I'm just going to go straight there. I don't like Jeffrey-the-PInheaded-Shmoo. I don't like his designs. I don't like his television persona. I don't like his haircut, his tattoos, his girlfriend's haircut or the fact that he wears manpris. I don't care that he's a recovering drunk, rehabilitated junkie or a failed suicide. I particularly don't like the redemption edit he's gotten the past couple of weeks. In fact, the nicest thing I can say about him is that he makes Santino look like a sweet-talking charmer by comparison. Now that we got that out of the way, let's take a look at last night's show.

We open on the final four being told to take their 8K budget and go home and create a line of twelve looks. See you back here in two months. Then Heidi and Tim Gunn walk off the runway giggling like two school girls and trading very stiff banter about running away together on holiday. Although, I have to say, the thought of Tim Gunn in a Speedo with about half a dozen frozen piña coladas under his belt makes me giggle like a school girl. I'd pay to be on that Windjammer.

The designers pack their bags, and yes, Laura packs with the same attention to detail and meticulous fitting that she uses to design her clothing. Laura cracks the joke about producing a line of clothing being no more difficult than producing a line of children (I love that) and ignores the cabs in front of the Atlas in favor of sauntering down the avenue in her high heels, dragging her Luis Vuitton behind her. Really. She has to be the most fabulous contestant ever.

Michael bids a fond farewell to all, assures us that he WILL win, and blows. Ditto Uli. Jeffrey is left on the street waving for a cab. One can only hope that nobody picked him up.

Then Tim goes visiting. First is Michael. He lives in a very nice house. He says that he's doing a safari theme for his show, and has some swatches and samples and a beautiful laced-bodice dress on a mannequin. The overall look is sort of Ralph Lauren (several seasons ago) meets Diddy in the Hamptons by way of Yo Momma's House of Bling. Meh. Except for that white dress, it isn't really calling out my name. Or Tim's.

They go to visit Mikey's family, because Michael wants Tim to meet his family and he also wants to cook for Tim. Is this guy for real? I hope the stories of Brandy and him hooking up are true, not because I know anything about Brandy, but because he is the nicest guy ever and he should have a famous good-looking girlfriend to walk around showing off his clothes. And also? I bet she could get him into a Diddy/Hamptons party.

Daddy Knight turns out to be an Army lifer, and probably the only one in the history of the military to speak the following (paraphrased) sentence: By the time Michael was nine, we knew he'd be a hairdresser. But what ever made him happy and whole, we were behind him 100%. Jeez. A whole freaking family of sweet and nice. And military, as if that isn't the biggest oxymoron of them all.

Then it's off to see Uli in my hood. The truth of the matter is that Miami always looks good on film. It's just living here, with the humidity and the idiot drivers and the abusive service workers, and the mosquitos that dims it a little in reality.

Still, Uli gives a great interview about growing up poor in a tiny village in East Germany (EAST? Germany) and how she always watched Miami Vice on t.v. (I'm having a hard time with the whole East Germany/Miami Vice dichotomy) and dreamed about America. Then, one day, the wall came down, everybody was free, and she was on the next flight out to Miami Beach. Now she's a finalist on Project Runway, and dreams come true in America. All she has to do is stick out her hand for the little blue birds to land on her palm.

Her line looks, well, like pretty damn near every other thing she's shown since the beginning of the season. There is flowy. There is pattern. There is not a set-in sleeve to be seen. And instead of the ever-present halter tops, she's holding her hippydippy chic up with what looks like a belt under the armpits and a bone hook and eye. Her theme, she says is Safari. Oh.

Next we travel to LA to visit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo. He has a wife, girlfriend, you know. It pains me to say this, but she seems to really care about him. She also has a two-tone mohawk and a baby by Jeffrey, so maybe her judgement is a little off.

JTPS talks at great length (and with absolutely no appropriate self-consciousness) about his abusive father, his childhood drug addictions, his alcoholism, his failed suicide, his mad parenting skillz, his something or other. I don't know. His mouth was moving but all I heard was quack, quack, quack.

They head over to what he coyly refers to as his "little sewing space" and they trudge down a dirty hall to a dirty door and open it to reveal a cavernous room the size of my entire house. There are racks and racks of clothes, and 10-foot long work tables and in short, a working fashion production facility.

JTPS tells Tim that the inspiration for his line is Japanese ghost stories (traditional, not anime). Yeah. Whatever. We see lots of Japanese woodcuts with women in kimonos and frankly, I'm still not seeing it, but whatever. Quack, quack, quack.

Tim is very excited by the pieces he's shown, and just goes batshit over this green striped thing that has open zippers defining the seam lines on a halter-topped, full-skirted dress. Which, I hate to say, is pretty cool. Except that the seams are describing a giant oval over the belly of the dress, which if one is not concave, will make the wearer look like they lost the strap-on pregnancy belly that so obviously goes on that oval. Quack, quack, quack and off we go to see Laura.

Laura interviews that she's surprised herself with how competitive she's become over the course of the show. Oh, yeah. Pull the other one, woman, it has bells on it. Like you weren't competitive before. Then she says the second greatest thing (second to the line of clothes/line of children) which is that she wants to win so badly, if for no other reason than to keep Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo from winning. Except, she leaves out the Pinheaded-Shmoo part.

Laura lives on what looks like an entire floor of a New York City sky scraper. Bitch. It is a gorgeous space and if she wasn't totally my imaginary BFF, I'd hate her for the apartment and all the art in it. One of her personal basketball team tries to hand Tim Gunn a lump of turtle poop. Can we get that on You Tube, yet?

Turtle: $25
Turtle food: $5.
Turtle wading pool: $15.75
The look on Tim Gunn's face: priceless.

Off to the cramped little corner of her spare room, where Laura shows Tim her line. Just as Uli does Uli, Laura does Laura. But my god. It is soooo beautiful and elegant. The grey and chartreuse dress is stunning. I want it. The red, with the bling inside the seam along the skirt slit, so it only shows when the wearer moves is another stunner. Each of her evening/cocktail dresses is more beautiful than the last. Literally. The last dress she shows is so not Laura, that even Tim asks: Is it even pretty? The answer is no. No, it is not pretty. It isn't even acceptable.

Finally they all meet back at Parsons, or their new hotel or someplace in Manhattan. There is much designer love all around, except for, you know, Jeffrey-TPS. They are shown their Macy's supplied workspace, which is about one fifth the size of you know who's warehouse.

Out come the tools, the dresses, the pins, the fangs, and everybody gets to work putting the final, finishing touches on their lines. Everybody except Jeffrey-TPS, who seems to have completed everything down to the last stitch. Even when they get their models and do the final fittings, it seems that the only thing JTPS has to do is smoke cigarettes, twiddle his thumbs and make snotty comments about Laura.

Laura doesn't take kindly to that and takes a peek under the plastic drapes at JTPS's line (which she also notes seems to consist of more than 12 pieces). Surprise, surprise, surprise. Every piece is well made. Much more so than the work he did during the challenges. Michael weighs in on it, too, saying something to the effect of Dawg, when did YOU learn to sew so good? And Laura, pithy to the end, says that you don't pull that kind of workmanship outa yer ass. So she takes it up with Mr. Gunn, and he takes it Very Seriously.

And then, it's over. We're shown a clip of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo crying piteously while Uli pats his narrow little shoulder, and we hear Tim say "Unfortunately..." and then there's something else on my tv.

Is he in? Or out? We don't know. Until next week, keep the scissors sharp.

Reunion Show! Yeah! The prodigals return and we learn that:

1.) Angela is wearing a stupid purple necktie made of....wait for it....
Signature Angela Fleurchons!!!!

We also learn that:

2.) Laura has more than black and white in her closet: she also has red, and it looks fabulously glamorous on her.

3.) Robert is still boring

4.) Vincent is still insane

5.) Michael got braces, and now he's going to be cuter than ever. He was also the fan favorite (Shocked! I'm shocked to learn this.)

6.) Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo is still an arrogant ass hole and he never apologized to Angela's mother for being an abusive dick head to her. (Shocked! I'm shocked to learn this.) JTPS is still a nasty excuse for a human being, no matter how hard they try to give him a redemption arc.

Other things we learn are that Kayne and Angela are still utterly clueless as to why they lost. Angela asked NinaGarcia if her back story in the doggie challenge had been different, would she still have been so harshly critiqued. NinaGarcia, Michael Kors and Heidi all choked and tried to explain that ugly hootchie momma is ugly hootchie momma whether you are a camp councillor at Jubilee Jumbles or working 8th Avenue behind Times Square. (Well. That may have dated me. That particular section of Manhattan may be very nice now. But you get the general tenor of their replies.) Kayne asked if he'd used different fabric in his couture challenge, if he'd not been auf'ed. Except for the reference to hootchie momma, pretty much the same answer. To paraphrase the noted fashion critic Gertrude Stein, an ugly design is an ugly design is an ugly design.

Bradley cleans up nicely. (Shocked! I'm shocked to learn this.)

In other news, Keith thinks that he was set up by the producers, because HIS contract apparently didn't have the same language about design and pattern books that all the other designers had in their contracts. At least he never read it. Keith Malfoy can also do the Manson lamps. Keith also claims that the whole brouhaha over his leaving the set without leave was bogus because one of the production assistants told him it was ok. Actually, what he said was that he complained about the brouhaha to one of the PAs and they showed him where the door was. Which, if you think about it, probably did happen. As in, Dude, you are such an unmitigated ass, there's the door and don't let it hit you on the way out.

We discover that half the time the designers don't know what Tim Gunn is talking about because they only have visual vocabularies, and don't understand words of more than three syllables. Pity that, because part of what makes Tim Gunn the sexiest man on the planet is that he CAN use those words correctly.

Heidi and Laura are both hugely pregnant and took pot shots at the size of each other's bellies. Trust me when I say that the exchange was much cuter than it sounds. Laura does not own a pair of blue jeans. Tim Gunn does. Laura wears jodphers and riding boots when she goes casual. We saw that during the dog challenge and the garbage challenge and I made snarky comments about it then. But, remember, this is Laura, who came to the Atlas with matching Louis Vuitton cases. Sigh. She's my idol. In the previews we see her say, as she leaves the Atlas to prepare her show: "Oh, I've already produced a line of kids, I ought to be able to produce a line of clothes." Bwahahahaha. Oh. Laura. Will you be my BFF?

That was pretty much it. Nina Garcia's legs look better when she's sitting. Michael Kors needs to lay off the self-tanner, because he's starting to look like Jay Manuel AKA Little Orange Man from ANTM.

