Bilious green L.A. Logan and Christopher swap clichés about stepping up game, being on the bottom, getting out of their comfort zones, and Christopher whines that nobody understands him. Over in the female dorm room, they are gloating about how many women are left. Althea and Carol Hannah blow smoke about who will be in Bryant park and comfort zones and something else or another.

The designers are facing away from the runway, listening to rustling noises and getting worried. This is what passes for drama these days, one supposes. When they turn around, Heidi is standing in the middle of a row of dress forms, each of which is wearing one of the remaining designer’s winning garment. In the case of Logan, who has never won a challenge, this is something long and two shades of grey and I have no idea which challenge it was from nor any memory of seeing it. That’s pretty damning for a show about creativity.  In the case of Irina (who has won more challenges than any one else this season and who won’t shut up about it as though this were a season where winning a challenge meant slightly more than squat), this means her giant pile of brown knits that won last week.

The challenge is to make a second look that goes with your winning garment. As usual, there is too little money for decent supplies and too little time for anything of quality or interest to come from this group. In other words, this is another one-day,  make something pretty challenge.

Althea focuses on the paper-bag waist on her original design, which I DO remember seeing, because the model’s boobs were flying around and the short skirt looked like a giant black diaper because it had a paper-bag waist and a bubble hem which combined for something quite unfortunate in shape. Irina, predictably gloats about her Aspen look being the basis of a collection. Gordana has the grey sort of mummy wrap dress from the divorcé challenge. Christopher has his pixie prom dress and decides that it needs to have a matching gown. Logan buys lots and lots of zippers at Mood, claiming that his look had a zipper detail on it somewhere. Christopher finds and buys 30 yards of something shiny and silver. Or white. Irina is making a dress that starts out as a work look and ends up a cocktail dress, which isn’t necessarily a contradiction in terms.

Carol Hannah is panicking and gets a Pep Talk From Tim ^TM that inspires her to stay in her comfort zone and make a pretty dress.  Workroom. Irina is cutting the pattern apart on her upholstery fabric to make a brocade. Althea is making trousers that are tight from ankle to knee and then full until pulled in on the high, paper-bag waist. In black, and there is a certain Princess PuffySleeves look about the silhouette.

Montage of designers includes Gordana’s back story: child of Bosnian-Serb farmers. Those of us old enough to remember remember that would have been a shitty place to be 20-some years ago. Logan is a straight gear-head from Idaho. Carol Hannah dithers and wanders off for coffee. Trash talking. Is it time for the runway yet? Tim’s Walk-About ^TM. Tim agrees with Carol Hannah that she does, in fact, have a scary mess. Tim loves Irina’s dress. Tim hates Christopher’s gown and says that it looks like the first dress’ dowdy, white-trash mama. Althea’s pants are scary. Logan is focusing on his color palette and zippers.

The zippers and the collar Logan is making. Irina and Althea make a big whispering mean-girls stink about Logan being a cheat and an idea thief. Then Irina turns on Althea and talks about her behind her back in the same terms, with a side of ridicule thrown in for not even seeing that she’s just the same a Logan. Rinse and repeat this scenario several more times randomly through the remainder of this review, and you will have the entire episode. Your humble narrator will now skip ahead to the runway and the judging.

Logan puts on his magic silver pants for good luck. Good lord, but that boy is bow-legged. Is he also a barrel racer? Heidi comes out in something so fucking hideous that she must have lost a bet or let her daughter pick things at random from the closet. She is wearing silver leather Burmuda shorts, a ruffled, flowery chiffon blouse in a hot pink print, and a black waiter’s jacket. I am frightened. Our judges tonight are NinaGarcia, Uncle Nick from Season 2 and Kerry Washington whose Wikipedia page tells me is an American actress who has been in movies I’ve seen. And I saw Logan’s dress, too, but same amount of memory has been expended in both instances, which is to say, exactly none.

Carol Hannah’s cute dress is cute. Althea has made a strappy-backed white tank to go with the scary pants, and a giant grey fuzzy knit wrap-bolero-thing is thrown over that. Logan has made a nice top with all those zippers, and a skirt that looks like a goth brothel lampshade. I know I used that phrase before, but this is the boudoir lamp, and the other one was from the public space. Irina has made a huge cocoon wrap out of that brown sweater knit and tossed it over her cocktail sheath. There is some very weird shit happening on the hip and hem, and nobody says a word about it. Gordana has made a sort of deconstructed jacket with tons of detailing at the waist to create the fit. It’s very interesting and I can see the same woman who would wear the grey mummy wrap in this.

Christopher is doused with ice water, verbally: proportions off, parade float, bedskirt, totally unrelated pieces. Irina: up-town chic, Kerry would call for it after seeing it on a runway, and NinaGarcia is aware that the empress has no clothes, but the other judges have drunk the kool-aid. Gordana is kicked in the teeth, verbally: old, drab, sad, Soviet-era dreariness, dated, office worker in Poland. Carol Hannah is delicious and Logan is a self indulgent student.  Judy Jetson, Nick calls it. Althea’s suit gets the love.

