Miz Shoes Reviews: Project Runway, Season 8, Episode 1

Well, Miz Shoes caved. The desire for Project Runway overcame sense and sensibility and she paid for a season pass on i-Tunes. What? She’s a junkie, she admits it. This also means that for the first time, I can watch without taking notes, just absorb the action and get a visceral response. Geek goddess that I am, I am watching the show on my i-pad and taking notes on the laptop using a new app that is supposed to be the bomb, Evernote. We’ll see how this works out, non?*

And we’re off. Orange Manhattan. That’s new. It used to be a lurid shade of green. And what’s this? Heidi and Tim as the all-knowing talking head narrators? Oh look, it’s Alex from Clockwork Orange.

AJ, Andy. April, who looks like my school friend Psycho Patti. Kristin who makes mistakes and Mondo with an Emo cut. McKell with white girl dreads and a baby. Gretchen. Christopher. Ivy, who thinks this is going to be the Ivy show. Casanova from Puerto Rico, who is now in New Jork. He looks like the bastard child of Ron Perlman and a mule. Sarah Trost has a bling belt with her name on it and a Gwen Stephani vibe. She mixes materials. She and AJ (Daniel Vosovic V.2). He’s obviously watched this show. Peach is 50 and from Wake Forrest. She designs for the Ladies Who Lunch. She’s kinda funny. She meets up with Nicholas. More contestants meet other contestants. McKell delivers the “I’m doing this for my brand-new baby to give her a great life” reading. That never works well for the hamsters on ANTM, honey. You might want to have a life plan that involves something other than winning the lottery.

Jason, AKA Alex the Droog.

He’s straight and he boxes. He is wearing a derby hat to intimidate the other contestants. Uh-huh. Well, at least it isn’t one of the twee little army caps in plaid, Logan’s knit rasta rag, Santino’s pork pie over do-rag, or any other version of the stupid twee hats we see every season. At least it’s a new hat. Miz Shoes is not so sure about the intimidation factor without the eye lashes and white cod-piece, but maybe Jason the Droog can work it. He’s a little stupid, asking Gretchen what nationality she is. American, a-hole.

Oh, lord. Mondo makes hand gestures, wears a twee bow tie and a twee hat when he’s not doing the emo hair. Nicholas used to be an architect. More meetings. If this is the extra half hour, Miz Shoes is unimpressed. April makes dark beautiful, destroys to create. Michael is from Palm Springs, and makes a haute/hot joke. He says that he’ll gladly give you a couture gown tomorrow for a burger today. He makes little devil horns over his head. Snooze.

Lincoln Center. Heidi and Tim. There are 17 of you. Only 16 will get a bed in the Atlas. There is one more challenge before you are really a contestant. Open your suitcase and pull out one item you would like to incorporate into your garment. Now pass that item to the person to your right. Casanova stands like he’s been gobsmacked. He’s given his $1700** pair of Dolce & Gabbana trousers to someone who is going to cut them up. Gretchen is a sustainable clothing designer from Portland. She is dragging that beaded blouse through the gutter, totally disrespecting it. Valerie was poor so she learned to retrofit crap from the store. And they are in the workroom. Brother sewing room. The HP touch notebooks. Mood has brought fabric to them. Randomly selected models. 15 minutes to sketch. Andy is from Hawaii and used to design pageant gowns. Miz Shoes notes that the designers are drawing in their sketchbooks, the little computers sitting all alone and unused on the tables beside them.

Gretchen is already starting to work Miz Shoes nerves. Casanova is miserable watching his Dolce & Gabbanas get shredded. Droogie is not doing anything to his kimono, Peach is panicking over the fact that Michael’s machine knit is unraveling. Michael is a bit of a bitch about it. McKell has taken a man’s shirt, cut it away into a racer top and paired it with a fluffy print bubble skirt with raw seaming. Nicholas has been working with a polyester

bomber jacket. He’s turning it into an evening gown, using the ribbed knit bottom band as an off-the-shoulder neckline. Tim is intrigued. Cassanova has made something that he calls sexy and Tim is concerned that it might be a little slutty, slutty, slutty.

April has turned her man’s tuxedo jacket inside out and is working spontanteously. Valerie talks trash about April. Droog is wearing a corset that Miz Shoes is certain he designed himself. It is, admittedly, sorta kinda cool, in that it is actually his tool belt. Sort of Batman/bondage/carpenter. Miz Shoes may possibly want one for herself. Droog hasn’t done anything other than turn the kimono inside out and drape the sleeves around the neck. Tim is concerned. Tim rolls his eyes.

Gretchen has already used the PiperLime accessory wall thoughtfully. No, really, Gretchen may turn out to be our winner, and she may be pretty and terribly self-contained and self-aware and even well put together, and she may have that Portland-Off-The-Grid aesthetic going on, but there is something about her that makes Miz Shoes grind her teeth. She is discussing the essence of the piece and what is the story that the piece is telling.