Next week we see Tim Gunn visit the designers in their natural (or in the case of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo, UNnatural) habitats. Laura points out that of the four designers, JTPS is the only one with not so much as a button left to sew on when he gets back to NYC for fashion week. He is also the only one from all three seasons to make that claim. There will be drama! There will be nastiness! There will be cat fighting? Maybe? Please? Will Laura take her perfectly manicured little hand and slap the ugly right off of him? One can only hope.

So the big twist, the huge surprise was... there was no decoy at the tents. We've seen the final shows by all four finalists. Excuse me while I yawn.
Such drah-mah as there was consisted of Uli taking Nazri (the model) away from Michael, and then deciding her usual schmata looked like a house dress, and tearing it apart and starting over. Why it took her til last night to come to that blazing revelation, your guess is as good as mine. But Nina and the rest of the judges (the guest judge was the fashion writer from the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper famous for its coverage of the edgy and new...and also for never publishing photos) just had to fan themselves because cutting about two feet off the hem caused them to see the same old same old as something new and different.

Michael should have stolen Marilinda from Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo, because that girl can sell the worst piece of crap on the runway as haute couture (thinking of the mustard yellow plaid Hot Topic evening gown). But he didn't, and more's the pity. Michael hit the proverbial wall last night and just sketched and sketched and sketched and finally found something to sew, but... well, let's just say that it was no Pam Muthafukkin Greer ensemble, despite a passing resemblance in terms of color.

Laura made another impeccable Laura dress, but with a slightly different colorway, one very closely related to her jet set dress. Slit down the front and back. Lace, beads, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But tailored to within an inch of its life.

Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo took time off from being all dark and edgy and shit to do something he called romantic and... provocative. He also called a horse-drawn hansom cab a rickshaw, so what the hell does he know. He made a point of telling the world that it was beautiful and hand-sewn. Meh. The blue velvet that he used for the bodice was luscious, the marble-sized pearls he stuck on the neckline, not so much. There was a giant red waistband that looked to be semi-pleated and a bubble skirt. Yes. A bubble skirt a la Angela the much maligned. In white. With what may or may not have been raw hems. Ho-hem/hum.

And then they all got to stay and Tim got all misty-eyed. Next week will be the reunion show where Keith Malfoy goes all Travis Bickle on Heidi, et. al and nobody really cares who will win on the 18th.

Boy-HOW-dee, was last night the best Project Runway, EVER, or WHAT?

They really, really had me going with Laura's reference to the Olsen twins, and the clip of Heidi saying there'd be two special guests. The fan blogs/forums had been rife with speculation about why the "special benefits to winning a challenge" line was dubbed in and what those special benefits could possibly be. Last night we found out, with a vengence.

The show opened with the three boys left standing (Kayne, Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo, and Michael) all congratulating themselves and each other about still being there. Kayne and JTPS are just ripping on Vincent being gone, and laughing and laughing and laughing about him going home. Maybe that was gloating, gloating, gloating. Whichever. And Jeffrey being Jeffrey, he has to bring up how happy he still is over the fact that Angela is gone and he won two challenges, but mostly, Angela is gone.

Over in their room, the girls are much better behaved, and Laura is just beaten down by pregnancy, the criticism of the other designers, pregnancy, stress and her last week's review on the runway. Noooooo. We love you, Laura (especially with your hair loose). Just put on a little lipstick and get back in the game.

At the studio, or Parsons, or the runway, or where ever the hell Heidi gives them their next challenges, the designers are told HA HA, no challenge for YOU today, you guys are going to a party tonight and we will have not one, but two special guests and that's when you'll get your challenge. Then Heidi, wearing a very large pink and paisley scarf as a very short dress, gives them a nasty smile and a buh-bye and they are left to ponder the implications amongst themselves. Or maybe have a day off to sleep. That's what I'd do, anyway.

Exterior, night

We are outside of a bar. Inside, there is lots and lots and lots of champagne and the remaining five designers. Doesn't look like much of a par-tay to me, but that's what champagne is for, n'est pas? Of course they pop the corks, and, in what is only his second slip of the entire show, Michael literally pops the cork, and the wine spews everywhere. Dawg, that may be the way they open champers in the hood, but the correct way is to hold the cork and turn the bottle until the cork eases out and there is a slight pop, but the bubbles and the wine stay in the bottle where they are supposed to be. Note: both Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo-and-recovering-alcoholic and Preggers Laura are tossing it back tonight.

In comes Heidi, and intros the first of their two special guests, and it's ----- VINCENT!!!!

Well, children, you have never seen pouting and stink eye and displays of blatant unhappiness and sulking and what not like we see next, since the last time someone ate the red crayon in a pre-school coloring hour. And that's just Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo. He did show enough self control to not actually throw himself on the floor and pound his heels and fists and cry. But just barely. Instead, he settled for sulking on the settee like any old spoiled teenager. And when the second special guest proves to be Angela, well, sweetiedarlings, Kayne just gets on the settee with him and the two can barely be civil to each other, much less the rest of the gang.

The special benefit of winning a challenge (and Keith Malvoy being sent home for cheating, thus leaving the producers one designer short for elimination), it turns out, is a second chance. They each won a challenge, and so they get to come back for one last ride. The only caveat is that the only way they get to continue is to win the challenge. Otherwise? Back on the bus to East Jesus.

The party ends right there and then, with the two losers coming back into the mix. Some of the designers are more gracious about it than others. Imagine that.

Back at the Atlas, Laura explains to Angela how she, Angela, is only there because she rode to victory on the backs of Michael and Laura. Angela, true to form, disagrees and totally doesn't get that she would have lost had not the tasteful twosome grabbed those nasty little Signature Angela Fleurchons out of her mitts and limited her to a couple of them as buttons. Really? she asks. You think? Laura arches her perfect eyebrows, rolls her baby blues and says, DUH. Out here in television land, another million or so folks do the same and add, Oh, HELL to the yes, Angela.

Oh, yeah. the challenge. I almost forgot about it, what with all the drama and shit. A cocktail ensemble. In black and white. Only. And PS? The designers have to use every scrap of fabric they buy. If it's as large or larger than a postcard, they need to use it, somehow.

Angela asks Tim, before they go to Mood, if they can choose one or the other... he says, uh, no. Both. Black and white. Together. Remember this.

The Night of the Living Fleurchons

There is so much going on in this episode, that we don't even get to watch the designers shop. We go from sketching and kvetching to sewing. Laura is having a breakdown. She's lost her mojo. She's lost her ego. She's lost at sea and can't tell anymore what's good and what's bad. Speaking of which...

Vincent is sure he will win with a white top that looks like the Guggenheim Museum (better than it sounds) and a black eyelet slim skirt. He's bought way too much fabric and chooses to make a really awful, vee-shaped drape, uh, shawl to go with the dress. Vincent is hamstrung, too, by the fact that his model has been in a bicycle wreck on her way to the show, and he is given a new (also previously auf'ed) model as a replacement. She is nowhere near the same size as Jia, and splits every seam on his dress and he has to sew her in as she's getting hair and make up.

Uli is working with (don't be shocked!) black and white patterned flowy silks. Guess what? It's the same fucking dress, only short, and with sleeves that look like they aren't really sleeves, but opera-length gloves with no hands, only fluttery hand openings. Yeah. I didn't get it, either. It's Uli goes to Ren Fest, and it isn't particularly pretty. She makes an ugly necklace out of her extra fabric by stuffing a tube of one fabric with wads of other fabric and bunching it up at intervals to look like ginormous bead things. Woof.

Michael makes an asymetrical white dress with a huge black cumberbund with floral cut outs and add-ons and it is, as always with our man Michael, utter perfection on Nazri. Nazri must be hot stuff, because I actually know his model's name and the rest of them are just...the models. Michael lines a purse, or stuffs a purse, I couldn't really tell, with his extra fabric.

Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo makes something that is atrocious, even by his low standards. It's black faux-pleather footless thigh-highs and a micro miniskirted bo-ho blouse. It's mostly white with black patterning.

Laura invokes the name and spirit of Josephine Baker (HEY! That's my dog's name/namesake, and now I love Laura even more than ever) and makes a white sorta mini-baby doll dress with black lace overlay, black lace trim on the square neckline and long, sleek, daggery feathers and beading along the hemline. It is, as always, impeccably tailored. Sigh. She makes a purse with her scraps.

Kayne uses black and black only to make a bat-winged, boat necked dress with no back. It's held on or held together by a white shoelace going through giant tabs all around the cut-out back. It's worse than it sounds. Tim almost bitch-slaps Kayne when he discovers that the only white material Kayne has is "trims" and the way Tim says the word "trim" makes it sound very, very dirty indeed. He makes a purse with his left-over trims.

Angela has made... a mess. She's made a micro-shrug out of black vinyl (?), and a sloppy, backless, shapeless, sleeveless hot mess of what is supposed to be a dress to go under it. The collar of the micro-shrug looks like Dracula's cape got mugged by white fleurchons on the way to the runway, and they are breeding all over it. It's eating her model's face, in fact, and it is just worse than anything else out there, except maybe Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo's pleatherette thigh-highs. She's stuffed all her extra fabric into a crocodile mini-hatbox purse. The purse is from the Macy's accessory wall. Why she didn't make one of her stupid Signature Angela Fluerchon Covered sacks, instead? It's Angela, so who knows.

Don't Cry Out Loud

On the runway, the emergency back up judge tonight is Zac Posen, wearing a silver ascot. Oh, come on. Nina points out to Angela that one doesn't need to stuff material in a stiff, box-like purse to shape it, and that as far as she's concerned, Angela bent the rules so far that they snapped.

Michael Kors, in what is perhaps his first fashion faux-pas of the season, says that everything Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo has done till now just looks like Gwen Stefani, to which I call bullshit. Gwen may make some questionable fashion choices (a bustle on a mini-skirt?) but she would never, ever, ever be caught dead in those broke-ass pleatherette thigh-highs.

Michael also does a dead-on impersonation of Uli and her mantra, "I'm from Miami, I design for hot veather." I'm laughing so hard, that I almost spilled my cosmopolitan.

Zac Posen shows some spot-on analysis of what he's seeing out there on the runway, despite the fact that he dressed himself in a silver ascot.

Everyone hates the proportions on Vincent's homage to the Guggenheim, and when he uses the awful shawl thing to add length to his skirt it looks much, much, much better. I thought about it for a while, and I think he should have done a full, gored skirt with the extra material, and I think the contrast between a very structured white top and the black eyelet and black sateen fullness could have been a winner for him. Oh, well. I'm not one of the voices in his head.

The winner? Miss Laura, but it could just as easily have gone to Michael. Once more, the judges gushed over how this guy is a fashion natural, a genius; how his presentation is always flawless, from hair and make up to accessories. I think they just didn't want him to win three.

