsibility. Someone saw how much street cred Malan got for that answer last year, me thinks. The same question is asked of the team of Squinty and Twee Hat, and Marion gives the same answer: I was the leader, I’ll take the hit.

I have some weird notes about Elisa and Sweet P winning the Cape Cup? They took crazy and whining and turned it into something fabulous. I think this is where Elisa told the judges that she comes from another planet…with gifts. And does that mean that she is possessed of gifts? Or that she is coming to give us presents? And how much of how good that looked was due to Sweet P and her construction and pressing skills? Well, it doesn’t matter, because the winner is Victorya and Kevin (who is, you know, straight). It comes down to Marion and his stupid twee hat or Christian and his stupid emo haircut going home. Bye-bye little twee hat. Bye-bye.

And that is the end of episode two. So, week one was won by Rami of the Heavenly Arms, and week two by Victorya of the never ending baby doll dress. Hopefully, by week four, someone will notice a distinct lack of variety in her style.

Last night, after watching an exhausting hour of the Bianca

Bitches and Hos (aka America’s Next Top Model), I settled deep into the couch cushions, opened up the laptop and participated in a live blog party with the most rabid (and I say that in the nicest possible way) of the Project Runway fans over at Blogging Project Runway. Thanks for letting me in, and I’ll certainly do it again, even though it made taking any coherent sort of notes impossible.

And. We are off and running, and damn Heidi Klum for being spot on when she said this is the best season yet. We didn’t waste any time with the audition tapes or the freak show of folks who didn’t get in. There was no pre-challenge challenge to narrow the field. There were just new apartments, which, I’m sorry, look exactly like the old apartments. Gotham. Atlas. Cube Farm. What ever. The fourteen move in and the camera does not linger over any of them, but I wonder at the introduction between Jack and Kevin (who would like everyone to know that he is straight before we go any further). Kevin says hi and Jack says hi and they shake hands and seem to hit it off and then Jack charmingly allows as how the two of them will most likely loathe each other before the end of the season. And then he smiles and laughs, charmingly. Or sinisterly. Only time will tell.

In the women’s apartments the two earlies gloat over having squatter’s rights to the closet space and bed choices. It turns out that this is Jillian (in Betty Page mini-culottes) and Carmen (I used to be a model and if you were never a model, you don’t know shit about clothes.) They are joined by a heavily tattooed Sweet P (who used to be a biker chick and also has Evil P tattooed on her other forearm, and who warns us that you never want to meet Evil P. I’ll lay you odds right now that we meet her in all her Shetangi-like glory before the end of episode 3). There is the requisite whack job who comes in and claims a spot for her Sun Salutations. This is Elvira, uh, Elisa, who makes 30-foot tall marionettes which somehow accidentally translated into fashion. Whoo-boy. Is she Angela? Is she Lupe? Is she Vincent?

In the men’s apartment, we have the arrival of a flamboyant little boy with wicked manners and the worst emo haircut in history. It is Christian, and he has worked for Vivienne Westwood and gone to school in London, and is a perfect prat. He is also, he says with a stupid valley girl uptilt at the end of the sentence “Really kinda Fierce?” Hmmph. We’ll just see about that. He says he is thrilled to be sleeping in a bed because he sleeps on the floor at home. Why spend money on furniture when you can spend it on? What did he say? Fabric? OK. I’ll give him that. But if you have a big enough stash, then you can sleep quite comfortably on that. Not that I would know, by any means. I’m just guessing.

There is a handsome fellow named Rami from Israel, and a Jay McCarroll light clone, who, as it turns out, made the salad dress that Erin featured on Dress a Day. Look, I loved it then, and I love it now, and despite the unfortunate resemblance to Jay, I’m loving Chris March. There’s some guy who looks like a watered-down, much shorter Emmett. A stupid hat guy. Several stupid hat guys. Lots and lots of tattoos. None can hold a candle to the Neck of Darkness that was Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo, and for that, too, I am grateful.

