Miz Shoes Reviews: Project Runway Season 10, Episode 8

Previously on Project Runway, MizShoes suffered from alcohol poisoning after an especially aesthetic-laden episode wherein Miss Gunnar missed getting the boot by this much, many girls cried and Mini MiCo’s interpretation of Gwynnie’s Oscar failure won the challenge.

Red skies at morning, and Sanjay needs to get her head in the game. Miss Gunnar has been humbled by his experience in the last challenge. VennyVenny 2X4 bonds with Mini MiCo over their hatred of Miss Gunnar, or, as VV2X4 called him last week, “that other guy, whassitsname.” Mini MiCo in particular thinks that if the judges were going to keep someone, that someone should have been The Other Guy With No Air Time, and not that screeching drama princess Miss Gunnar, redemption arc or not.

Heidi’s clue is that the designers will need to have creativity and great negotiating skills, which means nothing to the hamsters in the chairs. Crunchy Granola says that she was in the bottom and needs to do sumpin’ dope, yo. Upon entering the work room, the designers are confronted with tables full of summer camp craft supplies. Natasha begins to wail that she hates this shit, that sparkles and sequins and white glue are the opiates of the Wal-Mart Proletariat. Tim announces that there will be no budget for the challenge, that they will have to make money on the streets of New York selling what ever they can to the man or woman on the street. He does hint that they could do tailoring or offer fashion advice, but in the end, everyone makes a bunch of ugly t-shirts and tote bags. Because that isn’t going to be humiliating and stressful enough, it will also be a team challenge, and out comes the Button Bag of Doom ™. VV2X4 does not like teams, but nobody likes Natasha.

Mini Mico has his name drawn first, and we are treated to Miss Gunnar throwing down shade on Mini MiCo and just flouncing about that she could never work with the likes of him. Inevitably, his is the next name called, and Miss Gunnar and Mini MiCo are joined by Sanjay to make up the first team. The second team is formed by Crunchy Granola, with Boris and Natasha equally appalled to find themselves at the same cutting table. VV2X4, Melissa and FlavioFlav weep with gratitude to find themselves the three adults on the final team. They all have three hours to make crap. It immediately begins to fall apart as Natasha hates everything, Boris wants to put glitter on everything and Crunchy Granola even has to admit that they are makin’ some seriously homeless looking’ tees, yo. Boris calls Natasha a walking depression.

Out on the street, it is immediately apparent that none of these people has ever worked a sales floor, or even opened their own lemonade stand as a child. Natasha dolefully inquires if a wandering passerby would care to purchase a crappy t-shirt. Nobody is selling anything, at least until after the commercial, when we see sales pick up. Cut to the next morning in the work room, where we find out how our plucky contestants did.

Somehow, VV2X4 has raised $800.48 (someone gave them spare change), Miss Gunnar seethes to find that her hard-won $684 is not the highest take, and the doleful trio reports that they managed to net $500. Tim tells them that the money they raised is their budget at Mood. They will stay in their teams and create two looks for fall, containing at least one element of outerwear. Yay!! Says Sanjay, I make coats! I have this in the bag!!! One person on the winning team will win, and one person from the losing team will go home. Half an hour to sketch. Sanjay wants green, Natasha will make another piece of Soviet Army Couture, Boris will make another dress, and Crunchy goes with navy. Wool, cashmere, wine and green. Miss Gunnar, Mini MiCo and Sanjay split up with minutes to go and nothing cut, but despite the cues, there is no drama, only a happy Swatch with his green chewie toy.

Workroom. Panic. Natasha hates Boris’ fringe. Everyone else in the workroom is hunkered down behind the mannequins, expecting the Night of Long Scissors. Tim comes for walks and is underwhelmed by the sucking black hole of listlessness that surrounds the team of the Pacific NorthEastern Bloc. Watch the Crotch! What’s that, Boris? Exposed darts? OMGWTFBBQPON1ES!!!!1! Nobody has ever seen that in the history of the universe! It’s genius, it’s daring, it’s Anya in Season 8 because she didn’t know how to put a dart in! Flying buttresses!

Flavio and Co have gotten a motto, or something…mumble mumble “Not Heavy for Fall”. There is color blocking with a drab dusty rose and greys. VV2X4 has done another origami rose, this one is a skirt. There’s a leather jacket and other things and Tim says that one of these things is not like the others, and what would that be, anyone? Anyone? Everyone with eyes can see that it is Venn’s skirt that is the deal breaker, so Venn defends it to the death, and finally, grudgingly agrees to take one for the team and try to make another skirt.

Miss Gunnar is swanning around, dissing his team member’s camel hair asymmetric trench coat (sister to the old imaginary punk bank, the Apocolyptic Trenchcoats). He has done both underdresses for his team’s two coats. (Meanwhile, Boris opines that the only way to get rid of Natasha involves a silver bullet and a sharp stick, while Natasha is happy to behave badly to make his point.) Miss Gunnar gloats that her shit is the shit what is holding her team’s collection together and nobody is putting Miss Gunnar in a corner anymore. Mini MiCo may, regrettably, have immunity, but Miss Gunnar is not going to go quietly under that bus. Thus ends Miss Gunnar’s deeply felt lesson in humility.