Since you had to win to stay, Angela and Vincent go bye-bye once more. Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo and Kayne are the bottom two. Kayne is (finally) given the boot for having, in White Trash vernacular, all of his taste in his mouth. In his final interview, Kayne lets us all know that he really isn't a bitch, he just played one on tee-vee. Yeah. Nice try, Nancy. Ain't none of us believin' that shit.

The only thing that could have made this episode any better would have been to see Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-Shmoo get tossed out on his shaved eyebrow. And one other thing. Dude. The fly-eye sunglasses with the rhinestones? Did Kayne give you those, because a) they are SO not rock and roll, and b) they are SO gay.

Whew. That was exhausting. PS... the closet was finished just in time for Project Runway, and I got to sleep in my real bed last night. Like I said at the beginning of this entry, was last night great, or what.

Wow. What a rotten episode last night was, and only partly because my boy Vinny-the-Loon got sent home. Not that he didn't deserve it, of course. I mean, if couture means hand made, I don't think they mean hand-glued. And why, oh why, oh why did he listen to the voice that told him to put a beige hopsack flower in the middle of the back?

There was plenty in the margins, as it were, to keep me amused: Laura's hand-printed sign that warned "Fleur Champs [sic] making session in progress", the scene of Vincent, buried under a pile of blankets, calling Jeffrey a fuck (high point of the night, IMO), any of the footage of Paris, although why the editors felt the need to use the same bilious green and yellow filters that they use for New York City on the City of Light, I will never know, and the mystery woman on the barge who had a huge tribal tat on her forearm.

But the challenge, to make a couture dress in two days, was patently ridiculous. The footage of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo cackling wildly about being allowed, nay ordered to make a couture dress was unnecessary and insane. Equally unnecessary was all the footage of Jeffrey trash talking all the other designers and their work.

May I interupt myself at this juncture to say how much I loathe that hack, that creature, that monstrosity? And the fact that he's being given a winner's redemption arc is making me toss my Tangerine Martinis. He doesn't deserve it!

Anyway. They get the challenge and they go shopping in a Parisian fabric store. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo buys two variations of Ronald McDonald yellow and orange and black plaid. In cotton. Uli buys a dove grey/lavender solid. Kayne buys golden brown ombre, gold foil mesh, brown velvet ribbons, gold lace. Laura buys a black wool knit and a lot of white organdy. Vinny buys gold/ivory brocade and ivory satin. Michael buys blue something, I couldn't tell what kind of fabric exactly. Silk, probably, but not a charmeuse and not anything as nubbly and stiff as a dupioni.

Another aside here: color response and psychology. Yellow is cheap. Orange is cheap. The more pure the color, the simpler it is to describe, the more it appeals to the unintellectual, lower-income masses. Think about it. McDonald's and Burger King use a lot of yellow and orange and bright, pure blue. Simple colors for the kinds of things that you buy with pocket change. Kayne and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo used yellow or variations thereof.

The more complex the color, the more words it takes to describe it, the more educated and wealthy the person that color appeals to. Ralph Lauren? Deep, blood reds, dark wine-bottle greens. The only fabric that came close to that kind of complexity was Uli's greyish-lavenderish chiffon.

Black and navy blue are power colors. Authority colors. Judges wear black robes. Police wear navy blue uniforms. Laura's maid's uniform YSL... was it YSL?? It was some old respected designer or another... rip-off was black and white. Very dramatic, I thought. I also thought it looked like couture, and was striking in its simplicity. Elegant, even. Unfortunately for all concerned, it traveled back to New York about as well as Angela's outfit traveled to Paris, which is to say, not at all well.

Blue is the most popular color in the spectrum. More people list blue as their favorite color than any other. Blue is the color of the sky, it is the color of water and it is the color of the Virgin Mary. It is calming and peaceful and nobody doesn't like it. It's the color that Michael used.

And then there is the non-color of sand and nothingness that Vincent used. Let's face it. I love(d) Vincent. I GOT Vincent. I respected Vincent... don't ask me why. But this week? He deserved to go. We got some footage of him, and some interviews from the other designers revealing that Vincent did the Daniel Franco shuffle. Bad. Very, very bad. We saw him being snarky. Not so bad, considering the jerky shit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo says or said: specifically the shit about who cares if Kayne gets sent home or hurt.

Vincent glued his dress together. 'Nuff said about that. He also had to be the smarmiest ass-kisser ever, even more so than Satan-ino licking the toes of Nicky Hilton, when he was sucking up (and is there a stronger description that I can use?) to Catherine Malandrino... and what's up with that bitch, too? I mean, she savaged Angela last week, told her she was just from another planet, and then hires her to work her (Catherine's) New York Fashion Week show? (Makes derisive French noise.) I don't get it.

So. They all make pretty unimpressive dresses. They're nice, but not great. They get their French models and they head off to a barge on the Seine for their runway/party. Somebody throws eggs at them while they are walking, and Michael's dress gets spattered. This whole thing is left unresolved. Who threw them? Why? (Oh, well, let's see: cameras, Americans, beautiful people hoofing it along the Rue? Can't imagine) Were there any repercussions?

The models walk, and walk like real models, something that Kayne proceeds to gush to the models about in another piece of footage that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Can you say obsequious?

Catherine scores the dresses, they continue their par-tay, they fly home to NYC, they re-fit the dresses for the New York models and they walk again. Richard Fucking Tyler is the guest judge, and although he is a FAB-ulous designer and all, boyfriend needs to learn how to shampoo-rinse-repeat. GAH! His hair was as greasy and stringy and nasty as the Great Satan-ino's. And how awful was this episode that I have had to invoke his name twice? Once more and he'll show up, Beetlejuice-like.

And before I do the dress-by-dress, let me say that I thought they ALL were pretty uninspired and unattractive.

Kayne's corset top has one very interesting detail: the back lacing is asymetrical. The gold mesh, with the gold lace with the beading and the brown velvet ribbon over the boning: it's all just too much. Nina Garcia invokes the dreaded "The taste level just is not there." Michael Kors loves the ombre skirt and notes that you don't even see it with all the other crap heaped on top.

You all know that I love me some excess. In fact, I think I used to have a t-shirt that said "Wretched Excess is Just About Enough". But in all honesty, Kors is right. It IS just too much of everything, except taste and restraint. There isn't a hint of either of those two things in sight.

Uli has made the Same Fucking Dress. Again. Except in one color and with beaded lace on the halter top. For some reason, this has the judges just pissing themselves over it. The oohs, the aaahs. "I don't see her wearing flip-flops with this!" coos Michael? Nina? Heidi? One of them, I don't have TIVO, and it doesn't really matter. One of them.

Vincent's dress is awful and I don't want to talk about it. Nina points out that it would have looked better backwards, and what more is there to say than that, really?

Laura's dress gets slammed for being derivative, stark, somber and looking like a French maid. The judges attacked her collar saying that it could have been more alive, and it was... in Paris. Maybe if she'd stuffed some tissue between the layers of organdy?

Michael's dress is a serious piece of architecture, and he is decidedly unhappy with the workmanship. He has (for the very first time, he confides to the camera) done ruching. A lot of ruching. An entire top worth of it, and he is not at all pleased with his own handwork. The judges point out that the sculptural lines of the top do not need the roundy parts on the top (one of them refers to these as "the bunny ears") and, in fact, when the bunny ears are folded down, the dress comes alive and probably could have won.

But it didn't. No. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo takes back to back wins and becomes (he says) the first contestant in PR history (all both seasons of it) to win a challenge when already in possession of immunity. Thankfully, there will be no further immunity. His dress is yellow plaid on plaid. He claims that his inspiration was the Statue of Liberty. I suppose I should throw Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo a bone here, and acknowledge that he knows that France gave the Statue of Liberty to America, and that makes her a French inspiration... I suppose.

I see no relationship to the SOL at all, except that she is wearing a floor-length toga, and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo has made a floor length gown... with a slit that goes so high we know what the models had for lunch. Say it with me, fans "Entirely too much tootie!" Maybe a pair of matching knickers would have been in order? There is some sort of folderol going on in the back. There are straps and strings and things hanging off. There is the slit that goes on forever. There is not much else, except the gloating and gloating and gloating of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo.

And, oh yeah, Vincent and Laura are the bottom two, and my martini glass is at the ready for throwing at the TV if it's Laura getting the auf. But it isn't. Vinny the Loon goes away, too soon for me, and not soon enough for everyone else out in TV land.

There is also the One Big Tease. A preview which shows 1) the announcement that there will be not one, but twospecial guests next week, and 2) Laura having a nervous (pregnant, hormonal) breakdown and telling Tim that she just can't design for the Olsen twins??? WTF?

The OLSEN twins? OK, so the blonde one is a "fashion icon" (bwahahahahahah) but the dark, very very anorexic one? Puh-leeze. Since when has dumpster-diving homeless person layering been chic?

Till next week, sweetiedarlings, keep your scissors sharp.

NOTE: I wrote this, and brilliantly, if I say so myownself, first thing this morning, and then closed the wrong window, erasing it all. Hopefully, version 2 will be just as pithy, scathing and entertaining.

We begin with the usual: Jeffrey complaining and being ugly. Then we move on to Parson's and the new challenge. This week the designers will be making an ensemble for a jet-setter. The twist is that they must each make something for themselves, as they will be the jet-setter.

This causes much twittering, as Vincent allows as he has never, ever made menswear, and Angela allows as she has no clue who or what a jet-setter is. Angela lives, she reminds us for about the same number of times that Jeffrey has announced that he is the most brilliant and talented designer in the litter, on an organic, totally off-the-grid farm in the middle of West Bumfuck, Ohio, where she apparently has never had access to an issue of People, Harper's Bazaar or Elle Magazine.

This is stupidity on a par with Bradley, the theoretically gay fashion designer having no clue about the ubiquitous Cher. People, people, people... just keep your mouths shut. It's better to be quiet and thought an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Or something like that.

The designers are given a day and all the spare change Heidi, Michael and Nina can shake out of the couch cushions. Really. Seventy-five dollars? Come on. They are also given about five minutes to design, just long enough to bring the car around to transport them to Mood.

Back at the work room, Jeffrey begins to ride Angela like a wild stallion, going on and on and on and on about how the dress he made for her mother was the ugliest piece of crap he'd ever run through a sewing machine. How it was the worst thing to walk the Project Runway catwalk in three seasons, and yet, he, the brilliant and under-appreciated Jeffrey was still here, still flapping his frito and dew hole, and still being the most odious creature ever to waste the electronic pixels on my tv.

