New York State of Mind

Open on boy’s dorm, morning. Daniel2.0 is sorry that Wesley’s gone, because they had a certain simpatico. Yeah, and now they’re an item IRL. In the girls’ rooms, Stella is sleeping in. Terrie’s trying to wake her up by shaking her ass in Stella’s face. I’m not too sure how that’s going to help. I mean, I’d be deeper under the covers if anybody was going ass to face on me in the dark hours of the morning.

But soon enough we are with Heidi and the velvet button bag, standing on the runway, waiting for model selection. In a moment of monumental underwhelmingness, Suede stays with TuhtuhtuhTia. Suede loves Tia. Suede loves Suede, more, though. And Suede is insisting on the third person. Heidi says that the designers (and why, this season, do I feel like that should be in quotes?) have worked hard, and as a reward, Tim will be taking them out for a night on the town. Jerell is skeptical.  Stella drones nasally that “Tim ain’t takin’ us to his house,” but hopes that there might be a club in her future. I’m hoping there’s a club in her future, too, but mine is a club made of wood and applied to her head. Or Suede’s head. Or Oompa-Loompa-Licious’ head. Yeah, I know that Asshat won my little poll, but this is my blog, and RJ has already started using Oompa-Loompa-Licious on hers, and damn it, that was MY joke. Where was I? Ah, a club to the head. And in comes Tim and there goes Oompa-Loompa-Licious, calling him Tim-Licious, and where is that club again? GAH!!!

It’s raining in New York, and Tim distributes slickers and Wellies. This concerns the “designers” who think that this is looking less and less like a decent meal and a night at the Roxbury. This group is like rockit scientists, really. The penny drops for all when they arrive at an open-roofed double-decker tour bus, and are informed that this week’s challenge will be to design a “night out on the town” garment inspired by New York City at night. There will be four stops on the tour, and at each stop, a group of designers will disembark and search for inspiration.

The first stop is Columbus Circle, and Suede, Daniel2.0, Leanne (Thing1) and Jennifer (Thing2) get off. But not like Vincent. Vincent’s looking pretty good around now, isn’t he, you Vincent haters? They take pictures of fire hydrants, planters and the steel grids around the trees, water in the gutter and litter.

The second stop is Times Square, and out jumps the jolly group comprised of Keith, Oompa-Loompa-Licious, Kenley (Thing 3) and Stella. Too bad Times Square has gotten Disney-fied, because the old Times Square of hookers, junkies, sex shows and squalor would have been like old home week for Stella. But now it’s all shiny and clean and there’s like, a Toys R Us right in the middle of what used to be a porno playground. Have I ever told the story of my first job out of college? I was doing layouts for a porno tabloid that aspired to someday be able to compete with “Screw.” Yeah. Good times. Oompa-Loompa-Licious looks for a tanning salon, and then the gang starts shooting pictures of garbage in the gutter, neon and more gutters.

Stop number three, as we head downtown, is the New York Public Library and Needle Park. I think that’s been cleaned up, too. Joe (remember Joe? He’s the straight guy with daughters?), Korto and Kelli belly up to the Grand Central Oyster Bar and ignore Patience and Fortitude (the lions in front of the NYC Library, doh). Your reviewer needs both to continue.

Finally, the bus drops the remaining crew in Washington Square Park, down in the Village, not three blocks from where Miz Shoes spent a couple of years after college. Emily (Thing4), Terrie and Jerell get busy shooting pictures of graffiti, garbage in the streets, and traffic lights.

Back up at Columbus Circle, we see that Stella can’t figure out how to use her digital camera. Here’s a clue, sweetheart: the button on the upper right hand side, on the top of the little box (point the circular piece of glass away from you) is the shutter. Just like it is on every fucking camera since George Fucking Eastman built the first Brownie. Idiot. Needless to say, Stella whines and complains throughout the night.

The Next Morning…

We meet in the workroom, where Tim says it’s time for the designers’ first trip to Mood. First, they have half an hour to edit their photos, and choose their inspirational image. Then, they will have $100 to spend at Mood. Lastly, they will have 13 hours to make the garment, and the winner will get immunity.

Oompa-Loompa-Licious is going for neon colors. Who would have guessed. Keith has chosen a tattered, trodden, sodden magazine cover for his inspiration. At Mood, Stella begins whining that nobody is helping her. She howls

at the moon

at the room that there is nobody waiting on her. Let me just say that my darling, dear Paulie of the House of Gallofornia would not only be able to find materials in Mood or any other fabric shop. He also knows how to use a digital camera. I know, I know, let it go, already.

Emily (Thing4) is looking for chiffons to add movement, like the blurry lights in her picture. Jennifer is working from photos of world clocks and is pulling midnight blue and white charmeuse. Terrie says that she’s found all the colors she needs on a single bolt. She’s working from graffiti. Because she’s all urban, hip-hop and shit. Of course. Because she’s not working any stereotypes.

