Project Runway, Season 4, Week 5
A BRIEF UPDATE
Before I start in on Project Runway, let me say that Ming has begun eating again, and drinking out of the water faucet. He’s doing fine, but now I have to put JoJo, the dog of very little brain, on a diet. She’s gained a little weight, probably from eating all the fallen avocados.
CUT TO FIT
Open on the girl’s dorm where Sweet P is missing the joy that Chris brought to the work room. And just that fast, we are over in the boy’s dorm, where Jack has a hugely swollen upper lip. He mentions that he thought he’d had a pimple in his nose, but that he’s starting to think, what with the horrendous swelling and pain and all, that it’s a staph infection. The Number One Surrogate Daughter mentions hand washing and keeping one’s fingers out of one’s nose as a possible preventive measure. I remember, but do not discuss, a dark day in the late 70s when cocaine consumption caused me to get a nasal pimple, and just the memory of that pain makes my eyes water. Trust me when I tell you that if you ever get, or think you have gotten, an internal nose pimple, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO POP IT. Or even touch it. I just can’t imagine that Jack stuck a finger up his nostril to get at something he thought was a pimple. And if he did, well, I won’t say he deserves what he got, but I will say that there is no more likely consequence than that which he experienced.
Ice pack applied, and jokes made, we are ready to head off to Parson’s. Once more, there is no model selection because the regular models will not be used. Instead, a parade of normal, off-the-street (oh, STOP, not that kind of off the street) women come onto the runway wearing grossly oversized clothes. We are told that these women have all lost tons of weight and that what they are wearing is their favorite outfit from before the loss. One woman is wearing a wedding dress. A typical, leg-of-mutton-sleeved, polyester satin, cinched bodice, train and lace and sequins and beading wedding dress. The designers’ challenge will be to take the old garments and make new looks for the woman with whom they
paired. It should be a design suitable for the everyday life of the woman, and yet still express the designer’s style.
Laura, who is the woman in the wedding dress, gets Squinty Steve. Squinty Steve is not happy with this. In fact, his words are: “Oh. Dear. God… Death on a stick.” The rest of the names are pulled out of the button bag, and as always, Sweet P is the last puppy in the box. She’s become sort of stoic about it at this point.
The designers have until midnight to work. But first, they have to complain about not working with model-sized women. Victorya starts. Then Kevin, who is straight and wants you to remember that, announces that this challenge is just for him, because he loves, loves, loves to design for real women. Christian, predictably, is not so chuffed. He gets as his model someone with as many issues and demands as he himself: no sleeveless, no color, no patterns, no skirt. Deal, darling. Steven whines about the poly satin, acetate lace, sequins and beads that he has to repurpose for daywear. They get $10 and 15 minutes. Whoof.
Jack is looking scarier and scarier as the morning goes on, and calls to his primary care doc result in him having to take more aggressive treatment for his staph. Which translates into, you gotta leave and go check in to a hospital, sweetie. He is devastated, as are we all, because this means no more shots of him waltzing around the dorm in nada but his towel or his briefs. No more piggy back rides for Christian. No more stripping off his pants in the workroom. Rami of the Heavenly Arms better step up to the plate here and supply us with more nudity or semi-nudity. Or Kevin, who, while he is straight, has some meticulously sculpted facial hair and a body that seems to have been around the gym more than not. Not that I watch this show for the hot gay men, because let’s face it, until this season, there weren’t any. Santino in a towel? Ewww. Jeffrey-the-pinheaded-shmoo? Even and especially clothed, double Ewwww. Jay McCarrol? Who are we kidding, people? And poor Daniel Franco never lasted long enough to get down to his tighty whities, and who knows how that would have worked out, anyway? But I digress. There is crying, there is hugging. There is Christian saying, with a complete lack of affect: what a nice guy. how sad.
WEIRD INTERLUDE
Ricky is wearing his pants, or his model’s pants, inside out. Rolled up to capri length. And prancing around in strappy gold sandals which he claims he is doing because he and his model are about the same size.