Oh. Maybe he didn't say the last part: the part after the flapping his pie-hole. Maybe that was just me. When Angela points out that he's talking about her mother, here, he cops to only "talking about the challenge." Yeah, right. My Aunt Ethel. You're trash talking her momma, and you well know it. And Jeffrey just won't let it go, either. He's digging it in, and digging and digging and digging. He's working the needle just like a true junkie, and denying it every step of the way.

Jeez, I depise, loathe, hate, abhor, detest, that repellent little Shmoo.

Vincent wears boxers. This is a relief, because he is working in them, trying to cut a pattern from the Dockers he had on. I love Vinny, but if I had to see him standing around in tighty-whities, I would have had to kill myself right there on the sofa.

So, they finish and send themselves down to hair and make-up and Angela takes the opportunity to get her hair ironed. It does not help. Michael skips that, to concentrate on his work, which, true to form, he has changed completely from his first design after listening to Tim Gunn and reflecting upon his own ideas. Reflecting is perhaps too strong a word, because the guy has lightening-like fashion reflexes. Tim throws out a question, and Michael has reworked the design in his head before the question mark fades from the air.

I'm Too Sexy For My Pants

The designers come out, strut their stuff, and then answer the judges' questions. Questions like "Where do you think you're jetting off to in that outfit?"


Michael knows the answer to that. He is rolling to the Hamptons with Diddy. And he totally is. His ensemble is so cool, he's shedding frost all over the runway. He's made a crisp white architectural top with a pair of white on white seersucker trousers with a little bit of cargo styling. He has a touch of bling. He has Attitude. I think that Michael Kors is going to cry he's so in love with the look. As well he should be. Seersucker is the single most wonderful fabric in the world, and every man should have a summer suit made of it. But I digress.

Uli has made the same thing she's made every week except the last. A halter top with braiding. A tiered, hippy-hippy shake skirt descending from the empire waist. Color on color and pattern on pattern. I loved the colors she used this week, a deep, pure turquoise and a coppery brown. The judges all announce that the first five times they saw it, they liked it, but y'know? It IS getting stale. And unless you are jetting off to Rio, Miami, the south of France or LA, you really aren't going to look like you belong. So. There.

Vincent has made black trousers and a v-neck black heathered top. He's wearing flip flops. He's blown his hair out. The judges, in unison, say that he's too understated, too simple and too easy. Where's the pizzazz? Vincent says that HE is the pizzazz. I'm buying it, but the judges aren't. After seven weeks, they (the professionals) haven't figured out that Vincent's signature style is minimalist, sleek, pared down to the essentials? He's being true to his style, here, even if you think he looks like a stay-prest ninja.

Laura has listened to the judges and has made something completely new and different from her usual silhouette. It is drapey, and wrappy, and jersey, and in the most unfortunate color she could have chosen for herself: ivory pink, the exact same shade as her skin. She is wearing the most magnificent pair of chandellier earrings, ever. Talk about your Harry Winston's. I think that they are rubies and diamonds. As ever, the tailoring and fit are exquisite.

Kayne has made a NikNIk shirt by way of fat Elvis. He pairs it with bell bottoms and an iced-out belt buckle that says "KAYNE". In case any of us have forgotten who he is. He says that he envisions himself climbing out of his limo at the airport, only to be swarmed by the papparazzi. Michael Kors says that he can see that, and the subsequent feature photo under the headline "What WAS He Thinking?" Oh, God, I love you Michael Kors. So much that I don't care that you are the same color as the carrots in my vegetable bin.

Kayne, Kayne, Kayne. Sweetiedarling. Let me explain something to you before you go back to flyover country. White Trash is not good. It is not cool. Let's review. In "Breakfast At Tiffany's" the divine Miss Hepburn is precisely divine because Holly Golightly started out as white trash and has been transformed into something elegant and stylish. It doesn't matter what Brittney and K-Fed have been trying to convince America, White Trash is, well, ugly, cheap, tawdry, and ultimately, trashy. Don't aspire to it, aspire beyond it.

Who Let the Fleurchons Out

That would be Angela, who in the depths of her cluelessness has made a pair of copper brown linen/silk blend shnickers, an unholy marriage of knickers and shorts. She has made bad worse by quilting concentric ovals across the ass crack and cheeks, like some sort of built in bike-short padding. Just in case we forgot who SHE was, or how ugly THEY are, she has attached ginormous Signature Angela Fleurchons on the ass. There is a double-wide set of belt loops, holding up at least two different belts. The blouse is blowsy, and held up by straps of Signature Angela Fleurchons, which may or may not be attached to actual straps. The neckline is way too low, and way too loose, and exposes way too much black padded bra.

MK gently points out that linen is probably the worst fabric in the known universe for wrinkling, and so why would you make a travel outfit from it. I hear the crickets chirp.


And so I come, finally, to Jeffrey. The brilliant, talented (just ask him) Jeffrey, who reveals that, despite what he told Angela's mother in the last challenge: that one day is just not enough to even consider making a jacket, has made himself a dark purple (and wasn't that the color she wanted and he was unable to find anything suitable in?) faux leather jacket with a pinch back and Sergeant Pepper detailing (but in monochrome) on the sleeves. He's also made a stunningly original black t-shirt with a glitterized or bead-dazzled skull. He's finished his three pieces with a pair of black cigarette pants sporting an 8-inch crotch opening of large chrome hooks. The entire look can be summed up thusly: Gay Bondage Meets Hot Topix. The judges just oooh and ahhh and admire his very rock-star look. I puke. I also spend way too long pondering the issues Jeffrey must have about the size of his package to make an 8-inch chrome hook and eye crotch. (Where is MK's frightened exclamation now? The crotch in those pants is insane!)

But this is not the end of the challenge, they are now told. Before the winner can be announced, the travel clothes must be travelled in and they have one hour to pack and get to JFK.

Ça Plane Pour Moi

They go to Paris. Unlike America's Next Top Model, we are not shown an adorable purple plane animating it's way across the ocean, while little animated faces look out the windows. We see actual plane travel, and the always unrumpled, elegant and well-shaven Tim Gunn is there with them.

Brief montage of them driving around Paris, with Angela and Kayne going "Gol-leee" and Laura talking about how one never gets used to the beauty of the city. They tool up to Parson's Paris, where they are taken into a fabulous, high-ceilinged and large-windowed work room. There they meet somebody or another who is a fabulous female French designer of some reknown. I've never heard of her, but Angela claims to, and that makes me feel really stupid.

She will be the final judge and her scores will be added to the others from New York, and that will determine the winners. The designers must walk for her, and she'll decide how well the clothes travelled.

Uli, still rumpled, but good. Vincent, exactly the same as when he got on the plane. Ditto for pretty much everyone but Angela, who looks worse than ever, as though she travelled, not in first class, but in an overhead storage bin. The French designer makes that Parisienne noise that I only wish I could make. It's sort of a pheeew. With the lower lip pushed out in that French way. And instead of aspirating through the mouth, the whole thing kind of goes through the nose. Disdain has never been more palpable.

She announces that Uli, Vincent, and Kayne (but you can tell she wanted to Auf him, too) all get to stay. The winner is a toss up between the deliciously hip-hop Michael and the aggressively banal Jeffrey. The winner is Jeffrey. But what can I expect from a nation that idolizes the questionable genius of Jerry Lewis. Of course, the French also loved Josephine Baker. Tonight they went with Jerry Lewis.

This is killing me. Keeping Kayne around means that not only does Jeffrey-the-Shmoo win, but he gets to gloat about Angela leaving. It's a win-win for Jeffrey, and just as I predicted a few recaps ago, he is utterly obnoxious in victory. What a contemptible little turdblossom.

Angela is punished by having to wear that ugly schmata home on the next flight out. The viewing public is punished by having to watch Jeffrey gloat and preen and interview that it was about time he won a challenge, since he himself knew that there was at least one other that he should have won.

Robert gets aufed (finally) for being boring, and a million souls cry out as one: how in god's name can a man who has designed for Barbie be so consistently boring? How is it even humanly possible?

Vincent wins a challenge (and the fan sites blaze with the fury of a million stars, all in super-nova) with a simple, tasteful black & tan sheath dress.

Jeffrey proves himself to be the most loathesome thing ever, beating out Santino by a TKO in the second round.

The challenge was simple: design an everyday ensemble for an everyday woman. Despite the fact that most of the viewers were duped into thinking this meant Martha Stewart, the everyday women who showed up were the designers mothers or sisters. Cute. Very cute. Most of these women are large. Really large, even if they aren't tall.

They aren't allowed to break into family pairings, since that would make things way too easy. Out comes the velvet button bag, and the fun begins.

Michael chooses Robert’s sister, Teresa.

Laura chooses Jeffrey’s mother, Pam, noting that she's doing it just to annoy Jeffrey, and who could argue with that reasoning?

Vincent chooses Uli’s mother, Heidi, who speaks little to no English, but that won't shut Vincent up for a nanosecond, and they seem to bond anyway.

Angela chooses Laura’s mother, Lorraine, and I think for the same reason that Laura chose Jeffrey's mom.

Kayne chooses Michael’s mother, Pamela.

Uli chooses Kayne’s mother, Judy.

Robert chooses Vincent’s sister, Patricia.

Jeffrey is left with Angela's mother, Darlene. They both look thrilled.

I need to digress here for a moment. Tim Gunn makes a big deal in "Tim's Take" on the Bravo site that Vincent won with Heidi, who is tall and slender and model-like. He (and pretty much all the other Vincent-haters out there, which is to say 99% of the Project Runway viewing audience) just rips on this fact as making things far too easy for Vincent. He (and pretty much all the other Vincent-haters out there, which is to say 99% of the Project Runway viewing audience) totally ignores the fact that Michael's model, the boring Robert's very un-boring sister Teresa, is not only willowy, but she is also very pretty, very young and can walk the catwalk like a pro.

Nobody out here in TV land is bitching and moaning that Michael had it easy, although there is a little grousing that maybe he should have won. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, people.

Before anybody gets to work, everybody saunters off to Tavern on the Green to have a little brekkies and meet the guest judge, Michael Kors' mom. She doesn't seem to be as orange as her son, but they are wearing the same clothes, or at least the same jacket. Michael has on jeans and Mom has on something else. Black trousers? A skirt? Who cares. They also look alike. Totally.

There is champagne, and this leads to two discoveries about our contestants. Laura is pregnant with her sixth child (which prompts one of the funniest lines ever to come out of her mouth: something to the effect that nobody is EVER ready for their sixth child, but at this point, what the hell, she'll just toss it on the pile with the others) and that Jeffrey is a "recovering alcoholic".

That explains a lot about Jeffrey's atrocious behavior, but not all. That comes later, when we find out that he's also an ex-junkie and a co-dependent mama's boy. And an odious bully, cry baby and total asshat.

