Miz Shoes Reviews: Project Runway, Season 7, Episode 11

It is quiet in the Atlas, now that Anthony is gone, says Seth Aaron. Too quiet. In the women’s oda, May/la is making toast for Mil/ya. They eye each other. May/la is wrung out, and Mil/ya says that’s because she is the youngest, but that she herself, is older and wiser. Older, for sure. 

On the runway, Heidi digs it in that at this point in the competition, things just keep getting harder. Their challenge today will be to create a look for a celebrity known for being opinionated and headstrong; one who knows clearly what they want. Then she laughs at their concerned faces and tells them how glad she is not to be in their shoes. Nice.

In the workroom, Tim expands on the challenge. It will be a red carpet look for a celebrity. And that celebrity is… HEIDI! And here she is. Heidi tells them to keep their own point of view, but to look at her dossier. She will be post-partum, she says, so keep it simple and keep her on the best-dressed list. They have thirty minutes to sketch, and $300 at Mood.

Seth Aaron says that this is a challenge one wants to win. May/la looks at her sketchbook and walks out. Jonathan is so freaked by his place in the bottom of the pack, that he throws all of his design sense out the window and panics. He says that he’s living in opposite world, where his work is seen by the judges as ugly, so he’s going to make something ugly today so that the judges will love it. Miz Shoes speculates that that only works in Silver Age Superman Bizarro World, and wishes Jonathan good luck. Mil/ya grumps that she doesn’t DO red carpet. Emilio reminds the universe that a red carpet look has to be BAM-WOW.

Tim and May/la come back into the workroom, looking solemn. May/la has decided that she’s had enough. She’s leaving the show. She says that she’s too young and not ready to show a complete collection, that she doesn’t have a point of view, yet. She doesn’t even want to one last challenge. She is done. And that, dear readers, is the answer to the Mayan Mystery. She just left. Jay is sympathetic to her and her youth. Emilio pulls out the old “winners never quit and quitters never win” platitude. Seth Aaron, though, our lovely, sensitive Seth Aaron recognizes that this is a grueling endeavor and that we in the viewing audience have no clue how grueling. We cannot sit here on our sofas and judge her, says Seth Aaron, and he sums it up with a final admonition to just Fuck. Off. Tim tells the shell-shocked remaining designers to “Rally” and off they go to Mood.

Jonathan is looking for a print that he can use for his cut away technique. Mila is leaving her comfort zone of black and white to use gunmetal grey and gold. Seth Aaron is using black, of course, but says that half of the fashion in Heidi’s look book is black, so it isn’t a stretch for either of them. Besides, he could still get sent home next, NOT.

Back in the workroom, Tim is waiting to tell them that they still need six designers for this challenge, so the last one off will be asked back. In comes Anthony, and immediately begins to chatter like a magpie. He calls himself chocolate pudding and asks who WOULDN’T want Anthony back? He’d want Anthony back. He LOVES Anthony. Emilio is cranky and begins his litany of why one cannot make a red carpet gown in one day. There is an under structure of boning and such, and wahwahwah. Tim comes back in and calls Seth Aaron out into the hall.

Mila is so disturbed by the loss of her MiniMila, that she cannot focus. Seth Aaron comes back in to say that he’s lost his model because she has had the chance to work a Dona Karan show, and you know? Good for her and her career, he’s just gonna have to suck it up and work with whoever the last model thrown off was. She’s an entirely different size than his old model, but he’ll just make it work.

Heidi’s in the house! For the First Time Ever! on Project Runway, she comes into the work room. She begins with Seth Aaron and tells him that long, black and simple is OK, but she wants a show stopper. Anthony is working in black and white. Emilio is doing a mermaid hem in a coppery shiny fabric. Jay has a bodice of a thousand horizontal pleats. Much hilarity ensues when he says that the shape of the bodice allows for the space between her breasts, and she points out that she has no space between her breasts, that they, in fact, collide and proceeds to pull down her neckline to show him. Awkward.

As for Mila’s dress? Well, it isn’t bad, but she must ask herself, are the other dresses better? Not in Mila’s world view. Poor Jonathan. She hates his cut away work all coral under beige and silver and tells him it looks like curtains. Curtains for Jonathan, maybe.