VV2X4 makes a nice enough full skirt in grey flannel. Crunchy Granola is insisting on more tailoring in her trousers, and Natasha is saying no, and that she doesn’t like it and one should listen to Natasha if one is wise, and Crunchy is all very gently, passively and mellowly not letting the bully win, brah. Natasha twists her mustache and cries out Curses, foiled again!

Flavio’s collar is limp and the sleeves of the coat look more like dress sleeves. In the 90s this was called unconstructed. Think limp linen blazers on Miami Vice. Of course, that was linen. In Miami, not New York City in the fall. Boris keeps saying that his team’s looks are clean and modern. Saying it does not make it so. Smokey eye, smokey eye, daytime smokey eye. Natasha complains about Boris; that he’s taken over the team, which is what bullies say whenever they can’t have their way. Honey Badger don’t care what Natasha is complaining about, Honey Badger is only concerned with making sure that Natasha doesn’t cover up her clothes with that silo of two-tone wool she’s building in the corner.

Finally, the runway, and Heidi is wearing zebra skin and our guest judge is Anna Sui. Miz Shoes may have squeed just a little at that. No more immunity. Let’s start the show! Boris send out a black dress with a sort of ruanna over it. By sort of, we mean it looked like the sort of fringed acrylic no-sew lap quilt kits you find in DIY craft stores all across America. The black dress has cut outs in the shoulder and is very pretty, just like every other pretty dress he’s not won for. Natasha’s coat collar is floppy and the hem is sloppy and she voice overs that it really is one of the worst things she’s done. Honey Badger is pretty miffed that you can’t see her outfit under that grey waste of time.

Mini MiCo’s dramatic scarf on Sanjay’s amazing, semi-equestrian jacket over Miss Gunnar’s dress, Mini MiCo’s slouchy, asymmetrical camel hair coat with leather sleeves? that look like gauntlets? are they gauntlets? and another one of Miss Gunnar’s subtly color-blocked (or at least texture-blocked) dresses. Very, very nice. I can win, I can win, squeals Miss Gunnar, bouncing in her seat and clapping her little elfin hands in glee.

Flavio, Melissa and VV2X4 send out a bunch of floppy grey and dirty dark pink stuff, which Venn sees as very “SoHo Chic and youthful”. Miz Shoes isn’t so sure about that. The judges are, though and announce that giving the win to Miss Gunnar’s group was a no-brainer, which means that one of the others will be out. Let’s see who did what: Sanjay did the hunter green jacket that the other designers had dissed in the work room as looking very Princess of Zelda, but NinaGarcia and MKors are in L-U-V with it. And how did you all work together as a team, the judges ask, and Miss Gunnar says that they did just SWELL together, clapping his hands and bouncing up and down on his tippy toes. And who should win, ask the judges, and Mini MiCo graciously says that Miss Gunnar should, since she did both dresses and let the other two really spend time on their jackets. Not as much as a backhanded compliment as it sounds here, either. Miss Gunnar agrees that she should win, and Sanjay holds out hope for herself, since that jacket is sick good.

Natasha and Boris and Crunchy Granola face the firing squad together, and Boris offers Natasha the right of the first speech. She declines. He says he did the dress. Crunchy says she did the shirt and pants. Natasha says that she did the coat, and while she has the floor, she would like to add that this challenge sucked, her team mates sucked, it wasn’t a fair fight, Boris is a big bully, and she is a team player despite those two refusing to listen to her every suggestion, and anyway, Boris sucks the most and he only makes dresses. So, replies Boris, you only make coffins…that don’t fit. Yeah, say the judges, team thing didn’t work out for you, did it? NinaGarcia calls out Boris for another dress and a shawl that looked old lady. MKors takes down Natasha by telling her that she is the self-styled Queen of All Volume, but really all she does is badly-tailored over-sized coats. Crunchy, are you still here? Snooze. So the pants fit? Big deal. Natasha says that Boris should go, and Boris says that the screaming, cursing, negative blight that is Natasha should go, and Crunchy says that Boris should go because he sleeps in the boy’s dorm and can’t sneak into her room in the dead of night and cut out her heart with a seam ripper.

Mumble mumble, Fall Too Hard? Wow, that’s a beautiful jacket says Nina Garcia about the cropped white leather thing with the ridiculously large stand up collar. The rest? Too sheer, too light, too sad and washed out. Bad crotch. MKors gets off this one-liner: That is a mohair full-fledged grandma housecoat with Kleenex in the pocket. Sad, sad, sad. Hey! say the judges, where’s the patented Venn origami? That would have been nice in here, they say. NinaGarcia takes them to task for having the most money and making the cheapest looking line. They look like hand-me-downs, she says. And now for a game of who should win and who should stay. The three designers hold out for hours under the blazing lights until one by one they crack and say, well, really, if there was one garment that failed, it was Flavio’s grey mohair housecoat. The judges relax, having destroyed another non-dysfunctional team.

Sanjay wins!!! Yay! Aesthetic!! Take a shot!! Melissa, Venny Venny 2X4, Natasha(!?) and Boris (?!) are safe. Flavio Flav and Crunchy Granola are the bottom two. Flavio stays and Crunchy has to go. Honey Badger did care, after all. It’s sad in the green room as Tim sends her home. Next week: MONDO!!! and the HP design your own textile challenge.