BUT FIRST, A SURPRISE
Tim comes into the work room to tell the designers that the models are there for a half hour fitting session. But first, gather round. We have a surprise. This elicits as much enthusiasm as you would expect by week five, which is to say there is groaning, eye-rolling and a sense of dread. Mais non! It is a happy surprise. The powers that be needed a certain number of contestants week by week, and with Jack’s unexpected departure (at the beginning of the hour) they have decided (and purely to keep the competition high, they assure us) brought back Chris! Yay! And there is much rejoicing. Since he came in late in the day, Chris gets to spend the night in the work room.
And so the models come in for their fittings. Chris is most sympathetic to this challenge, because as a person of size, he has experienced the yo-yo weight thing. We see Christian with his model, where he not so sympathetic to the issues, and is telling his model that he is not (again I must quote) “a miracle worker, lady. I can’t give you an ass.” No, but he can play one on tv. Chris sees the struggle that Squinty Steven is having with the wedding dress, and he is jealous. What he could do with that, he sighs, if only they could swap.
Tim makes his turn around the room, and showing the wit and panache we love, asks of Christian, “How fierce is this?” Very, says Christian. Yes, allows Mr. Gunn, it is very you. As is Elisa’s design. Which is not so fortunate, because her model is not a crunchy granola eating, airy-fairy space alien, but instead a normal woman who wants normal clothes. Tim tells Elisa to edit herself, to clean up her design and to actually respond to her client. Next, Tim checks up on Squinty Steven. In an understatement of enormous proportions, Tim tells Squinty Steve that not using any of the wedding dress but a little bit of lace for collar and cuffs on a black dress is “very courageous.” Snort. When he finally makes it to Chris’s station, Tim warns him about his (Chris’) tendency to design costume rather than couture. And then he says “I’ve made more bad decisions at 3 o’clock in the morning than I can count.” This makes everyone in my living room howl, and ditto for the designers in the work room. We want names, says someone.
It’s time for Christian to make one of his egotistical pronouncements. And so he says the following: “Don’t these bitches know? that I am way better than them?”
RUN RUN RUN AWAY
It’s the morning of the runway, and fear and insecurities abound. Chris, who woke up not even sure if he had worked, sees that his outfit is done, but wonders if it’s good. Squinty Steven says that he just can’t sew fast enough. Kevin, who is straight, is also confident. Jillian says that she didn’t want to use the material she was given, so she was able to find the exact same shade of red at Mood, and she bought that and has made a dress (which is, admittedly, kick ass). Christian is confident that he’ll be the winner and then says that what Chris made was pure costume, and that what Elisa and Steven made was godawful hideous. And, damn but I hate when that little emo elf is right. Ricky cries that Penny (his model) made him remember what he loves (other than those awful twee little hats that I wish he’d 86 already). Then all of the designers pitch in and help Squinty Steven pin, glue and staple his dress onto his model and get her shoved out the door for the runway.
The guest judge today is Patric Robinson, the head designer for the GAP. Really? It takes a designer to make cheap chinos?
The first model out is Sweet P’s. She has on a nice olive halter dress, made from her old tent. She looks happy and good. Jillian’s red dress is hot. The only part of the original garment that she used shows up as black piping along the seam lines. Ricky has retailored his model’s clothes into skin tight capris and a gauze-y tunic top with some nice trim. She too, looks happy. She is not wearing the strappy gold sandals Ricky tried on. Chris, bless his little heart, has made a fair enough top and a pencil skirt. With a floppy red bow at the waist and a red fishtail godet in the middle of the back. Oh well, you can take the boy out of drag, but you can’t take the drag out of the boy. It fits the woman, though, and is nicely made. Kerry is a fierce walker. That would be Christian’s model. She is fierce in her fierce ensemble that looks remarkably similar to the fierce ensemble that he made for Bitten and for the three-bad-trends-in-one challenge fierce ensemble. In fact, I will go so far as to say that for all her bravado, Christian is a one-trick emo pony, and that trick relies heavily on the sense and sensibility of Miss Vivienne Westwood’s atellier.