Moment of under-bus-throwing between Althea and Irina (see note above).  Deliberating. And Carol Hannah and her cute little dress are in. Althea is the winner and she better keep one eye open tonight when she sleeps (coughIrinacough). Christopher, for reasons unknown to all intelligent life in this galaxy is in. Logan and Gordana get a final reaming from the judges and then the magic is spent from Logan’s silver pants and he goes home. Gordana gets to stay and suffer under Heidi’s obvious hatred for another episode.

See, when I was young and in summer camp, I had a friend whose brother had (accidentally, he said) broken her nose. She was allowed to take the bandages off to go to camp, but she had to spend like ten minutes out of every hour pressing her deviated septum together. She’d forget, and then spend an hour with her fingers clamped on her nose, and say she was catching up on it, which became, when overheard by someone unfamiliar with the state of affairs, ketchup. So to this day, when I am behind, I think of the ketchup on it. So this is my Project Runway Ketchup On It.

Episode Nine

Christopher HAS to make it to Fashion Week, and Shirin deserves to be here. Carol Hannah thinks that she can win by staying in the middle of the pack.

The challenge is to meet the “Sultan of Sequins”, Mr. Bob Mackie, review his retrospective and produce an extravagant stage costume in his style. He remind the fashion hamsters that this isn’t fashion, it’s costume. It’s Glamor. It’s for Christina Aguilera (and Miz Shoes couldn’t pick her out of a line up, let’s be up front about that now. I only know of her from her frequent appearance on the pages of Go Fug Yourself).

Needless to say, Miss Nicolas is absolutely famischt at being in proximity to Bob Mackie, and has to fan herself. The hamsters have half an hour to sketch, $300 and half an hour at Mood and a gracious two days to work. There are the usual clichés about inspiration and icons and the usual running around Mood with no clue. Evil Twin Irina trash talks everyone. Christopher is going back to punk (ho-fucking hum to that). Carol Hannah is clueless. Logan admits that he doesn’t follow Xtina, which is to say, he has no idea who she is, but he hopes she likes fur. Nicolas is twitterpated. Gordana is disgusted with her fabric, which is shedding beads like a cat sheds fur at the veterinarian and cursing that she’s going to have to rely on her immunity, which, thank the lord, she has.

Day Two

Gordana starts over. Shirin decides that 1940s Hollywood glamor is the way to go. (Miz Shoes says, or not. Can you say done to fucking death this season?) Carol Hannah talks trash about Shirin. Tim comes for his walkabout.

Christopher, you think you have a big reveal, but both pieces look like cheap trash from the 90s. Althea, you are also doing something black, boring and with no wow to the reveal. Good lord, Gordana, that looks matronly. Are you insane? Nicolas, have you dragged your winning snow queen out for inspiration? No? This is new? Oh, are you sooooo lucky that Michael and NinaGarcia haven’t been here to see this particular trick pony before, because they would nail your ass to the wall for do overs. Carry on. Carol Hannah? This could be sexy. Maybe. Skip the reveall. Shirin, you have made a mash up of Guinevere and Vampira, it looks like bad student work and I hate it.

Evil Twin Irina talks trash. Shirin freaks out. Carol Hannah and Logan “flirt”. If you want to call it that.

Runway Day

Shirin continues to freak, Nicolas continues to twitterpate. Althea is confident and Evil Irina is a bitch. So far, everyone is sticking to the script. Carol Hannah is worried about all the raven wings she’s sewing on her dress. Nicolas says that Irina is a really good designer whose only problem is being a bitch. Fair enough. Christopher has made a bustier and sparkle panties. It’s worse than it sounds.

Our judges today are Bob Mackie, NinaGarcia and Xtina A.

Althea has made a silver dress with a black bolero and a long train. Logan has made a mini dress of black and silvergreen sequined zebra print. It has a black monkey fur ruff and a pathetic trio of little chains across the back. Thin chains. Shirin has made something long, shaggy and it looks like something Stevie Nicks would wear prior to rehab. Christopher’s model whips off the black mini dress to reveal a black bustier and striped, sequined, badly made boy shorts. Nicolas has made a silver and white (of course) mini dress with feathers and sequins and it actually does look like something Bob Mackie might sneeze out after a day in the sequins and feathers.Gordana’s dress is still awful. Irina has made a bulky jacket over mini-lingerie and Carol Hannah’s black dress has all sorts of black feathers and textures and some of it’s shiny and some of it’s matte.

Irina is sent away, safe. Gordana is told to be very grateful for her immunity and also sent away.

Xtina says she could see herself wearing Carol Hannah’s black thing. NinaGarcia calls it glamorous and Mackie loves all the different textures. Heidi calls it wow.