Anyway, after a lovely brunch where the mommies do what mommies do best: embarrass the bejeebers out of their offspring by dragging out the childhood photos, we follow the gang back to the workroom to confab and sketch and the first smell of trouble comes wafting out of Jeffrey's corner. He starts with the bitching and the moaning about having to design for a "real" woman and how he just can't fathom the plus-size woman and what is up with their proportions and wahwahwah. Note: Jeffrey's mother is another slender woman.

Sketching. Shopping. Commercials. Sewing. Back come the guest models and there is a total breakdown of civilization as we know it when Angela's mother, in response to a direct question from Tim, allows as how she's not completely thrilled with Jeffrey's choices in fabric, or maybe even his design.

This sends Jeffrey into the kind of inappropriate fury that only an alcoholic junkie can summon up. He attacks Darlene with all the snarling nastiness we have come to expect from someone who admits to being Santino's friend. He hisses, he spits, he bullies, he makes the woman cry. And then, sensing that perhaps this behavior isn't going to play so well in the heartland, he sends his own mother in to smooth things over. AND SHE GOES OFF TO DO IT.

Can you say enabler? Can you say co-dependent? Oh, Jeffrey just gets a little defensive sometimes. He doesn't mean it.

Woman, that sort of covering for his lousy ass and not making him take personal responsibility for his actions is what enabled him to become a homeless junkie in the first place. Once again, I am speaking from personal knowledge. I have the Artist Down the Street and her 18 year-old junkie son to watch and learn from, not to mention any number of friends and loved ones in my own past.

Well, it all just goes on and on from there. Jeffrey responds to her unhappiness by making something that Michael Kors refers to as Comme de Garçon goes to Amish country. Frankly, I think that Michael had to work long and hard to come up with that, and it is nowhere near as brilliant as the paper brioche or the Appalachian Barefoot Barbie of last season. In point of fact, the editors could have left that particular bon mot on the cutting room floor, and it would not have been missed, nor would it have made it to the extras on next year's DVD.

Vincent refrains from making too many goofy faces, and despite the language barrier, comes up with a totally elegant day dress for the totally elegant Heidi-Uli's-Mother. Heidi-the-host asks Heidi-Uli's-Mother (in German, and boy does her face light up when she gets to use the mother tongue) how she feels about the dress, and H-U-M responds in kind (complete to the lit-up face) and H-T-H tells the rest of the judges that H-U-M loves her dress. We got it, even without the translation. I wish I spoke German, because I sort of wonder if that was really the question or if it was "So... Is he really completely insane, and was it torture to work with someone with only one foot on this plane?"

Michael Knight made a tidy little shirt dress for Robert's sister, and he made it completely reversible, because, he explained, she's a business woman who travels a lot, so the thought was to give her two dresses in one. This guy is a freaking brilliant, brilliant designer. Not to mention that he can construct that kind of garment in one day.

Laura makes one of her usual silhouettes, which, unfortunately doesn't work quite as well as could be hoped on Jeffrey's enabling mother.

Angela takes Laura's mother a woman of clean elegance and style (apple? tree? as we say in the hood: ain't no denying who that one's mama is) and turns her into a fringed piano scarf with an ugly purple shoulder bag. Lorraine gives it her best shot on the runway, and does nothing to prevent us wanting to poke our eyes out. At least there are no "signature fleurchons" (No. I am NOT going to let that go, ever.) anywhere to be seen. That doesn't mean that they aren't somewhere in there, hiding.

Robert makes two tents, one in scarlett and one in black, throws them over Vincent's sister and calls it a day.

Kayne mutilates Michael's mama by tossing her in a pair of capri pants just one or two shades lighter than her skin. This makes a short, round woman look even shorter and stumpier, and it isn't a flattering color, either. He also must have cut them a little off, because walking from the dressing room to the end of the runway has left her with wrinkles that look like she's been sitting in the center row on a cross-country flight on a budget airline. There is some sort of peach top which Kayne has unwisely accessorized with a strand of peach pearls. Nina announces "Matchy matchy" and Kayne's blood freezes, thinking this is his particular ticket to ride...into the sunset.

Uli makes a wonderful outfit for Kayne's mama. It is flowy, it is colorful, it fits and Kayne's mama struts it down the runway with the express intent of embarrassing Kayne to tears. Can I say that I like Kayne's mama?

There is a lot of debate in the fan forums about how Uli should have won, and I can see their point. But I can also see why Vincent won. It fit her body, and it fit her style. It was a timeless, very Euro-centric look from someone who normally can't get anyone to see what he sees. Maybe the fact that Heidi-Uli's-Mom couldn't understand a word Vincent said actually helped their working relationship.

In any event, despite the fact that it made Tim Gunn cry a little, Vincent won and Robert went home. In what was the most disturbing scene all night, Jeffrey sobbed like a little girl against his mother's bosom over Robert being sent home, because, he said, Robert was a nice person and these other people are not.

Knock, knock. Mr. Pot? it's Mr. Kettle here at the door for you.

Or, an Apologia for Vincent

Let me begin by saying that I like Vincent*, I understand his point of reference in most of the work he's done. I don't necessarily like everything that he's made, but I do recognize his departure point. What I don't understand is the intense loathing for him in the forums and fan groups of Project Runway.

Granted, this past week has seen that loathing come to a frenzied point, since he got to stay on when everyone's favorite little blonde unicorns and fairies girl Alison was auf'ed. But I think people would have been peeved even if it was BlahblahblahBobby who left the runway for good.
The universal dislike and disdain started the very first week, when he sent a perfectly respectable little frock out accessorized with a wicker fruit basket doing duty as a hat. It was totally awful, and made worse by the accompanying oversized sun glasses and the addition of dangling chains.



And yet...I saw echoes of the maestro Rudi Gernreich and the 2001 Space Odyssey fly girls.



In Episode 2, it was his green evening gown with the Jetsons-esque cap sleeves that had the internets twitching with distaste, but Miss USA liked the dress itself, and so did Miss Vera Wang. Except for the very couture element of the unwearable sleeve cap, the dress itself was simple, elegant and very, very wearable. Maybe if he'd let Angela stick her "signature fleurchons" on the straps instead, they would have won?



Episode 3, Doing it Doggie Style, saw Vincent doing another awful hat and a simple frock. He was derided for using knee-length leggings, but take a look at any fashion rag on the stands today, and you'll see that leggings are back. With a vengence. Also? The dog ensemble was a hoot.

OK. Here's where we need to address the real issue about Vincent. The guy is a total whack job. OK? The giggles and shits over the dog's little hat and coat were over the top, even for me, but Vincent amuses himself, and really not an anyone else's expense (AHEM, JEFFREY).

Vincent is a whack job, but not a nut case. Vincent, in his early interviews and bios acknowledged that New York and the fashion industry almost killed him. After watching six weeks of him, I can honestly tell you that it wasn't the pressure and New York that did for him, it was the 80s. It was sex and drugs and rock and roll. It was cocaine and quaaludes and way too much tequilla.

If David Crosby has said about the 60s that if you remembered them, then you weren't there, I say if you don't have some serious scars from the 80s, then you weren't THERE. I was, and let me tell you, I can recognize a fellow-traveller when I see one. You don't get Vincent's kind of crazy from smoking a little too much pot, or having a genetic propensity for mental instability. You can get Vincent's kind of crazy from too much LSD, but then, you generally spend the rest of your life puttering around in your sanitarium's garden, and producing no work whatsoever. **

Vincent's kind of crazy takes a lot of work, most of it in the form of little white lines, little white pills, way too little sleep and a lot, a fucking lot, of hard living. Been there, done that, never was indicted.

The last thing that I want to say that I like about Vincent is that he believes in his own vision. He may be batshit crazy and dead wrong, but he stands in the spotlight on the runway, looks Diane Von Furstenberg in the eye (thereby defying her attempt to turn him into stone with a single stare) and says, you don't have to like it, you don't have to see where I'm coming from, but I do. I know what I wanted to make, and I made it. Period. Love me. Hate me. Recognize.***

* Yeah, and I also just adore(d) Daniel Franco. Proceed with the proverbial salt grain.

** Example: Syd Barrett

*** He's a sistah soljah, from the belly of the beast, recognize! But even Vincent isn't as delusional and batshit crazy as Jade from last season's ANTM. See also the entry below, where I put a side by side of his "work of art" and a Miro.

"It's a fine line between innovation and insanity."

Yes, Heidi, and I, personally, have been treading that line since birth. Maybe that's why I have no problem with Vincent. Even though I wasn't in love with what he made, he stated his intention: "I'm going to make art...like a painting." and he did it. It was stark, and very much in the spirit of Miro.



Ignore the color in the Miro, and just look at the lines and shapes, and then look at Vincent's ornamentation on his sheath and tell me that you can't see the influence/inspiration.
This week's challenge was to make something, anything wearable from recycled materials, hence the field trip to New Jersey. I loved Laura's comment about it was an ugly morning and New Jersey looked as ugly as it always does. You know, for a native of N'awlins, she has a totally New York attitude.


And while I am very, very sorry to see Alison go, I think the clip of Heidi saying would you rather look long and lean or lumpy was the kiss of death for Alison and her paper brioche (Oh. My. God. We have soooooooooo missed you, Michael Kors. The man has a way with the bon mot, n'est ce pas?).

The rest of the show can be summed up as follows: Laura is being given the Wendy Pepper snide bitch edit, Kayne is being portrayed (or is portraying himself) as Prissy McPrissyQueen and Jeffrey is just a whining, ugly, Shmoo-like, no-talent hack who, if he ever won a challenge, would prove to live the motto "Obnoxious in victory, bitter in defeat." He surely is bitter in defeat. He goes into every challenge with the attitude that he is clearly going to come out the victor due to his style, his vision, his talent, his genius, his glory that is Jeffrey, and comes out of every challenge dissing the winner and complaining that he should have won, and what the FUCK is wrong with the judges that they can't see to give him first prize.

Robert, bless his heart, made a charming dress out of silver mylar. It was not boring, and thankfully it was not as trashy-ho as he thought. It was enough to get him on to the next challenge, and nobody gave him shit from the judging chairs.



Uli made yet another dress without sleeves or a real neckline, which begs the question, does she even know how to set in a sleeve? It was yet another small bodice, full skirt and yes, of course, it had woven/braided elements. Even so, it was pretty.



Laura made another of her signature pieces, which is to say, witty, clean, elegant and with a plunging neckline. I loved the joke on the back of the skirt "For Nuts Only." I've always felt that I had an invisible tattoo on the center of my forehead that reads "Fucked up? Talk to me." and that anyone who can see it, is, and will. Which means that Vincent and I would probably be chatting to each other within moments of him seeing me across a crowded room. But I digress.

