Miz Shoes Reviews: Project Runway Season 6, Episode 7

The Set Up

Gordana is comparing Project Runway to the Olympics. Miz Shoes thinks that maybe the steroids are wearing off, and she’s losing her advantage in the dead lift. Logan has to move in with the other boys. Louise is going to take the “judges” words to heart and try to go over the top this week. Do you think we can start a drinking game where every time one of these BORING ASS HACKS utters a cliché we can take a shot of scotch? It might make the hour go by faster, or at least numb us to the fact that this is The Worst Season Ever on Project Runway. Maybe we can change the name to Project Snoozefest while we’re at it. Nicolas (who isn’t talented enough, or entertaining enough to refer to him as Daniel Franco Lite anymore) makes all the boys take a pinkie swear to try and get Shirin thrown off.

Heidi tells the “designers” that this challenge will be colorful. Tim is in the workroom. Despite seeing designers with dye-stained hands in the promos for the episode, there is nothing to do with dye. In fact, we see the same dye-stained hands in the promo for next week’s show, which makes Miz Shoes even crankier than usual. How much mix and match editing did they do with the confessionals this year? Are the comments we’re hearing not even germane to the challenges? Feh. And double feh.

No, the challenge is to create two related, boring-ass looks for the boring-ass house brand of Macy’s: INC. And to make it even more boring, they will have to use blue. The winner will be commissioned to create an exclusive holiday dress for Macy’s and INC. To jack up the alleged drama, this will be a team challenge and maybe two “designers” will be sent home. They are given INC dossiers to review the line, 15 minutes to sketch and then each will pitch to Martine Reardon, the executive VP of marketing for Macy’s. Epperson seems to be the only one to realize that these looks have nothing to do with them as artists, and everything to do with Macy’s being able to slog it to the masses.

Althea pitches a high-waisted, wide legged denim pant. Logan, a sweater dress. Nicolas has ideas about a leather vest. Christopher is going for work-to-happy hour in a men’s shirtdress. Gordana is pitching a 70s revival. Gah. Growing up in a post-Soviet Czech Republic has given her some serious taste issues. Shirin pitches something for work.

Martine chooses her team leaders: Irina, Althea (I like team challenges because I’m always the leader), Carol Hannah, Louise and Christopher. Those five choose their teammates. Althea gets first pick and snatches up Logan. Christopher recognizes, and opts for Epperson. Louise inexplicably goes for Nicolas.  Irina shows her style of leadership by asking which of the remaining two designers want to work with her, and Gordana, not wanting to be known as the girl left on the playground that nobody wanted, says that she’d LOVE to work with Irina. And that leave Carol Hannah and Shirin.

At Mood, they have 20 minutes to buy fabric. Nobody will get immunity this week. Although using solids isn’t explicit in the instructions, nobody chooses a print. Nor do they choose anything other than true blue, baby blue or navy blue. Well, except Christopher/Epperson, who picks up some hideous teal charmeuse, and a shiny striped shirting. Carol Hannah and Shirin, with no clear direction in mind, just grab some of everything. Irina is already regretting Gordana, and Louise is so scatterbrained that she loses the money and her sketches.

Back at the workroom, Irina starts complaining that it’s too much work to be the leader. Louise has directed Nicolas to make a navy blue, fitted dress with ruffles. He hates ruffles. He hates them real hard. They suck, ruffles do. Unlike, you know, cheap white lace and feathers. Epperson and Christopher are in love. They are so happy together. How is the weather?

The Work Room and Tim’s Walkabout

Louise is making bird noises to herself while she works and nobody finds that annoying, like Shirin making noises was annoying. Not annoying is Logan. Althea is happy to be working with Logan. Everybody likes Logan. The straight girls and the gay boys. Gordana and Irina hate working with each other. Tim, on his walkabout, hates leggings. Carol Hannah and Shirin call themselves Team Awesome. Does that qualify for a shot? Tim isn’t happy with the asymmetrical ruffle on the Louise/Nicolas dress. Althea/Logan have made a modern take on a woman’s suit. If Tim says so. Tim says that the “conundrum” with Christopher and Epperson is that the textiles in their two looks don’t go together at fucking all.