Model fittings! Seth Aaron has to take inches in on his dress. Emilio continues to complain. Jay is pondering his dilemma: Heidi has said that his skirt is going to make her butt look big. Does he change it to suit the client, or stay true to his vision? Jonathan has no such problem. Heidi hated his work, so he pitches it and makes another dress, all swoopy and swirly and drapey, just like she asked for. He hates that one, so he starts on his third dress with whatever scraps of fabric he has left.

Morning of the show and Mila has doubts after Heidi’s critique. Someone (Jonathan or Emilio) points out that it’s always good when all of the designers are in the same horrible, sinking boat. Anthony has rushed through his bodice and isn’t happy with it, so he starts again, rather than trying to fix the first one. Jay just wants to finish, Jonathan is just over it all, and wishes he’d left with Maya when he had the chance. Mila throws shade on Jonathan. Emilio trashes Seth Aaron’s look, down to hair and make up. Jonathan hates his dress and hopes that means the judges will like it.

Runway! Six now, five later. Judges are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Jessica Alba. Jay’s dress is silver grey with that fitted, pleated bodice (still with the seashell cups with three fingers of space between them) and a vertically ruffled tutu over the hips and butt. Mila’s dress is short and color blocked and a big snooze with a wide v-neck and narrow straps. Anthony’s black and white cookie of a dress is backless, and moves beautifully on the runway, with a slit that shows leg when the model walks. It is sexy and glamorous. Seth Aaron’s black, tank top dress has some studs or straps or something, but is forgettable. Jonathan’s dress is pathetic: badly draped, badly hemmed and shorter even than Heidi would wear. Emilio’s used coppery Mylar dots to make a strapless column dress with a half-bow handle on one boob. It is well structured and looks a lot like his winning Harlem evening gown.

The judges address Seth Aaron first: too Seth Aaron and not enough Heidi says NinaGarcia. Michael Kors says that this would be worn by the girl who carries the statuette, not the winner. Heidi says not sexy enough. Anthony tells them that his dress is a canvas to be accessorized. Michael Kors loves it. Jessica Alba loves it. NinaGarcia calls it stunning and red-carpet appropriate. Mila claims her dress is sleek and sexy, but the fit at the bust is criticized by Jessica. Heidi says that it is not a show stopper, and that it is too simple. Predictably, the judges all fall off their chairs over Emilio’s sequins, or more accurately, over the execution of the under-armature. Jay’s corset is beautiful, but how many times do you have to be told that NO WOMAN WANTS A BIG BUTT. (This has caused all sorts of blogosphere yapping about cultural sensitivity and how some cultures/ethnicities do, in fact, want big butts, but that is a debate for another blog.) Miz Shoes falls squarely on her own fat ass in the Do NOT Want camp. Jonathan’s dress is too short, and the back draping is good, but the front sucks. The judges catch on quickly that this was his third dress, made of equal parts desperation and fabric scraps.

The judges talk behind the designers’ backs. Seth Aaron was too safe and not body-conscious enough for Heidi’s body. Jessica wants Anthony’s dress, and who wouldn’t’? Jonathan made an unfortunate, dull pillowcase. It looked amateur. More culturally insensitive yammering about the big butt. Emilio is the only one who knew how to do an understructure that enabled him to drape stretchy Mylar sequins without looking cheap and tacky. Mila’s look is dismissed as “Housewives of New Jersey”. Heidi says that Mila is talented enough, but do they really want to see any more from her? Miz Shoes says that she hasn’t wanted to see more of Mila since about episode three, but nobody asks her.

And we do not have a winner this week, we have two winners. Heidi says that Emilio won and she can’t wait to wear his dress on some random red carpet or anther, and Jessica Alba says that Anthony won, and if he wouldn’t mind, she would like to wear his dress on some red carpet, and he just claps his little hands in elfish glee and says damn straight, woman, you better believe I want to let you. Hell’s bells, I went from out the door to co-winner; you can wear what ever you want whenever you want. Emilio gloats about his three consecutive wins (two of which were joint wins, but he doesn’t mention that). Seth Aaron is in. Mila is in. Jay made something that was not red carpet, nor was it flattering, and he didn’t listen when Heidi told him to take the volume off the bottom. Jonathan just delivered another mess that fell short of his talent. Jonathan goes Aufsie Daisy and Jay gets to try again next week, when Michael Kors says that something looks like a giant blue condom. But is it a giant, blue DISCO condom, Michael?