I'm sure that hearing the judges compliment Laura on her mylar strapping flower just made Angela's head spin, and not in a dizzy sort of way, but in an Exorcist sort of way. Angela herself did not indulge in her "signature" fleurchons (somebody please slap the pretentiousness out of her), but went back to her self-proclaimed roots and made some ugly-ass patchwork/overalls/mini-skirt thing. Woof. Can you say "dog" in French, Angela? Derriere de chien laid.*

Kayne (below on the left) made an atrocity that the magnificent Tim Gunn referred to as a high-school craft project, but he was only being kind to Kayne because he likes him so much. Kayne then got rid of the glued-on medicine bottle caps and giant paper cone pretending to be a skirt, and made a tin foil fairy dress. No, I am not making a double entendre. Even he was ashamed to send it down the runway. Which suddenly makes me wonder what Bradley could have done with trash. I think that he might have rocked the garbage.



Jeffrey's dress (above, right) didn't suck. In fact, it was very nice, and, like the judges I loved the trompe l'oeil** belt. Having said that, and finding that my tongue has not shriveled up, I would also like to point out that we have seen this same silhouette from both Jeffrey and his asshat friend Satan-ino in the past. Snore. Making it out of comic strips and tempera paint rather than dip-dyed muslin makes it no hotter.

The winner (and still champion) was Michael, who utterly blew the competition away with this:



He understood the concept of the challenge, which was about transformation. He took recyclables (plastic wrap, gold mylar and plastic burlap) and seemingly without effort made them look like organza, satin and linen. He is brilliant. For Jeffrey to bitch about Michael winning this is just mean-spirited. But then, we are speaking about Jeffrey, non?

*Which, as best as I can speak French, translates to dog-butt ugly.

** For reasons I cannot explain, today seems to be French day here at the house of shoes.

So poor, gently bewildered Bradley was finally let go. The only mystery was how he had lasted this long.

No, excuse me, the only mystery was how he had gotten to 2006 without knowing anything about Cher. The woman is ubiquitous. She can, and has, worn anything and everything. The only thing she wouldn't wear is a cropped tin-foil bag with turquoise appliqued triangles, which is what Bradley designed for her. And a pair of cameltoe trousers with the fringe on the front of the leg.

That was such a monstronsity that it would have made the poor baby Jesus drink gin from the cat dish.*
I loved this episode. In theory. I mean, I loved that the models got to pick their own designers, and I loved that the models got to choose their own icons. That had to be a bit of a trick, because there were two conflicting desires at work.

1. To be their own fashion idol, and
2. To be a fashion idol that their chosen designer could actually design for.**

So, there are elbows and hair and photos flying around and when the dust settles, the pairs are revealed to be as follows:

Uli/Diana Ross
Laura/Kate Hepburn (DUH!!!)
Michael/Pam Grier
Angela/Audrey Hepburn
Alison/Farrah Fawcett
Kayne/Marilyn Monroe (is there another Marilyn?)
Robert/Jackie O
Jeffrey/Madonna***
Vincent/Twiggy
Bradley/Cher

Sketching, caucusing, shopping at Mood. We see Robert fretting over his image as boring and matronly. Is that Robert or Robert's designs? There seems to be some overlap here, and I don't know why. The guy's been designing for BARBIE, and we know that she's hardly the matronly type. Anyway, Robert buys some beautiful blue fabric that's somewhere between robin's egg and Tiffany.

Kayne buys black and leather and nude stretchy stuff. I know, sounds like that should be Jeffrey's choices.

Jeffrey interviews at length and ad nauseum about how he should be winning everything and he doesn't know why he hasn't and nobody can sew a lick but him. It seems that with Keith Malfoy out of the show, Jeffrey has been freed to step in as the resident assholevillian/delusional whiner. Over at TWOP, recapper Jeff pointed out that Jeffrey shaves notches into his right eyebrow, something that had, blissfully, escaped my notice up until now, but which I now cannot NOT see. Thanks for that, Jeff.

They sew. Jeffrey and Angela get into a pissing match over the sewing machines. Jeffrey says that Angela broke one. Angela says she didn't. Jeffrey rants for a while about how there are all these amateurs in the sewing room who can't use a machine.****

Jeffrey won't let it go, and there is some nastiness all around. Laura (who has five kids, remember) finally puts on the Mommy voice, and while she doesn't actually say "Don't make me separate you two" (and wouldn't that have been great?) she does tell Jeffrey to shut it. That works just as well as you would expect it to, and there is continued sniping and grousing.*****

More sewing, more bickering. Robert (unwisely, as it will turn out) decides not to use the Bob Dylan's eyes blue fabric, but takes some sand-colored linen from Vincent. The models come back for more caucusing and fittings and we discover that Kayne's model Will Not Shut Up. Ever. At ALL. Kayne has the best line of the night when he says that she's a good model, and he'll work with her again, but there is going to be duct tape over her mouth.

Michael (who gets more air time in this episode than in all the previous ones put together, including his bio and intro footage) talks to his Moms (awww) and then decides that his design isn't what he wanted. So he rips it apart from the waist down and makes a pair of formal hot pants. Tim Gunn isn't so crazy about that (does Tim read Go Fug Yourself?) but allows as how, yeah, formal shorts are hott these days, so go ahead and make them.

Michael is working with the most beautiful shade of cerise satin e-VAH. He then makes a pair of formal hot pants that actually work. I KNOW. Go figure. But they fit, they aren't too short, they make the model look like several million dollars, and Pam Grier would totally wear this outfit. CHER would totally wear that outfit, BRADLEY.

Jeffrey interviews on and on and on about how he's a rock and roll designer and that he could design for Madonna any old day and he's sooooooooo gonna rock this challenge and he's whipping up a stage ensemble that is just going to wahwahwahwahGwenSteffaniwahwahwahLovechildwahwaahwahh.

Finally, we get to the runway, and YEAH!!! Michael Kors is back. But he must have had a vay-cay or something, because he is not up to his usual level of bitchy. The guest judge is Diane Von Furstenberg who may have stolen Kors' mojo. Or his bitch pills.

In the interest of brevity (and of getting done some of the work I'm supposed to be doing as I sit here in front of the company computer) I'm only going to talk about a couple of pieces. As can be expected, Laura nails the updated Kate Hepburn. High-waisted pants, cashmere-looking faux-wrap top. Caramel and pink, long strand of pearls. Perfect.

Uli channels
Dianna Ross, and I love the purple leopard print at the waist. Diana would totally wear this. So would CHER, BRADLEY. Uli's style is starting to grow on me, but I do wish she'd design a different neck-line once in a while.

Angela does something with yummy fabric that is intended to be an updated version of Audrey Hepburn, and the judges absolutely come all over themselves trying to outdo each others praises, but in my own opinion, I don't think that she would ever have worn anything with a neckline that plunged to her belly button. And also? winning the last challenge seems to have given Angela the impression that people actually like those stupid flowers, so on this dress they have grown to in size to something that I think she called cabbages roses, only in French. She's also placed them all the way around the hem, another frou-frou touch that doesn't jibe with my image of Audrey. But, hell, what do I know?

Alison does something with a highish waist and chiffon and calls it macaroni. Farrah Fawcett. Whatever.

Michael wins with this,
and for a damned good reason. It is flawless, although when Diane Von Furstenberg says that she wore a lot of hot pants in her day, and she'd wear these, I have a vision that makes me want to poke my eyes out.

Which would have prevented me from seeing Jeffrey's black satin diapers and asymetric leather bustier, and that would have been a good thing. Did I mention that there were ribbons, too? Jeffrey, here's a clue, and I'm going to give it to you for the love of God and Fashion: that sucked. Your designs all suck. Quit shaving the eyebrow, get the neck tats removed, and get a job in accounting. You and the rest of the world will all be a better place for it.

Vincent trots out something that isn't horrible, and the judges go for him like he's an antelope with a broken leg and they are hungry, hungry hyenas. Granted, the makeup was beyond attrocious, and the color way of his plaid was a little on the Halloween side, as opposed to the happyhappyjoyjoy of the 60s, but he had the black tights and the bell sleeves, and it was cute. I would wear it in a heartbeat. I'd also like to defend him referring to Twiggy in the past tense, even though that made DVF's veins stand out (farther) on her neck and forehead. I watch America's Next Top Model, and let me tell you, Miss Twiggy is not a fashion icon today. She wears cardigan sweaters and pig tails, OK? Twiggy in the 60s, past tense. Nevertheless, Vincent gets to stick around. Plucky comic relief?

Kayne's Goth Marilyn got rave reviews from all the judges, but frankly, I thought it made the model look poochy in the ass and belly. I love ruching as much as the next guy, and maybe more, but that dress was just ho. If he'd put a color other than flesh under the sheer black, maybe it wouldn't have been so awful (to me) but, ick. It didn't do a thing for me.

Robert's Jackie was universally panned, and mostly for the fact that it was linen. Apparently Jackie would never, never, never have worn linen because it doesn't hold a crease. See? Should have stayed with the blue. The Tiffany blue would have caused the judges to not notice the lack of pressing. Or maybe, if Robert had made a self-belt instead of using a piece of rope, the judges would have thought his suit looked a little sharper.

Finally, we have Bradley and what is there to say about this?



Nothing, except, you know? That really, really, really sucked. In every way possible, and in some ways that were heretofore unimaginable. As much as I would have liked to have seen someone else leave the runway before Bradley, there was just no way to defend anything about this design. Not the fabric. Not the fit. Not the cut. Not the color. Not the style, such as it was. Bradley, you were sweet, and funny and completely out of your depth.

Until next week, then, keep the scissors sharp.

* I don't actually know what that means, but I read it somewhere once and I thought it was so funny that I swore I would use it myownself some day.

** See above, re: Bradley being clueless about Cher. I'm sorry, but that one is still causing me brain cramps. How could anyone not be aware of Cher?

*** Am I the only person who, when I see/hear Madonna, automatically see/hear Robin Williams in Birdcage going "Ma-DONNA, Ma-DONNA, Ma-DONNA"?

**** Didn't she get sent home in the first episode? And isn't there one every season?

***** Did you know that snipe and grouse are both birds?

Excuse me, but if you cheat, lie and bully your fellow contestants, whose fault is it if you get thrown out of the competition?

So Keith got clocked, finally. Last week he refused to dress the doggie, and lost for his arrogance. Then he complained that he should have won. Except that he didn't actually participate in the challenge. Whatever, huh, Keith? This week he also overspent his allowance at Mood, and then whined his way into a discount. Which looked like cheating to me, and probably everyone else who was watching when Kara Saun almost got tossed for using comped shoes.