Although their model loves the skirt, CH and Shirin assure her that it is way too tight and that she is working a runway, not a corner on the old Times Square. Irina and Gordana continue to whine about each other. Louise admits that she sucks at time management and Nicolas reminds us that ruffles are the work of Satan himself and their only use is to cover flaws. But, he says, WTF. He’s got immunity. He’s not the team leader, and so he’s just doing Louise’s bidding. Irina, not content to bitch about her own teammate, disses the work of Carol Hannah and Shirin, saying it looks like cheap crap at a discount store. Sniff. With the clock counting down to midnight, the “designers” all have a laugh at the departed Ra’Mon, saying this is the hour when he’d scrap his design and start over. True enough.

Fast-forward over the usual last minute rushes, anxieties, prideful gloating and nail biting worrying. Gordana thinks her blouse is good. It isn’t. Christopher thinks they might win; they won’t. Louise isn’t going to get her work finished. It’s all been done and done to death. Let’s just move on to the “judges” and the runway, shall we?

Runway& Judging

Praise the lord! Michael Kors is back in the chair. Zoe Glassner is out and some other Z-named editor for Marie Claire is in. Martine of Macy’s and Heidi round out the numbers. Let’s walk!

Irina/Gordana: a tent dress with a halter-top and color blocking. That awful baby blue chiffon top and a pencil skirt. Althea/Logan: Their little tight skirt keeps riding up the model’s ass, and the slit gets dangerously close to girlybits before she finally exits the runway. Their other look is boring pants and a tank top that doesn’t fit the model. Louise/Nicolas send out two dresses. One is dark with a light asymmetrical ruffle that looks like a misplaces tuxedo shirt bib, and the other is a ghastly ice blue with a navy blue asymmetrical caterpillar of chiffon running from neck to badly-sewn hem. There is also a bow in the back. CH/Shirin have something in with a high waist and two shades of blue. Then there is the tunic over leggings. The tunic is really lovely and there is interest at the neck of what appears to be an over-scale broderie-perse of the same fabric as the tunic itself. Christopher/Epperson have that shirtdress (well-tailored) and some wretched bubble top in that teal. The neck has a double ruffle that looks exactly like the double ruffle that was the back of the neck on the vampire bride outfit last week.

Althea and Logan leave, safe in their mediocrity. Louise and Nicolas; Christopher and Epperson have the lowest scores. Irina and Gordana; CH and Shirin have the highest. Really? Really. Carol Hannah and Shirin are given the love over their separates of boring. Irina pulls out all the bitch stops and even though she and Gordana are in the top two, tries to toss Gordana under the hackneyed bus by saying that she didn’t do a good enough job on the blouse, working with no direction. Heidi and Michael Kors both love the blouse though.

Louise is just jazzed to be on the runway getting personal and extended critiques. That changes to tears when Michael Kors calls her dress a bad bridesmaid with a shower loofah ruched up the center. Snerk. Christopher is reduced to tears within the first three sentences from MK. He calls the shirtdress 1979 librarian. Miz Shoes, while she is partial to the dress, has to admit it looks like one she had in 1976, which may or may not have been a Diane von Furstenberg wrap-dress knock-off. MK goes back to the well for his standard put-down: the teal charmeuse looks like a disco pumpkin. Miz Shoes is beginning to think that as much as she adores him, MK may have spent a few too many nights at Studio 54.

The designers are sent away to consider their fates as the “judges” decide who will stay and who will go now. After hearing a few lusterless lines about hanging well on the floor (and truer, but more unintentional words were never spoken, since most of the time when Miz Shoes goes to Macy’s at the Falls, half the garments are on the ground and not the racks, because apparently the floor staff at this Macy’s never had the retail mantra “if you aren’t actively waiting on a customer, you are straightening the stock” drilled into their heads. That vague seismic shiver? That’s just my dad and my grandfather, spinning.)

Shirin is in. Miz Shoes suspects that she’s the one responsible for that broderie perse. Irina is the winner of the challenge for her uninspired tent dress. Gordana and Carrol Hannah get a “good job” pat on their respective heads and are sent away. Epperson is in, thankfully. Nicolas gets a few harsh “you have no idea how lucky you are that you came into this challenge with immunity because we the judges find you as annoying and unlikeable and uninspired as the entire viewing audience” words from Heidi and a fish-eye from Mr. Kors and is sent off. Louise and Christopher are left. Christopher is told that the only thing his two looks had in common was cluelessness. Louise is told that her retro aesthetic is lame and even that is done with no eye to style or wearability and that she needs to take her stupid Louise Brooks bob and go home. Christopher gets to stay and cry another day.