Project Runway: Miz Shoes Reviews

I'm just going to go straight there. I don't like Jeffrey-the-PInheaded-Shmoo. I don't like his designs. I don't like his television persona. I don't like his haircut, his tattoos, his girlfriend's haircut or the fact that he wears manpris. I don't care that he's a recovering drunk, rehabilitated junkie or a failed suicide. I particularly don't like the redemption edit he's gotten the past couple of weeks. In fact, the nicest thing I can say about him is that he makes Santino look like a sweet-talking charmer by comparison. Now that we got that out of the way, let's take a look at last night's show.

We open on the final four being told to take their 8K budget and go home and create a line of twelve looks. See you back here in two months. Then Heidi and Tim Gunn walk off the runway giggling like two school girls and trading very stiff banter about running away together on holiday. Although, I have to say, the thought of Tim Gunn in a Speedo with about half a dozen frozen piña coladas under his belt makes me giggle like a school girl. I'd pay to be on that Windjammer.

The designers pack their bags, and yes, Laura packs with the same attention to detail and meticulous fitting that she uses to design her clothing. Laura cracks the joke about producing a line of clothing being no more difficult than producing a line of children (I love that) and ignores the cabs in front of the Atlas in favor of sauntering down the avenue in her high heels, dragging her Luis Vuitton behind her. Really. She has to be the most fabulous contestant ever.

Michael bids a fond farewell to all, assures us that he WILL win, and blows. Ditto Uli. Jeffrey is left on the street waving for a cab. One can only hope that nobody picked him up.

Then Tim goes visiting. First is Michael. He lives in a very nice house. He says that he's doing a safari theme for his show, and has some swatches and samples and a beautiful laced-bodice dress on a mannequin. The overall look is sort of Ralph Lauren (several seasons ago) meets Diddy in the Hamptons by way of Yo Momma's House of Bling. Meh. Except for that white dress, it isn't really calling out my name. Or Tim's.

They go to visit Mikey's family, because Michael wants Tim to meet his family and he also wants to cook for Tim. Is this guy for real? I hope the stories of Brandy and him hooking up are true, not because I know anything about Brandy, but because he is the nicest guy ever and he should have a famous good-looking girlfriend to walk around showing off his clothes. And also? I bet she could get him into a Diddy/Hamptons party.

Daddy Knight turns out to be an Army lifer, and probably the only one in the history of the military to speak the following (paraphrased) sentence: By the time Michael was nine, we knew he'd be a hairdresser. But what ever made him happy and whole, we were behind him 100%. Jeez. A whole freaking family of sweet and nice. And military, as if that isn't the biggest oxymoron of them all.

Then it's off to see Uli in my hood. The truth of the matter is that Miami always looks good on film. It's just living here, with the humidity and the idiot drivers and the abusive service workers, and the mosquitos that dims it a little in reality.

Still, Uli gives a great interview about growing up poor in a tiny village in East Germany (EAST? Germany) and how she always watched Miami Vice on t.v. (I'm having a hard time with the whole East Germany/Miami Vice dichotomy) and dreamed about America. Then, one day, the wall came down, everybody was free, and she was on the next flight out to Miami Beach. Now she's a finalist on Project Runway, and dreams come true in America. All she has to do is stick out her hand for the little blue birds to land on her palm.

Her line looks, well, like pretty damn near every other thing she's shown since the beginning of the season. There is flowy. There is pattern. There is not a set-in sleeve to be seen. And instead of the ever-present halter tops, she's holding her hippydippy chic up with what looks like a belt under the armpits and a bone hook and eye. Her theme, she says is Safari. Oh.

Next we travel to LA to visit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo. He has a wife, girlfriend, you know. It pains me to say this, but she seems to really care about him. She also has a two-tone mohawk and a baby by Jeffrey, so maybe her judgement is a little off.

JTPS talks at great length (and with absolutely no appropriate self-consciousness) about his abusive father, his childhood drug addictions, his alcoholism, his failed suicide, his mad parenting skillz, his something or other. I don't know. His mouth was moving but all I heard was quack, quack, quack.

They head over to what he coyly refers to as his "little sewing space" and they trudge down a dirty hall to a dirty door and open it to reveal a cavernous room the size of my entire house. There are racks and racks of clothes, and 10-foot long work tables and in short, a working fashion production facility.

JTPS tells Tim that the inspiration for his line is Japanese ghost stories (traditional, not anime). Yeah. Whatever. We see lots of Japanese woodcuts with women in kimonos and frankly, I'm still not seeing it, but whatever. Quack, quack, quack.

Tim is very excited by the pieces he's shown, and just goes batshit over this green striped thing that has open zippers defining the seam lines on a halter-topped, full-skirted dress. Which, I hate to say, is pretty cool. Except that the seams are describing a giant oval over the belly of the dress, which if one is not concave, will make the wearer look like they lost the strap-on pregnancy belly that so obviously goes on that oval. Quack, quack, quack and off we go to see Laura.

Laura interviews that she's surprised herself with how competitive she's become over the course of the show. Oh, yeah. Pull the other one, woman, it has bells on it. Like you weren't competitive before. Then she says the second greatest thing (second to the line of clothes/line of children) which is that she wants to win so badly, if for no other reason than to keep Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo from winning. Except, she leaves out the Pinheaded-Shmoo part.

Laura lives on what looks like an entire floor of a New York City sky scraper. Bitch. It is a gorgeous space and if she wasn't totally my imaginary BFF, I'd hate her for the apartment and all the art in it. One of her personal basketball team tries to hand Tim Gunn a lump of turtle poop. Can we get that on You Tube, yet?

Turtle: $25
Turtle food: $5.
Turtle wading pool: $15.75
The look on Tim Gunn's face: priceless.

Off to the cramped little corner of her spare room, where Laura shows Tim her line. Just as Uli does Uli, Laura does Laura. But my god. It is soooo beautiful and elegant. The grey and chartreuse dress is stunning. I want it. The red, with the bling inside the seam along the skirt slit, so it only shows when the wearer moves is another stunner. Each of her evening/cocktail dresses is more beautiful than the last. Literally. The last dress she shows is so not Laura, that even Tim asks: Is it even pretty? The answer is no. No, it is not pretty. It isn't even acceptable.

Finally they all meet back at Parsons, or their new hotel or someplace in Manhattan. There is much designer love all around, except for, you know, Jeffrey-TPS. They are shown their Macy's supplied workspace, which is about one fifth the size of you know who's warehouse.

Out come the tools, the dresses, the pins, the fangs, and everybody gets to work putting the final, finishing touches on their lines. Everybody except Jeffrey-TPS, who seems to have completed everything down to the last stitch. Even when they get their models and do the final fittings, it seems that the only thing JTPS has to do is smoke cigarettes, twiddle his thumbs and make snotty comments about Laura.

Laura doesn't take kindly to that and takes a peek under the plastic drapes at JTPS's line (which she also notes seems to consist of more than 12 pieces). Surprise, surprise, surprise. Every piece is well made. Much more so than the work he did during the challenges. Michael weighs in on it, too, saying something to the effect of Dawg, when did YOU learn to sew so good? And Laura, pithy to the end, says that you don't pull that kind of workmanship outa yer ass. So she takes it up with Mr. Gunn, and he takes it Very Seriously.

And then, it's over. We're shown a clip of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo crying piteously while Uli pats his narrow little shoulder, and we hear Tim say "Unfortunately..." and then there's something else on my tv.

Is he in? Or out? We don't know. Until next week, keep the scissors sharp.