For the last four weeks we've had to listen to this a-hole dis the other designers and wahwahwah about how his is the only piece on the runway with any decent construction skills. Or decent design.

This week, we found out why: he's had the cheat books under his bed. On top of which, according to the Most Excellent Tim Gunn, he also skipped off the set without permission and went to do a few hours of internet research.

Classy guy to the end, Keith left by bitching that by ratting him out to the producers, he -Keith- was made to look a fool and had his reputation ruined and is a laughing stock. Well, yeah, maybe. But it isn't like the other guys stuffed the contraband under your pillow while you weren't looking. You brought it all down on your own head. Asshat.

With Keith out of the way, the designers went about completing this week's challenge, which was to design a three piece set of separates for INC. Jeffrey-the-Shmoo and Alison were only slightly handicapped by the loss of their team leader. Laura and Michael were seriously handicapped by having as their team leader the yoyo-happy Angela. Bonnie (the other of the two sort of lumpy women who designed sportswear) was team leader to Bradley and Uli. Robert the Barbie guy headed up the final team of Vinny and Kayne.

And you know what? I thought all four teams produced some amazingly boring, trite and unattractive pieces. An ANORAK? PUH-leese. Who the hell is still wearing anoraks? The saddest part of this is that until I looked at the Bravo web site this morning, I still thought it was Bonnie's team who made that.

Angela won despite herself, but only because she listened to Laura and Michael who absolutely would have none of that bubble skirt/yoyo rosette crap. They managed to wrangle her down to only 6 rosettes. Four as buttons on the front of the cropped jacket (excuse me while I yawn) and two for no reason on the back of the popped collar.



Vincent played nice with others, even though he thought that Robert's design was lame. He just kept saying, "Well, Robert's the leader. This is Robert's vision, I'm just here to make it happen. Even if I do think it looks like a matronly stewardess." Which it did. Blouse with an overly-large Superfly collar. Pencil skirt with a slit up to the model's ass crack. And the lame-ass anorak.

Bonnie's work was so boring I can't even bear to think about it, but I will say that I last saw that cowl neck that ate Manhattan on Pam Dawber when she was on Mork & Mindy.



Jeffrey made some very nice pants, with buttons at the (tight) ankles. He and Alison also made the most disturbing top I've ever seen.



Would someone please tell me what the fuck that is? Are those leg holes? Wouldn't that make the top a crotchless body suit? Arm holes, for making the top a crop top by folding it up in half and sticking your arms through both sets of holes? Nasty. Just nasty.

Given the choices, I can see why Angela's design won, but that's kind of like saying that for a fat girl, you don't sweat much.

Next week is yet another American Style Icon Getting A Makeover. And it looked like the models got to fight it out for something. Which ASIGAM they were going to be? Which designer they want to dress them next?

I hate to say this, but I sort of don't care. Is the bloom off the rose for me and Project Runway? I hope not.

Episode three offered us a plethora of cliches from which to choose:

1. It's a dog's life.
2. Going to the dogs.
3. Walkin' the dog.
4. Dog eat dog.
5. Every dog has his day.
6. What a bitch. (oops, maybe not)
7. Dog in the manger
8. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

That last would be Laura, whom I do so want to adore, and yet, conversely, whom I am coming to loathe for the very same pretentiousness and twee that so appeals.

To be specific, when she thought that the year's hottest fashion accessory was going to be a horse (!?!), she immediately changed into riding boots and jodphers. She had riding boots and jodphers in her Louis Vuitton cases when she moved into the Atlas? She, or the producers, are definitely streching the limits of my credulity with that one. But. It's Laura, so, maybe she did.

When she found out that the accessory is a micro dog, she got all squeamish and put it in a purse so that she wouldn't have to touch it. She has five kids, and she can't physically touch a dog? Puh-leeeze. That dog has got to have a better pedigree than her kids, and is certainly as clean (if not cleaner) than an under-5-year-old boy.

Which brings us to the subject of old dogs/new tricks. Her design, while yes, very chic and all, looked almost exactly like her cocoon coat with the giant fur collar from episode one. And her palette seems to be all down there in the white/beige/grey/tan/ecru/mushroom/taupe/toast/greige neighborhood of totally boring. If she doesn't come up with another shape and some real color in the next challenge, I see her leaving sooner than later.

As for the little bitch fight between her and Keith? Excuse me while I snore, even through her painful attempt at a little ghetto-tude while explaining that she was protecting her man. Or boy. Or what ever.

I loved Kayne's ensemble, and his matching little doggie cape. The model's coat alone was a masterpiece of construction, with the lining made from the skirt material. I thought he should have won, since his was the most matchy-matchy of all the designs, and seemingly the most meticulously made.

Robert is still going through Barbie withdrawal, I think, what with the treacly pink boucle. Still, he nailed it perfectly when he said he was going for a Jackie O slash Barbie look. His little dog suit, with the constructed slot for the leash/halter was also perfectly acceptable.

Uli's look is another one-hit wonder. Again with the rope straps. She stole the back from Vincent's Miss USA (not Miss America as I said last week. RJ was outraged that I didn't know the difference between Miss America and Miss USA. Hey, I have enough addictions, pageants are not one of them. So sue me.) The three tapering bands going to the middle of the lower back? The very features that Miss Vera Wang and Miss USA loved the most about Vincent's olive green slip.

I will grant Uli major color sense and an ability to do pattern on pattern as well as the masters of the form: kimono designers. But how many times can I see a rope neck and a halter top before I spew?

Katy made the perfect little dog hoodie. Was there a dress too? I didn't notice.

Alison's piece was edgy and hip, I could see (and I'm sorry to have to say this... I may have to punish myself) the Dread Paris Hilton trotting around in it with her matching little rat dog. Of course, it was much too long for Paris, seeing as how one couldn't see the models "pink stuff", and we know that would never do for Paris. And the material wasn't trashy or see through or a horrible color, so that would have to be redone. But if you squint enough, you could see Paris wearing that.

Vincent's design was deadly dull, and his affection for odd hats and large sunglasses is beginning to pale for me. I think I'm the last person in all of PR fandom to actually have a soft spot for Vinnie the Tool, but, hell. He may be a burn out, but he's my kind of burn out. The hat on the dog actually made me laugh a little. The part where the dog did the catwalk rubbing his head the whole way, trying to get the damn hat OFF was fulling entertaining, and exactly what one wants from one's reality TV.

Michael's set of matching dresses was under represented. We didn't see him sketch, shop or sew. There was no lingering camera work. I for one wanted to see more of that. What was up with the interwoven neckline pieces? How did that work? What kind of fabric was he working with? Why don't we get more of Michael? And was that little doggie in the matching dress not adorable?

Bradley. What can we say about Bradley? He needs a shower. He needs to shave. We saw all that trauma of Bradley not getting anything together, (and who needed that claptrap? I would rather have seen Michael.) only to have the judges rave on the runway. And over what, exactly? A blue and gold version of Daniel V's "orchid inspiration" from last season. That bubble/balloon top over a pencil skirt? Pardon me while I stiffle a Very. Big. Yawn. I hated it when Daniel V did it, and it isn't making me any more appreciative this year.

Jeffrey did another raggy, asymetrical, overly long-sleeved schmata. Done and done again. For such a freakazoid ("All I know about pageants is Jon-Benet Ramsey"? EWWWW) he really doesn't have much in the way of an out of the box vision. Maybe it's the pin-point pupils that make it hard to have one.

Finally, I come to Angela and Keith. Holy shit. Which one of those two assholes is bigger? Keith, he of the My-Shit-Don't-Stink Brotherhood, or Angela, I-have-a-story? A story? Angela had an entire series of American Girl books in her head. Or not. Maybe not American Girl, maybe more like Nancy Drew on bad acid. Which could also explain her designs.

Keith refused to dress the dog. Flatly refused to participate in the challenge. "MY girl doesn't dress her dog like a baby doll. MY girl has an exotic breed and it doesn't NEED any dressing up." Well allrighty, then. Which was a pity, because that dress really was a magnificent piece of work, and even making a wide collar out the orange fabric would have been an acceptable solution to the challenge. But no. He refused to play with others. Heidi and Nina were not happy. Miss Vera Wang was not happy. Did we get to hear Ivanka Trump tell him "you're fired?" (Admit it, that would have been great.) No. They sent poor lumpy Katy home, and she at least dressed the dog. In a HOODIE! This refusal to participate really made me miss Michael Kors. You just know that he would have ripped Keith's head off and (figuratively) pissed down his bloody neck stump. Sigh.

Let me see if I can relate Angela's opium dream. It went something like this. My girl is an English headmistress at a summer art camp for children. In Paris. And she's throwing a big picnic for her dog's birthday. The children are very young, 5-8. (Question: if she's English, are the children English, too? Because I think even the Brits would balk at sending junior to sleep away camp in Paris at that tender age.) So Angela made a million billion little hand-stitched yo-yos and applied them on a purple version of her ubiquitous bubble skirt. (Ditto for doggie shirt). This skirt, unlike Alison's entry, WAS short enough for Paris-the-girl. Hardly what a British headmistress (even at an art camp in Paris-the-city) should be wearing while out with the tykes. It had a blouse. The blouse was sleeveless, belly-bareing, and breast exposing. Hardly what a British headmistress (even at an art camp in Paris-the-city) should be wearing while out with the tykes.

The fact that even Ivanka Trump knew that it was inappropriate attire says a whole fucking lot. And Nina gave the unhappy "We are concerned about your taste level" statement that does, and should, send ice coursing through the veins of the designers. Miss Vera Wang looked like she would have been happy to send Angela back to the "off the grid" organic farm she lives on. Again, I have to ask, where was Michael Kors when we needed him?

Until next week, keep your scissors sharpened.

I'm sort of at a loss for what to say about last night. Do none of these people know the meaning of the word 'hubris"?

The challenge was to design a pageant dress for Miss America, who was there to tell the designers what she wanted, and then to judge how well they did. The guest judge last night was the inimitable and formidable Grande Dame of Evening Wear, Miss Vera Wang.

First the ground rules. They will each design a dress based on her requirements, and then pitch their designs to Miss A. She will pick seven designers who will then pick an assistant from the remaining seven designers to help them construct the dress.

So the designers as a group heard what she wanted "monochrome, earth tones - stay away from white, play down the bust, show off the back, make me look taller" and then had half an hour to sketch. Angela didn't sketch anything, though, because she was too busy trying to convince Kayne-the-pageant-designer to make her his assistant. I'm amazed that he could draw anything with that harpie over his shoulder. Wahwahwah. Much eye rolling from the other designers who saw exactly what she was up to. As usual in these sorts of shows, that nagging and ragging came back to bite her on the ass.

