Project Runway, Week Three
Open on the interior of the boys’ apartments, where Jack is being hott, buff and mostly naked. He is using an inhalator and sorting through a wealth of medications, as he voice overs that he’s been living with HIV for 10 or so years and has never felt better. I think I speak for all of us in the audience, gay and straight, when I say he looks just fine. In the kitchen area Chris and Kevin (who would like you to know, before we go any further, that he is straight) are discussing the auffing of Marion and opining that nobody would have cried if Christian had been auffed. Christian is standing there, but somehow, I am not offended by the dissing of him to his face. Christian says, in his annoyingly valley girl way, that after almost being auffed? he’s not as confident? as he was before? And we’re out the door (they need more V-8) to Parson’s.
On the runway, Heidi tells them that there will be no model selection, because they will not be using their models this week. The designers are headed up and herded out for a field trip to Rockefeller Plaza, where they end up in the studios of the Today Show. Waiting for them are Tim and Tiki Barber. For those of you who don’t follow professional sports (every one of the designers except Kevin (who would like to remind you that he is, in fact, a straight man) is included in that group), Tiki Barber is a former NY Giant running back, played in three Pro Bowls and in 2007 was voted one of the best dressed men of the year by Vanity Fair. Squinty Steve delivers up the following comment, and endears himself to me forever: I don’t know much about sports, except that it’s probably the only time that spandex is acceptable. Miz Shoes is now officially on the Steve love train.
The challenge this week, a PR first, and one that is easily the hardest ever, is to design something for Tiki to wear on air. Tiki says that he likes dark colors, texture and depth. He also is not afraid to wear pink or other pastels. Kevin asks, and Tiki answers, that he likes details. There is the usual 30 minutes to draw, and 30 to shop and the budget is $100. They will have the rest of that day and all of the next to work.
Panic at the Workroom
Back at the workroom, it soon becomes apparent that practically nobody has any idea how to design menswear. Sweet P is already sweating. Kevin says that he has done menswear, and will make a suit. Rami of the Heavenly Arms opts for a sport jacket. Kit, who has done on-air clothing, goes for British School Boy Khakis. Ricky, who amazingly does not shed a single tear this week, decides that as a lingerie designer, he has to step up and design a whole 3-piece suit, just to prove himself. Christian has designed a jacket and pant. Carmen is lost, lost, lost and keeps turning to Jack for help. Jack asks Tim if they can use existing pieces as design guides and Tim says yes. This means that Jack drops trow, and cuts up his pants to make a pattern. which he graciously shares with Carmen and Victorya. This causes much sniffing and tut-tutting and someone (you know by now that I take lousy notes and don’t own TIVO, so I don’t remember who, but I would guess Chris or Christian) says that oooooh, jealousy will bring out the ugly. Sweet P knocks over a mannequin and yells “MAN DOWN!” Why I found that so funny, I cannot say. But I laughed out loud.
Chris observes that people are starting to figure out that sewing up a man’s suit takes a lot more time than they have been given, and Christian chirps that he is a speed queen. Well, actually those are my words. His are just that speed is his greatest asset. It sure isn’t his haircut or his speaking style. Chris says that he is completely self-taught, starting in 4th grade when he snatched the pants away from his mother and said he’d hem them up himself. He also says (and again, I can’t tell you why I found it so funny) that he loves pants, because pants are just two big sleeves sewn together. Rami of the Heavenly Arms and suddenly pissy attitude models his muslin, which, he says pointedly, he DRAPED, and did not TRACE. And they do fit beautifully.
Also beautiful is the bevy of male models who now enter the workroom. Kevin who, as we are all now well aware, is straight, is unimpressed. The rest of us (straight women and gay men) all swoon a little. Squinty Steve delivers another howler, as he says that OK, NOW he gets why straight men are always asking him how he can work with all those beautiful women standing around in their underwear. Jillian has to completely re-cut her pants. Elisa, keeping up her track record of random weirdness, lectures all of us about how she only wants to see her man. She won’t let her model undress in front of her, and she won’t measure him, either. Not even a hand measure… although I have my doubts about hand-measuring a crotch length. Could be fun… And I suppose we should all thank all higher powers that she doesn’t spit mark him, either.
Tim enters the workroom, and calls the designers together. This causes a some consternation, as they all expect another twist to the challenge, and they are already freaking out. But it isn’t a bad thing at all. It is Ginny Barber, Tiki’s wife, and she is there to give the designers a critique and direction. She loves the color and the vest of Jack’s work. She tells Ricky that Tiki loves layering and will like his look, but that there is a lot of work left to do. Kevin is doing a dress shirt, a double-vented jacket and a matching pocket square. Dashing says Miz Shoes. Carmen gets a reality check in the form of Tim and Ginny telling her that her jacket looks too much like a 1980s Members Only. Tim suggests that she recut the pattern, but there isn’t enough fabric, so Carmen is hosed.
As the evening winds down, Kevin is saying that he’s not doing a jacket for lack of time. Jack is focusing on completing his shirt and pants, and Ricky and Sweet P are fighting. Squinty Steve has the final say, and it is brilliant…“What’s that thing that they had on the Titanic before it sank?” he asks the camera. “Oh, yeah, panic. That’s what we have here.”