Peach, talk to me. The scarf has “no forgiveness.” Even Our Mister Gunn is appalled by the qualities of the fabric of Michael’s knit scarf. Machine knit. Miz Shoes is tempted, as a hand-knitter to opine at length about machine knits and the kind of people (there’s one here in Miami) who use knitting machines and deliberately jam their prongs and do other horrible things to them to force the machine to knit in rips and runs and irregularities as integral parts of the fabric. Miz Shoes considers machine knitters who have never held a stick and are more concerned with using materials that were never meant to create fabric to create fabric than with the usable qualities (drape, hand, next-to-skin wearability) of that fabric to be something less than the artisans they think they are. But she digresses, and veers close to a rant. We’ve only seen 5 minutes of Michael. Let us not judge…yet. Tim suggests layering the brickish red scarf under the tulle. Peach is grateful. An aside regarding Peach. She may be the sweet, light version of Mila. So far she has only been seen in black and white, she gave away a pair of black and white toile pants (which she KISSED! before passing them to April, so clearly they are her lucky pants or some such shit) and she is using an equivalent black and white modern print for her garment, which is cute, in a young-ladies-who-lunch sort of way. Maybe she’s another Wendy Pepper?

Mondo is wearing a polka dot head wrap. Tim finds his dress matronly. Really? say Mondo and Miz Shoes in unison. Workroom. Models. Hair and makeup. Styling with the PiperLime stuff. Droogie is a disgusting pig about his model’s BOOBIES!!!! Whoo, boobies. Way to go, Jason the Droog. Peach is panicking. Droogie wants his model to have Medusa hair. He clearly hasn’t noticed that his model has bleached blonde hair that is at most, two inches long. Droogie must not have looked higher than her BOOBIES!!!! NAKED BOOBIES!!! (And they belong to him. He said so.)

Casanova can’t tell the difference between the hair salon and the make up room. He wants something that is dreadfully close to the girls on the roof in West Side Story. Getchen is giving the make-up designer exacting instructions, down to swatches that she wants him to match. She ueses the word dewey. Really. Annoying. Fifteen minutes to runway. Kristin has forgotten her model. She’s still sitting in hair, and never got to make up. Nicholas is freaking out. McKell has sewn her model in, and the model’s hair is awful. Droogie is stapling his model into the dress. Everyone goes down to the runway, except Casanova. He wasn’t finished. The model comes out. Tim isn’t sure that he’s really done? Oh, yeah, he is.

Shiny runway is shiny. Heidi threatens that more than one may go. Recap of the challenge. Only 5 hours to put the look together. List of prizes. Yippee! No more Blow Fly. Now it’s PIperLime. Michael Kors, NinaGarcia, and Selma Blair. Which came first, Selma Blair or Zooey Deschanel?

Valerie’s dress is from the D&G pants is olive green, coral pink and gold. The color blocking is amatuerish and the hem is wonky. The back is worse. Peach’s little dress is cute. McKell’s fabric looks cheap and the model is carrying a huge hot pink purse, and we see one of the other designers say that it is perfect styling. That would be Kristin the graphic designer who makes great mistakes. Uh-huh. Andy sends out a black on black ensemble with a Chinese coolie hat and hair held up with chopsticks. If anyone other than Hawaiian Andy did it, it would be as suspect as Casanova’s big hair and red lips. In the frame that is frozen on my i-pad, NinaGarcia is in the background, holding her red scoring card over her eyes. Or maybe shielding her eyes from the glare of the lights. Or maybe doing a little cropping. Holy shit, his model just busted a move.

Sarah Trost seems like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. She has made a romper out of a man’s shirt. Forgive Miz Shoes her sartorial sins, but she has a fondness for rompers and jumpsuits. Miz Shoes was still young in the 80’s and honestly, she had a putty-colored jumpsuit from the original version of Banana Republic, when it was still selling government surplus. She rocked that jumpsuit six ways from Sunday, with big belts and a pair of ankle-high leopard-print suede boots that were baggy and had wrap around laces of chamois. (Miz Shoes still has them, as a matter of fact. Want to see pictures?) Anyway, despite the scorn that will deservedly be heaped on her for admitting this, Miz Shoes like Sarah’s little mini-romper.

Nicholas’s dress is a dress. It has an exposed back zipper and a built-in waist purse. Mondo’s dress is still ugly. He has paired a pea-green jersey with what looks like the upholstery from the couch in the dorm room that always had a beer-bong going. Mondo loves it, even with its wonky hem. Ivy loves her Capri pants with the over-shredded, not-quite-matching top she has made to go with. Meh. Michael “give me a burger and I’ll give you couture” from Palm Springs sends out a skin-tight leatherette mini skirt and a pretty hot pink blousson tank top with a cowl neck and a surprise back. Michael says it is a classy, sophisticated look. Miz Shoes thinks that those words don’t mean what Michael thinks they mean. Kristin has taken Mondo’s little emo skirt and used it to make a dramatic collar for a sleeveless coat dress of heavy material that she has not so much draped into interesting folds at the skirt front, as hammered into shape. Christopher has completely reinvented the dress he had to work with. It’s cute. April’s tuxedo jacket dress is too short, has an irregular hem and looks like student work. She’s happy with it.