Back at the Parson’s workroom, Suede interviews that Suede is here to rock it. Suede accents that with finger guns. Alas, they are neither pointed at his own head, nor loaded. Kenley (Thing3) is going to do something retro and 40s and pin-up. I know, who would expect that look from a Betty Page clone, huh? Joe looks over, sniffs dismissively and says it looks too 40s for his taste.

Leanne (Thing1) has chosen to focus on a metal grate in a planter. It’s (she claims) both organic and architectural. I’d like to see her definitions, please. In yet another shocking development, she is going to execute this look with more of her signature, overlapping semi-circular flaps. She needs a catchy name. Something like, say, fleurchons?

One of the Things looks up from her sewing to find Oompa-Loompa-Licious staring at her with googly Muppet eyes. They are his, not ping-pong balls with dots, but one could be forgiven for making that mistake. ThingWhatever sort of freaks out, and Oompa-Loompa-Licious intones that he’s “gonna eat you!” Oompa-Loompa-Licious is the hardest working fame whore in reality TV today, hands down.

Over at Keith’s workstation, we see him making Post-It notes out of print fabric, and he’s applying them to a basic sheath, while he talks about his background as an abstract artist. Terrie is blahblahblahing about her graffiti. Thing4 (Emily) is talking about ruffles and layers. Stella has chosen, out of however many photos she was able to take, the blinder on one of the horses that draws carriages. Because, as Stella herself explains, it’s LEATHER. She is wearing a stupid, twee (and of course, leather) hat. We see her hammering grommets, while the other designers complain of the noise and she tells them to fuck themselves.

In The Midnight Hour

Daniel2.0 thinks that Thing2’s clock inspiration looks matronly. Thing2, may I remind you, is the one who keeps saying that she’s Holly Golightly meets Salvador Dali. Did she sleep through art history classes? Because I’m beginning to think that she has mistaken Salvador Dali for Thomas Kinkaid.

Tim is in the house, making the rounds. He asks Keith if the Post-It note dress will have a shape. Or, even, get fitted. He tells Thing3 that her dress looks a little costume-y. A little? Honeychild, that thing would be at home on a Cirque Du Soleil clown. Terri, not playing to stereotypes at all, blahblahblahs about street culture, and her urban aesthetic. She’s making a dress with no back to go over a pair of black slacks. It looks like a dress from the front, but from the back, it’s Oh My God. Tim asks if that would be a good OMG or a bad OMG. 

Tim makes it over to Thing4’s station and tells her that it’s just a dress with a big corsage. Take it further, he says. The judges will be disappointed with this. Thing4 proves that she’s never seen a single episode of this show by interviewing that she has her own sense of style and design, and that Tim means well, but should just shut it and let her do her own thing.

There is a moment, as Tim’s about to leave, where Oompa-Loompa-Licious and Terrie conspire to teach Tim how to say “Holla atcha boy” without sounding like a white guy. It is not pretty. It does not work. It is the designers being way too familiar with Gunn, the Great and Powerful.

And with that fetid footage, we cut to the morning of the show. Stella has dolled herself up in those Dr. Seuss on bad acid striped leggings. Pretty. At the Parsons’ workroom, nobody is even close to finished. As the models arrive for hair and makeup, Keith learns that his model had to drop out, and so he gets the girl who just got cut, Alyssa. Keith is not happy.

Thing2 realizes that her seams are shitty. There are 10 minutes to go, designers are gluing, stapling, and sewing their girls into the clothes as Tim moans that nobody is even listening to him, and that IT. IS. TIME. TO. GO!! NOW!!!! Daniel2.0 is searching for his scissors and that naked bitch is still at the airport in the damn BlueFly ad. Check for your scissors in her heart, I may have left them there, Dan2.0

Back on the runway, we are introduced to our guest judge for the New York at Night challenge. It is Sandra Bernhard. Girlfriend was never pretty, in any sense of the word, but age is not being kind to her. Remember Hatchetface? Yeah. That’s Sandra today. Even though it’s completely counter-intuitive to think this, she actually seems to have a fair handle on fashion and style. Go figure.

Keith sends out his patchwork Post-It dress. It has texture and movement, he says. Oompa-Loompa-Licious sends out something black with swaths of neon colors. It looks like everything else he’s done, more or less. Joe’s dress is minimal and well constructed, and holds true to his picture of an Art Deco light fixture. Thing4’s dress is a tiny, tight sheath (in black) with a semi-diagonal waterfall of lots of ruffles. In colors. Like the blurry neon lights in her photo. Thing1 has a steel grey version of her concentric flaps. Thing2’s dress looks to me like it came off the Titanic. It is a maternity-dress-like silhouette that evokes the fashions of the 1910s.

Jerell has made a moss-green flamenco dress with a train. Kelli’s dress is actually pretty amazing. There is lace? or some open-weave material. It’s chunky, and there’s some metallic fabric around the waist. Kelli has accessorized with gladiator sandals that actually are appropriate in context and cute. Daniel2.0 has made a drapey, one shouldered disco dress out of bronze metallic fabric. It’s a snooze. Thing3 (Kenley) has made a dress out of my Great Aunt Sophie from Boca’s couch circa Miami Vice. It’s an aqua and black and purple large-scale floral print. It has leg-o-mutton sleeves and a tight little mock turtle neck, and a short, tight skirt. Except for the enormous pouf of tulle in layers of raspberry, pink and purple that escapes from an equally enormous slit on the left hip. It looks like a giant tulle cyst.