Back in the women’s dorm, there are more tattoos and more women. Simone Le Fang. Kit, whose work just floored me. I love her stuff. And I know the perfect place to get the hats to wear with them.  If I don’t own that candy pink Marie Antoinette Pirate Tricorne with the fishnet drape by next Halloween, my name ain’t Miz Shoes. Of course, I’ll need the candy pink, be-ribboned and be-shelled corset, too. But maybe Kit works in pink… Rounding out both genders we have a florist who makes clothes and a lingerie designer who wants to do outerwear, and Victorya, who seems to design a lot of stuff that looks alike.

Tyra

Heidi Mail! Meet us in Bryant Park. And now you know where that forced song lyric in the title came from. Hey, you want better? You think of better. Champagne, and nibbly things and small talk and Tim and Heidi. Heidi asks the designers if they are enjoying the champagne and they all say yes, and she says good, because the party is over. Tim reminds everyone how in previous seasons, the first challenge has been to make a dress out of junk like groceries or their apartment furnishings, but this year, no. He points across the park to three shabby art festival tents and tells the designers that the tents have what they will work from. Only—FAKE OUT!—it isn’t the tents, it’s what is inside the tents. $50,000 worth of fabrics from Mood. Heels come off, elbows come out and they stampede across the lawn to claim their yardage. Except for Chris, who is a leetle too portly to run. Kevin beats out Kit for the silk plaid. Elisa grabs some silk chiffon. Others are grabbing just anything. By the time Chris makes it to the tents, there is nothing left but (insert evil chuckle) exactly what he wanted. Good, because that was a shitty thing to do, reality show or not. Hah! and Snap! Their ultimate assignment: to make a garment that shows who they are as designers. State your point of view now, or for ever hold your peace.

Back they all schlep to Parsons, but not before Elisa takes her silk chiffon and starts scrubbing it in the grass, rubbing grass stains into the gorgeous fabric. She is wearing Bermuda shorts and high cowboy boots. She claims to be imbuing the fabric with the soul of the grass. Oh. Really. Well. That will either be fabulous or a fabulous atrocity. Score one for the Vincent style of loony. Or would that be Bradley? As they leave, Tim turns and looks at the skeletons of the tents. All that is left is a faux fur pelt, sadly alone. Poignant. And also nasty, which is why it was rightfully left behind to become a nest for rats, or some homeless guy when even the rats don’t want it. They arrive at the workroom. (Oh, workroom, how I’ve missed you and the mannequins. And the industrial machines and cutting tables of correct height and steamers and irons and the BlueFly wall of accessories, which last year was the Macy’s wall of accessories. It looks like a big step up in style this year.)

And now all the crazy comes out. Christian is showing off what he learned in Vivienne Westwood’s attellier, but without the attention to little details like matching the plaid, which he defends as a point of view when Tim questions the wisdom of matching the back seam, but not the sleeves. Christian is putting on the wicketywhack. Elisa is communing with the voices in her head to determine which one has the best ideas for the dress. Christian calls her strange. Miz Shoes calls Christian Mr. Pot, and points out that as such he has very little room to criticize Mrs. Kettle over there, who, having destroyed that yummy silk chiffon is now doing bad things to a bolt of peacock blue…jersey? In a moment of lunacy that makes Vincent, Lupe, Bradley and Angela all look like pillars of sobriety and sanity, Elisa is sitting on the sewing table, legs stuck straight out, and is somehow sewing the dress on herself, rather than on a dress form. What ever. I’m sorry, there Mr. Pot, you may, in fact, have a point. And then, while everyone else is working like made, she announces that she has finished and goes off to take a nap.

Rami is draping. Rami has biceps. No. Really. Rami is built like a brick house and as long as he wears tank tops, the man can do no wrong in my book. I think Tim Gunn may feel the same way, because he says things about Rami’s draping but he’s eyeing Rami’s biceps. And who can blame him? Rami is doing things with a steel grey silk georgette that makes me want to weep. Did I mention that he has really great arms? He does. And Marion and Ricky have stupid hats. I’m thinking that the rule this year is stupid hats, stupid tats and/or stupid hair. Carmen has the same asymmetrical emo cut that Christian does. I miss Laura all of a sudden. Finally it’s time to go home, and many of the designers have much left to do, like put in zippers, or sew up seams, or in the case of Elisa, make a dress that doesn’t suck.