Sketches. Pitches. A few creepy Daniel Franco/Heidi Klum lingerie episode echoes are heard to reverberate. Laura is a pro. Kayne is Mr. Pageant and lets Miss A know it. Mooooolan's design looks great, despite my hopes to the contrary. Jeffrey's doesn't suck either, damn it, and Miss A likes his pitch of her being an empowered goddess-woman.

Back in the workroom, Miss A announces her choices for team leaders and the magic button bag is brought out so that random selection determines the order of picking assistants. Pageant boy picks Barbie boy in a great syncronicity of talent and style sense. Laura picks Michael (coffee filter dress) which also produces a powerhouse of a team. Keith snatches up Bradley; Shmoo goes for Alison. Uli gets Bonnie (one of the two women who look alike to me, and who have sportswear experience) and Mooooooolan takes Katherine (the other one). That leaves poor, poor, put-upon Vincent, who gets the last kitten in the box, the interesting Angela. This would be the part where all that nagging came back to bite her.

Vincent is gracious about it, although he gets her name wrong. But, hey, if I didn't work in an office where everyone wore name tags, I'd still be saying "You There", so once again, I have to cut Vinnie major slack.

And they're off to Mood to buy fabric. Kayne goes for a beautiful golden something or other and decides to layer it under what looks to be a sheer mulberry chiffon. The combination is stunning, but somebody (JEFFREY) feels the need to snark about "sherbert is NOT an earth tone". There is lots of charmeuse and chiffon and drapey stuff, and then we see Angela ragging on Vincent. She's whining about lack of time, and we're gonna have to leave before you pick fabric and wahwahwahwah. Finally Vincent asks her, very politely, to put a cork in it, because she's making him nervous and she made her point about 10 iterations ago. Me? I would have just bitch-slapped her until she shut up.

Back to the workroom again, and we see everybody working nicely together. Some more together than others. Katherine keeps trying to get Moooooolan to tone down his corset top. He's doing some very interesting and complicated work with ruching, and really, it only needs to be simple ruching. She explains that all that bulk in the bodice and hips is going to frighten away a woman, who will rightly think that it just makes her look bulky.

Robert and Kayne are kind of like Satan-ino and Nick, if Satan-ino WERE Nick. They are too much fun together. Jeffery is seen to be an egomaniacal asshat. What a shock. We only glimpse Laura and Michael (and I would have liked to have seen more: what an interesting pairing that would have been.) Mostly we get to see Vincent (and his olive green satin) getting ragged on by Angela. "I don't like your design. I made something like that in college. Let ME do the draping so that it looks better. I don't want any part of your crap. I don't like it. I'm going to go off in the other room and eat worms." And she does, so that when Vincent DOES want her help, she's nowhere to be found.

Finally, and after more stuff that I don't feel like reviewing, we get to the good part: the runway. Most of the dresses are forgettable. Jeffrey's vision of empowered goddesshood looks like crap. The pieces don't flow together right, the fit is awful, the draping is off. Moooooolan's dress is unfinished at the hem, because his model was taller or longer waisted or some such thing. Sure enough, all that dark brown fabric across the bust and hips makes his poor model look thick. More drapey stuff, more floating stuff. Uli's dress is better than I expected. Laura & Michael's dress comes out and it is, of course, stunning. It is sleeveless, with a deep scoop neck and a plunging back. The skirt is full. The interest comes in the beading or crystals which, very New Look Dior-style, are clustered more densely at the waist and then spread out above and below, to emphasize the wearer's shape. It is absolutely magnificent. It is also white. Oops. Kayne and Robert send out an absolute confection. The colors are stunning. The halter slash be-jeweled necklace is gorgeous. The cloud of silk organdy at the hemline and reaching up to the knees is sheer glamour. The model overworks it, frankly.

Vincent trots out his vision and it is the only dress with any real color. There is a plunging v-neck, with a little open rhinestone heart at the end of the plunge, between the breasts. Though sleeveless, there is a futuristic (and very couture) sort of cap sleevelet that almost looks like a Jetson's epaulet. The back is low-cut, but the straps of the dress come down in another deep vee to the small of the back, emphasizing the width of the shoulders, and the narrowness of the waist. The seams look like they are princess-style, which also emphasizes the contours of the wearer's body. I would wear this in a New York minute.

Vera Wang is the guest judge, taking Michael Kors' place. Is this not wonderful? Vera fucking Wang? judging evening gowns? I swoon a little.

There is the usual designer explain yourself, you're in, you're on the line. The bottom two were Mooooolan and Vincent. Moooolan, taking a cue from Daniel Franco, accepted that it was his vision, his styling, his choices and that if one team member had to go, it should be him. Angela immediately jumped in to tell the judges that she hated the dress, had no input in the dress, TOLD Vincent that the dress sucked, and as she paused to draw breath to continue, Miss Vera Wang said something to the effect that it was a gorgeous dress, in her opinion, and that except for the epaulets, something that would be a show stopper in a pageant. So. There, Miss Smartypants, Monday morning quarterback.

Miss America finally made her choice, and it was the delectable sherbert and bronze delight from Kayne the pageant guy. He's thrilled. She's thrilled. Vera Wang is thrilled. Robert and Heidi and Nina are thrilled.

Mooooolan is out, and Angela is told that she can stay, but to suck it up, ho, and quit being such a backstabbing whiner. Told you that stuff will come back to bite you. Vincent survives to design another day, and I could not be happier.

OK. Thank the tv gods of programming that it's back. Finally.

First of all, Mr. Tim Gunn is right (as always, and about everything, DUH) when he says that this year's crop of designers is more diverse and more talented than ever. But, really, people. Do we need another Santino? Mr. Jeffrey Sebilia needs to go away, and soon.

I hate his tats, and that's not because I hate tats. I hate HIS tats. He has a little pea head, and his neck is wider than his ears, and all that writing going up and down his neck just makes him look "like a shmoo" according to RJ. According to me, it just makes him look like a pencil-necked asshole.
Also? His design, while not completely sucking, sucked. Again, just like Satan-ino, with the shredding and the distressing and the whickety whack.

(Hey! Bravo! Where's the whickety-whack t-shirt that Nick had on at the finale? We out here in tv-land want to buy those.)

Laura. Laura, I'm not sure if I'm going to love or hate. On the one hand, she has some major, major design chops. On the other hand, she had the cojones (as we say here in Miami) to ask someone from Ohio, to their face and seemingly in dead earnest, "what do people DO in Ohio?"

Then again, she has that whole Judy Davis
thing going on, and how can you hate anybody whose fashion sense involves ALWAYS wearing red lipstick?

Still, I feel I must make mention of the fact that she moved into the Atlas with matching Louis Vuiton luggage. Steamer cases. Please. The woman does not need the 100 thou prize. She's an architect who lives in Manhattan with five children. FIVE. That 100G must be chump change for her.

Vincent, I think, is this year's Daniel Franco. And I loved Daniel Franco. Don't ask me why, I can't say, except that he made beautiful garments and was the only person to get back up in Satan-ino's grill. Vincent openly admits that being in the rag trade in NYC almost killed him. Guessing by his age and look, I'd say it was the 80s (i.e.: drugs to excess, drink to excess, sex and drugs and rock and roll to excess) that almost killed him. But, since NYC nearly gave me a nervous breakdown in the 70s, I'm willing to cut him some slack.

And for all the wahwahwah about the basket hat, I didn't find it so repellent. I remember those hats in fur, and feathers and all sorts of materials, including straw. I found the sunglasses more distracting. I thought the whole thing looked like an interlunar stewardess from 2001. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I also love, love, love Michael-the-hiphop-guy. That little dress made from coffee filters? Oh. My. God. Give that man a contract, stat. And, if he really is a street-cred sort of guy from Atlanta, maybe he'll just give that asshole Moo-lan the smack down.

Mooooolaaaaaan. I got him pegged as this year's snippy-ass blow hard. That accent, whether real or not-so-much has me gagging. I think he sounds more like Austin Powers than Austin Powers. I'm not expecting much from him except my-shit-don't-stink attitude and indifferent design. I wasn't impressed with the assymetrical shrug thing he produced for the first challenge.

Robert, The Mattel dude. Designing for Barbie hasn't made him loose his ability to design for real women. That little white dress, with the built-in bling and the big red bow in the back was to die for. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Keith Michael, the designated menswear-only designer, who took Tim Gunn's advice, added crap to his blue dress and then, after sleeping on it, turfed the advice and the add-ons and won the challenge is another designer I can't wait to see do more.

Not only did I love the dress, I loved his "Look. Just because I've never done women's wear before doesn't mean I can't do it, it only means I haven't done it." attitude. And, though I wouldn't suggest making a habit of it, he turfed Tim Gunn's advice and WON. the. challenge. If you haven't watched Project Runway before, let me tell you this. You do not turf Tim Gunn's advice and win. Ever. This may have been a first.

Except for my girl Laura (at least for today I love her) none of the other women have struck me as potentially very interesting designers. OK. I take that back. Girl from Ohio (Angela) seems like she might have something in her bag of tricks worth watching.

Wow. I just read her bio on that link. I KNOW she has stuff worth watching, now. She may just be my new favorite.

And last, but not least, I have to hand it to Michael Kors this year. He's come out of the gate with a bang. While "pink parts" is no "entirely too much tootie", the way he delivered it was golden. And the eye-roll while he dismissed the "granny panties" under the sheer curtains, well, it was brilliant.

Chloe won!!! And the sleeves that ate New York City actually looked pretty on the runway. When they announced that Miss Debra Messing was going to be the guest judge, I just knew that Chloe had to win. Take that any way you care to.

As for Daniel V.? If being first runner up means Michael Kors offers you a job on national teevee? Say thank you, take the job and consider yourself blessed. Because, to be honest, at 24 and fresh out of school? The 100K would be wasted on you, the business you'd start would never survive. Better to be Kors' buttboy for a couple of years and then become the head designer somewhere else.

And Santino? BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You lost, sucka. Nobody offered YOU a job. Nobody likes you. You are an ass-hat. And? That THING with the bat sleeves and the leather knickers? FUGLY. Finally, the music that you wrote, performed, produced, directed, edited, ad nauseum? It sucked,too. Or as RJ remarked: was that music? After a moment or two, it just became white noise and went away.

The best part? The "Whickety Wack" tee shirt that Uncle Nick had on. Where can I buy mine?

As for ANTM?
Well, I predict that Jade will be kept around as long as they kept Camille from Season 2, which is to say, as long as possible because she is soooooo fucking delusional and hateful and just, creepy in general. Not to mention, she looks all pointy like a wet cat.

Gotta go, my lunch hour is over.