Suede has made a boring, metallic, sleeveless shirtdress with overtones of a trench coat. Stella has finally made the one ensemble she’s been trying to make since she got here: a skin tight, sleeveless vest in silver leather with a pair of skin tight, low-riding leather pants. The pants are overly long and open and the ankle with snaps or grommets or something, and close with a lace instead of a zipper. Korto has slept through this exercise and made a racer-backed black jumpsuit. Terrie has a chiffon dress with no back (at all) it’s like this monstrosity, only busier:

You’ll Find Out When You’re On the Top You’re On the Bottom

Keith, Kenley (Thing3), Emily (Thing4), Terrie, Jennifer (Thing2) and Leanne (Thing1) are the tops and bottoms. Probably more literally than we care to consider. And then, the judges judged, and I think that they were all doing crack. Or thorazine. Because:

Kenley (Thing3) shows a photo of a blue and orange tile wall that was the inspiration for her aqua/magenta/black dress. Sandra says that the pouf would be great if she had a goiter or a growth that needed hiding. Michael Kors points out that the whole look is very “Joan Collins 1980s power bitch” but a young woman who’d never seen it before might love it. NinaGarcia claims that it’s very LaCroix, darling, and that it is adorable.

The RLA and the surrogate daughters and I all look at each other and ask: What the fuck are they seeing that we aren’t? That shit is hideous!

Keith is taken to school by MK, who sniffs that his little Post-It note dress looks like nothing more than “toilet paper caught in a windstorm.” NinaGarcia says that it is sloppy and unpolished.

Terrie’s backless chiffon is pronounced “fierce, sexy and in control. If you met that girl on a dark alley, she could cut a bitch” by Miss Bernhard. Who would know, if you get my drift. Heidi thinks it’s cool and MK declares that this is a girl you’d want to know.

Emily (Thing4) has taken a time-exposure of lights. It’s all blurry and jaggedy, sort of like the ruffles on her dress. Sandra says that if it were flatter, say, fabric inserts or appliqué, that it might have works. NinaGarcia just says it’s a Carmen Miranda moment. And MK gets in the last lethal word: “This explosion of ruffle is not placed fabulously.”

Leanne (Thing1) and her planter grate are lauded as “cool” by Sandra, while Michael is in love with it being separates. Heidi says that it looks like it came out of a store today and that she’d wear it in the proverbial New York minute.

The word for Jennifer (Thing2)’s navy blue sack is Matronly. NinaGarcia says that it’s OK, but boring.

Finally, we get to the judges’ confabulation. Terrie wins love from everyone. Kenley is praised for the energy she brought to her creation. There were lots of elements and they all worked (for whom, I wonder, idly. It still looks like Miami Vice-era sofa cushions from a Boca townhouse.) Michael is thrilled with how quickly Thing 1 learned to edit herself. Michael doesn’t mention that it’s the same damn trick pony. NinaGarcia says about Thing2 (Jennifer) I have nothing to say. Michael, Heidi and Sandra all giggle and say that’s the most damning thing NinaGarcia could say. Keith’s dress is once more declared to be toilet paper by Michael and nobody disagrees.

The poll that Bravo put up (Should Holla Atcha Boy be Tim’s new catch phrase?) shows that more viewers of this show have brains than we’d been led to believe, as a full 87% shriek NO, it should not.

Terrie is in. What the fuck? All those positive vibrations, and all she gets is “IN”? Kenley wins with the cystic purple pouf and Great Aunt Sophie’s sofa cushions. I want what the judges were drinking. And does this mean that I have to remember Kenley as different from Thing 1 and Thing 2? Kenley is thrilled and says that she’s never won anything major in her life. I turn to the Surrogate Daughters and say, “well, she surely didn’t win anything major when she got that voice.”  Leanne (Thing1) is in, and Keith is in.

Thing2 and Thing4 are left standing side by side on the runway, their sad little creations by their sides. Jennifer (Thing2) is totally called out for claiming her “Holly Golightly meets Salvadore Dali” sensibility, but showing matronly and boring. Emily (Thing2) was told she had no design voice, and her ruffle was distracting and a cliché. So, who stays and who’s auf? WRONG!

I told you I wanted what the judges were drinking. Despite universal loathing for her work, despite the fact that NinaGarcia didn’t even want to think about it enough to talk about it, Jennifer (Thing2) is left in the game for another week, and Emily goes home. In a beaded headband that has a faint whiff of circa 1970s Cher, what with it looking like Native American beadwork in black, red and white and all.

And with that, another week of Project Runway comes to an end. I may begin a drinking game next week; one which involves a shot of tequila every time that dreadful, little orange troll utters the sylables “licious.” Let’s pray I don’t die of alcohol poisoning.