It is morning in the apartment, and we are gifted with the sight of Jack in nothing but his briefs. Miz Shoes has a moment on the couch. Miz Shoes thinks that if Jack will continue to wander around in towels and briefs, Miz Shoes will be very happy. This is infinitely better than Santino in a towel. At Parsons the designers meet their models, send them off for hair and makeup and prep for the runway. There are some big girls this season, by which I mean that they may have eaten more than wheat juice and hot lemon water in the past year. Some of them actually look like solid food has passed their lips and they LIKED it. Elisa “hand measures” her model, by which I mean she estimates the girl’s height and width by hand spans. A hand is the standard by which horses are measured. A hand is four inches. In case you ever need to figure out someone’s height in hands. I am so amazed by this action of Elisa’s that I almost miss her (Elisa) thinking that maybe a column of peacock blue jersey with a tail of shredded, wadded up crap that will unfold and explode down the runway could be a bad idea because maybe the girl won’t be able to walk in it. Tim asks her if she’s sure about this concept and she says that the other times she tried it, it almost worked. Unfortunately, she doesn’t listen to the voice that’s telling her to make it work, she’s listening to the one that is telling her this: Bai Ling wants you to design for personality number 43.

Heidi comes out in a gold mini dress with her golden locks and her legs up to there and looks amazing. Today’s guest judge is Monique Lhuillier. No idea. Had to look her up. And the runway commences. Eliza’s model comes out (wearing a particularly clashing aqua slouch boot…Angela crazy moment) and promptly gets ensnarled in her gown and can barely make it to the end of the catwalk and back without tripping. Chris, who we saw nothing of in the workroom, has made a beautiful, elegant olive green and eggplant gown in something shiny and drapey. Charmeuse? Kevin, who wants you to know, before we go any further, that he is straight, has made a sort of Playboy Bunny/waitress mini-dress out of what looks like a black pinstripe menswear suiting, but with the added kickiness of a metallic ren-fest wench bustier. Meh. Sweet P has the first baby doll dress of the night, in an ivory oversize eyelet lace with burgundy at the neck and hem. Simone has a monochromatic hot mess with an even worse brocade mini shrug. Jillian has made a vibrantly red (perhaps a red sheer over a magenta stretch underlining) party dress with a bubble miniskirt. Christian hauls out his beige, black, white VW ensemble complete with bustle on the skirt. But markedly well-made, I have to say. Victorya sends down a black mini-baby doll with bondage straps across the upper arms that makes me think of something Heidi wore last year. Rami’s steel grey dress is a knockout, and I’d wear it if I could get it. Ricky the lingerie designer also sends down a black baby doll minidress. Ho-freaking-hum with the baby dolls already. Jack sent down a dress that could have walked in anyone’s cruise wear collection, and it is accessorized flawlessly. He used a black and white fabric, cutting it so that the print was an integral point of interest in the design. Oh, there’s a term for that, but it escapes me. He used a clear turquoise either as an edge treatment or as a lining that showed along the seams, I couldn’t tell about the construction, but it was another dress that would sell out if it were put into ready to wear. Marion did some Santino light thing all flowy and drapey and with raggedy swatches of denim. Steven (and who is he again?) did a wonderful, retro new-look sort of pencil skirt and dramatic jacket suit. Black with red accent. For all the color that I saw in the Bryant Park tents, and all the color popping out of their bags of swag, this is a black and red runway show. Carmen made something with genie pants and an Elizabethan vest. I didn’t want nightmares, so I didn’t look too closely. Kit sends out an asymmetrical black and red (plaid?) hottness. And then, there is judging.