Gretchen gives a smug voice-over about nailing it, winning it, working it. It’s a little black dress with beaded flaps for sleeves and a sheer, cropped back. Michael the knitter loves his dress. It is a silk kimono-sleeved tunic that wraps and fastens at the front with a bit of beadwork taken from the original garment. The back is very interesting, with the beadwork that was probably the bodice now forming the focus at the neckline and the kimono sleeves connect in a swoop of fabric. It’s very cool.

Droogie sends out his dress and the staples are falling out as the model walks. AJ has made a black dress with tulle and foil, a Hot Topics prom mini for the happy shiny little goth girl. And here comes Casanova’s thing. He thinks it looks prettier than when it was on his table. Again he asserts that it’s sexy, but not vulgar. Miz Shoes says these are not the words you seek. NinaGarcia is stunned speechless.

AJ, Andy, Valerie, Sarah, Peach, Kristin, Michael Designs for Burgers, Mondo Emo, Knitting Machine Michael, Christopher. You are all safe. They go backstage and have the giggles. One of you is the unanimous winner, and that would be Gretchen. NinaGarcia tells her her styling is perfect. She goes backstage and does the victory dance. No top three or bottom three, you’re all bottoms. None of you should feel safe. Ivy has to defend making pants out of pants. Michael Kors says “no offense to Peach, but I don’t know why she packed those.” Ooooh, SNAP! And he hates the blouse. The blouse looks “mumsy” says NinaGarcia. “Small town, hick outfit at the bar” says Selma Blair. Dudes, Peach kissed those pants when she gave them away. Respect the pant.

Jason tries to defend doing nothing. Looks like the cape at the hairdresser, says Heidi. Selma likes it, sort of. It’s sad, but she likes. NinaGarcia asks if he really thought they wouldn’t notice that he didn’t do anything. April defends her raw edges. The judges question if April even knows how to sew. Hot mess says Heidi. Michael likes deconstruction, but not this deconstruction. 80’s street walker says NinaGarcia. McKell and her blue bag skirt and huge hot pink purse. McKell says that it’s fun, flirty and good time. Styling, says NinaGarcia, is a train wreck. It’s a DISCO APRON!!!! (Hey, do you need to download more Project Runway Bingo Cards?) “Side cleavage is a rare thrilling moment for any woman,” says MKors. Heidi says that it is just flat out butt ugly. McKell says that she never designs looks like this. Nicholas explains the polyester bomber jacket origins. NinaGarcia likes the idea. But he didn’t take it far enough. His voice quavers.

Casanova. Mother of the bride belly dancer. Pole dancer in Dubai. Questionable in taste. Fascinatingly bad, says NinaGarcia. I loved it and I loathed it says Selma. Heidi asks Casanova to defend himself. NinaGarcia has to hablar espanol to him. He doesn’t get it in Spanish either. Ivy has been beaten down.

Ivy made pants out of pants and the judges ridicule her for it. MKors just can’t get past the original hideous garment and is dumbfounded that a real woman really bought them and actually loved them enough to bring them on the show. Ivy can sew, but does she have taste. Casanova can’t speak English. Taste level is scary. You couldn’t dream of wearing that in daylight. It came from a mall store named RazzleDazzles where they sell wigs and dresses. What was the car crash?? Casanova you are this season’s Crazy Person!!! Congratulations! Droogie Boy had all the fabric and didn’t use a sewing machine. They liked the styling. A lot of story to not much outfit. April was frazzled by the time constraints, but she’s got a modern point of view. McKell lives in a different world. They like her idea, but not the execution. The hair and accessories were terrible. Nicholas had a girl who could wear a bag, and there was nothing there. He sent out a boring dress, but he can make clothes.

April, we want to see more from you, you’re in. Nicholas, can you push yourself, given more time. He’s gonna cry. DroogieBoy, we are intrigued. Leave the runway. McKell, we were perplexed by your design and poor styling choices. Casanova your look was fascinatingly bizarre and we question your taste. Ivy, you made bad pants out of bad pants. McKell, you’re out. Take your blonde hippie girl dreadlocks and go home to your baby. Ivy, Casanova, you’re both getting another shot. Leave the runway. McKell shoots a look of death at Casanova and Ivy. Tim Gunn tells her that he stands by his judgement that her dress was cute, but it didn’t fit her model and the styling was unbelievably bad, so go clean up.

Atlas. Kristin says that there should be alcohol in the fridge. Ivy says she doesn’t sleep. Casanova is hugging an armload of hangers. Good night John Boy. Next week, it seems that there might be more than one person eliminated.

*Actually, Evernote WAS the bomb. I clipped web pages, photos and stuck them together with the draft of this article and did a quick cut and paste into my blog. Sweet.

**The blogosphere is in disagreement over the price of his pants, no doubt because his English is so awful. $1007? $1070? Whatever. They were over a grand and there was a seven in the mix somewhere.