Victorya has made a lovely bottle green velvet/silk sort of tank dress for her model. Elisa has made layers and layers and layers of crap and accessorized with some really awful boots. I think they are the same awful boots that Brittney Spears is always photographed wearing. Yeah. Those. Kit’s model comes out in a fresh little short dress with a chiffon under-layer that sticks out below the hem. Kevin has made a strapless, architectural bustier with black leggings. The woman wearing it is thrilled to pieces with the look and her smile and her walk make it absolutely clear how she feels. She sells it. Squinty Steve’s nasty, glued together dress comes next, and nobody looks comfortable or happy. The final look belongs to Rami, who’s been hiding the arms lately, and it is a simple, tailored skirt and a top with some interesting draping. Draped, and yet fitted. It’s a nice top.
LINES FORM ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT
Six designers are pulled from the line. Squinty Steve, Christian, Chris, Kevin, Jillian and Elisa. Without Heidi saying it, we know that these are the top and bottom scores. Kevin gets the first critique. When asked, the model says that she feels incredible in her outfit, and Michael Kors says that they could tell. That she looked like she loved it, and isn’t that what fashion is all about? And in my living room, the girls and I say “Amen and hand to god.” Elisa explains her outfit for her model thusly: she is a mom, and so I wanted to create a “day trousseau” for her. Now, ignoring for the moment that that phrase makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, it is still an awful mosh up of nothingness. Heidi and GAP guy point out that the look looks nothing like what the customer would wear. Michael Kors says that one never, ever wants to chop up a figure like that, and certainly not someone who just lost a ton of weight and is trying to show a new, sleek figure. NinaGarcia puts in the final nail by saying that this outfit is ALL Elisa and NO Tracy.
Jillian is called out for not using her material, but as she hoped, the workmanship of what she made and the fact that she was able to match the color so accurately overshadows that little faux pas, and the dress gets raves. “Sexy without hootchiemama” is what the judges call it. Sexy and tasteful. Two words that one so seldom hears together on a reality show.
On the other hand, Squinty Steven is not praised for what he did when he ditched the original garment. MK says that his model looks like a French Maid. NinaGarcia says that she looks like a French Maid at a funeral. There is nothing anyone can add to that.
Christian and his model get points for fun. The judges say that the design is pure Christian, and yet purely commercial. The model says that she’s not taking it off. Ever. Good lord, woman, don’t encourage him.
Chris hopes that his look is sexy but sophisticated. His hopes are dashed when Michael Kors says that all that’s missing is a beret and a cigarette and the woman would look like Shirley Maclaine back in the 50s playing a French hooker with a heart of gold. Ouff. That’s harsh. Accurate, but harsh. And we roll right into deliberations, where the recap goes like this: Kevin’s model was loving her look; Christian used his model’s clothes to make a Christian outfit; Jillian made an impeccable/beautiful dress; Elisa has stumpified her model; Squinty Steven disappointed the universe by not taking advantage of those miles of poly satin and acetate lace; and Chis made a nice top for a Paris Hooker in the 50s.
YOU’RE IN OR YOU’RE AUFF
Jillian is in. Kevin is in. Chris is in (huge sighs of relief are heard from Miz Shoe’s couch). Christian is the winner and gets immunity in the next challenge. Christian interviews that: “Winning is great? Because I can be a commercial hack if I want to.” The last part may not be an exact quote. This means that Elisa and Squinty Steve are the bottom two, and although Elisa’s piece was more about her than about her client, Steve committed the unforgivable sin of turning something joyous (a wedding dress) into something fit for a funeral. And even worse than that? It was boring. So say goodbye to Squinty Steve. Awww, he was funny. Good thing we have Chris back. Next week looks like it’s going to be one of those recyled/organic/not known to be suitable for sewing materials challenges.