Chris, Kevin, Sweet P, Jillian, Jack, Marion, Steve, Carmen and Kit are all safe. Rami, Simone, Ricky, Victorya, Elisa and Christian are the top and bottom three. Simone Le Fang says that she wanted to make a moderne romantic, but Michael says it looked like her model dressed in the dark. And you can’t sew, either. Rami’s silk georgette was called sophisticated and chic. MK pointed out that there was a mother-of-the-bride fleurchon up there on the shoulder, kind of spoiling everything. Ricky, as a designer of lingerie, was called out for doing a stupid baby doll when he could have done something constructed to within an inch of its life. A pageant dress? Oh, Kayne, where are you now? Victorya’s baby doll was also dissed, but Michael admired her use of the arm bindings, and laughed an evil laugh as he allowed as how he knew women who would bleed for fashion, much less not be able to hail a cab.

And then we had Elisa, who explained her point of view thusly: “a sylphlike haiku of a cut like SLLLLLLUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRPPP and a tail that goes FFWWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH”. Imagine the appropriate hand gestures, too, please. To which Michael says, “you had me at hello. Color: pretty. Sleeve: pretty. But where to stop? It’s a train wreck.” Dammit, Michael, low puns are MY purview. Christian’s work was found to be innovative (you say innovative, I say derivative. Tomayto. Tomahto.) Rami’s ability to drape with those amazing arms was duly noted as was the fact that he knows his craft.

As the judges discussed the bottom three, Heidi said that Elisa’s dress made her model look like she was (and again I quote, because there is nothing I can add) “pooing fabric”. And finally, Rami wins and Simone is out. Next week looks like a team challenge. And having watched this and ANTM in the same night, I am left to ponder the differences between shit and shinola.

Well, sweeties, is today a great day, or what? We have the newest season of Project Runway beginning tonight, and we are mid-way through this season of America’s Next Top Model… in honor of this momentous occasion, I am discounting my “Got Taste” t-shirts in my cafe press shop. It’s never too early to think about your holiday shopping. Or about my dwindling bank account.

Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo won.

To paraphrase him: This TOTALLY sucks.

Uli was robbed. Laura was robbed. Michael was mugged on his way to Bryant Park by some thugs frontin' Yo Hoochie Momma's House O' Bling.

He was an odious, mean-spirited hack and still, he won. Ugh. PR may have just jumped the shark. I knew I couldn't trust that whole redemption edit. And one final thought: what's the point of rehab if you are still a loathesome twat?

On the other hand, part of me rejoices in the thought that the too-cool-for-rules Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo will have to spend the next year being mentored by people he thinks are sell-outs and hacks, designing pret a porter for women who are shaped more like his baby mamma than the swizzle sticks in skinny pants he so clearly prefers.

Still and all, the fact is that he made an older woman cry, just because he didn't like her daughter, and I don't care how they paint Angela's mom as a whiny, passive-aggressive; the fact is that he gloated about it to the daughter and bragged about what an atrocity he made her mother wear; he heaped incessant hateful abuse on Laura (Why doesn't that woman have a stroke and die?; Moth balls and chicken soup, etc.); the constant "I'm a genius and the rest of these guys can't hold my crusty jock strap"... all of that makes me despise him.

I know a lot of folks out here in the blogosphere, especially on the Bravo site and on Blogging Project Runway think that the producers demanded he win for ratings. Maybe. Maybe not. But the editing surely didn't help the viewers believe that JTPS won for his show.

Uli and Laura were both praised for having 12 pieces that made a cohesive collection. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo was criticized for not. He ran over budget and had to give up the blonde Barbie wigs. Michael Kors rolled eyes over that. Fern Malis pointedly told Uli not to leave Miami, that her work could go in stores tomorrow and race out the doors. Nina Garcia said that someone stopped her at the tents to ask where they could buy/contact Uli. Of all the interviews of celebs and fashionistas shown, only one preferred JTPS's collection.

And as for that collection, all I can say is sand-blasted, acid-washed denim is fashion-forward? Would you really trust a man who dresses himself in plaid cuffed manpris to dress you?

In the words of my beloved, departed grandfather (a tailor): Feh. Dun't vaste yer money.