Show Time
Morning has broken, and Elisa is doing yoga. Sweet P is continuing to panic, as she says she has 3/4 of a pair of pants and no shirt. Jack carries Christian piggy back into the workroom, and the two of them look like some sort of R. Crumb fantasy. Ricky says that if you are going to fall, fall hard on your ass. I don’t think that will make it onto a needlepoint sampler to hang over the fireplace, but it does convey a little attitude. Carmen still needs to make a shirt. There are two hours for hair and make up and then it is show time. We get a quick once over of how far the designers have come. Christian is pretty much finished. Kit has three pieces. Ricky is making his model sew on buttons. Sweet P has made a shirt for a Todd McFarlane toy, with a neck as large as the waist, and other weird and horrible things happening throughout. Victorya says that she has “panic in her veins”, which is too bad, because I think ice water might be better under the circumstances.
Now we see Ricky hemming everything with pins. This is not going to be good. Carmen is looking at her model. The pants fit like shit and she is sewing him into them. There is no shirt, and she tears a swath of blue oxford cloth and wraps it around his neck to simulate a shawl collar and throws the jacket on over. Tim calls time and ends up practically having to drag Sweet P and Carmen out to the runway. Christian looks around and questions that it is going to be hard? to judge? because there is so much that is awful? Yeah. It pains me, but I must agree.
Heidi looks more fabulous than ever as she greets the designers. Is that an Uli that she’s wearing?
As the models come down the runway, Miz Shoes observes that, as impossible as it may seem, the stylists have done worse things to the men than they have yet done to the women. Who is doing hair and make up this year? Jillian’s ensemble is nice, Carmen’s is a hot mess with no shirt. The look on Michael Kors’ face is priceless. Christian has done something with an asymmetric neckline and an awful jacket that reeks of Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner. Kit puts out a simple, but I think, too short jacket. Rami of the Heavenly Arms has a pair of beautifully tailored pants and a cheesy golf jacket. Sweet P has a mess. Squinty Steven has done a beautiful sweater, pants with a high waist, and an ascot. It is a lovely, retro look. Victorya sends down a white jacket with a black collar. Kevin has a nice vest, and a nice shirt. Kevin contributed the vest to the Bitten design, did he not? And his first dress had a waist cincher on it, sort of a ren fest wench affair. Is this a trend Miz Shoes is spotting? Chris has done a zipper front jacket. Jack has done some interesting things with pattern on pattern. Ricky should, but is not crying over the pinned-together crap his model has on. The model has the presence of mind to show the lining on the jacket, and it is the best part of the whole thing. Elisa has done three pieces: a nice enough shirt, a weird crunchy-granola vest that looks to be made from a kind of fuzzy pleather, and a nice pair of pants.
When The Whip Comes Down
The designers who can flee the runway with their chances intact are: Jillian, Christian, Rami OTHA, Squinty Steve, Victorya, Chris and Elisa. Flee they do. Gratefully, I may add. Kit gets the first critique, and Tiki likes the khaki and navy. The fact that the navy blazer is made out of fleece takes it out of the sleepy/boring place and makes it an interesting combination of textures. Tiki likes to use the word texture.
Sweet P is blasted by Michael Kors, who asks her how she could even send her model out in that crap. He acknowledges that she made a very nice tie…if the wearer was 7 feet tall. Her design is both conservative and messy, a bad combination in everybody’s book.
MK does love Jack’s shirt, which uses stripes vertically and on the bias, and is paired with pinstriped trousers. Tiki loves the pattern on pattern. Nina complains that there are only two pieces, and Tiki counters that they are two perfect pieces.
Ricky feels the wrath of NinaGarcia as she calls his work boring, dull, and held together with pins, as if we wouldn’t notice. Tiki says that it’s sloppy and that there is no way he would/could ever wear it.
Kevin, who is straight, you know, is told by Tiki that although he normally wouldn’t wear a vest, he’d wear that vest. MK clocks Kevin for time management skills and says that he should have left the vest open, rather than pinning it shut. There is a lovely and somewhat snippy exchange between Michael and Heidi when Michael says that Kevin’s look would look good on Seal and Heidi says it most certainly would not, because he would never be caught dead in it, but that it looks like David Beckham’s style. The way she says that is searingly dismissive. The RLA, who happily watches Project Runway with me, almost chokes.
Carmen’s jacket is too short, the shirt is too missing, and Michael calls the crotch “INSANE”. He has a point.
Are You In, Or Out?
Kevin, who is straight and wants you to remember that fact, is in. He had a nice, avant garde look. Kit is in for a unique point of view: doing a traditional blazer in a non-traditional fabric. Jack is the winner. Tiki says that the look was smart, and that Jack didn’t try to do too much. I could wear that tomorrow, says Tiki, and he will in fact, be wearing the look on the Today show. Good for Jack, although, for my money, I would have gone with Kevin. Sweet P remains in, despite having no concept of men’s wear or tailoring. Ricky remains in, despite his work being very badly made and very boring. Tiki even goes so far as to say it looked like his five-year-old made it. And that leaves Carmen. Her look was called unfinished, and that’s being kind. Michael Kors put it best when he said the problem is who would even put those things together? Her model was half naked and everything about her look was off. And now, so is she. Bye-bye little model girl. Bye-bye. Word to Ricky: good on you for not crying this week. But still, loose the little twee hats. They did Marion no favors and I fear for what they will do for you.