Shirin is told her dress looks like an upscale Halloween witch. Xtina points out that she couldn’t actually move in it. Althea worked the back side of the sequin fabric against the front to create her own matte and shiny stuff. It’s nicely made. Christopher can’t keep his trap shut and yaps about channeling Cyndi Lauper and NinaGarcia tells him that he’s made a cheap knockoff of Xtina’s Lady Marmalade costume, and Bob Mackie says it’s so trashy he wouldn’t put the corset on the back row of chorus girls.

Nicolas wins accolades from all of the judges, Heidi loves the short tight and shiny, Xtina says that she could shake it up in that little number and Bob Mackie calls it a great stage piece. Nicolas can die and go to heaven. Logan wanted to do something Xtina had never done before and so he lined his little Wilma Flintstone dress with hot pink, which can’t be seen. The judges rightly point out that he should have taken bigger chances and really played with the magenta against the Victorian collar and sequined zebra skin.

So. The judges deliberate a little more with Xtina talking about shaking her hips, and Bob Mackie calling Christopher’s outfit a sad little costume from a road company tribute band of the Pussy Cat Dolls. Logan’s dress was too short to be long and too long to be short and Mackie says something about putting a diamond on the crotch and you’re golden.

Althea is in. Carol Hannah and her dress of bird wings wins. Nicolas is in. Logan is in. Shirin and Christopher are lectured about doing cheap knockoff of cheap costumes and BORING Nina, and for reasons that nobody will ever know or understand, whiny Shirin gets sent home and Mr. One-note Christopher stays. Boo. Hiss. Boring. Next week we are promised both Michael Kors and NinaGarcia in the judges seats, so maybe there’s hope for this season yet.

Episode Ten

There is the usual blahblahblah about who’s gone and who’s in it to win it. Heidi tells the seven remaining designers that Tim is taking them on a road trip to Rodeo Drive, to the store of a world-renowned designer…who turns out to be Michael Kors, seemingly doing a guest appearance on his own freaking show. Quality, taste and style are his signature elements, and today he’s going to treat the designers to a slide show of some of his favorite places and inspirations, and they are going to have to try and find some of that same inspiration.

Carol Hannah picks Palm Beach, Nicolas opts for the Greek Islands, Althea goes for a St. Tropez tan, Gordana grabs New York City (it’s grey, a-freaking-gain), Evil Twin Irina jumps on Aspen for the fur and outerwear possibilities, Christopher accepts Santa Fe and Logan gets stuck with Hollywood. Thirty minutes to design, $150 at Mood and one day to crank out American Sportswear.

We hear what the designers imagine their locals to be: Palm Beach is relaxed, but put together. (HAHAHAHAHHAHA. No, it’s bad plastic surgery and too-bright colors) St. Tropez is seen as an old fishing town that just happens to be full of rich people on yachts, and Gordana says that New York is Park Avenue, sophisticated and independent. Logan is, as usual, lost. Evil Twin Irina is complaining that $150 is not enough money to buy fabric for a winter look. Miz Shoes would remind ETI that Aspen is also famous for its summer music festival and art show and oh, why bother.

Logan buys leather and is going to make a boho look with comfy, but skin tight jeans. Nicolas has fantasies of a tomboy in Greece. Carol Hannah doesn’t have enough fabric. Irina trash talks the other designers. Give it a rest. Nicolas is working on his details so as not to be on the bottom. Irina is making a faux fur vest and a sweater with a giant cowl neck. Miz Shoes would remind Irina that Mork and Mindy lived in Boulder, not Aspen and that Mindy’s sweaters were cute in the early 80s, but only barely. Gordana is working in grey. Althea did her whole piece in muslin first to make sure of the fit. It’s man-tailoring for women. Isn’t she always doing that? Over it.

Irina trash talks Christopher, who is making some Mary of the Prairie turquoise and brown chiffon thing with a big belt. Carol Hannah has done a halter top, flowy patterned maxi dress that looks like the fabric that Epperson used in the beach challenge. Nicolas says he’s designing for a fashion-forward young woman, but Tim is doubtful. Logan is designing for “young Hollywood” with a big top over his tight jeans. Irina’s done ski pants with a sweater with bat-wing sleeves and an enormous cowl neck. Tim tells her to watch her proportions. More trash talking on all sides. Nicolas doesn’t want to go home. Althea is smelling Bryant Park. That may just be the stale water in the steamer.

Runway Day

Carol Hannah isn’t feeling her dress. Nicolas had a freak out last night, but he’s feeling better now. Althea is confident. Logan is making last minute adjustments. Irina is trash talking the other designers. Christopher has made his Mary on the Prairie into a mini dress and thinks that solves his problems. It doesn’t. Gordana has made a dress to go with her ornate necklace of crystals and frayed chiffon. It is a simple little A-line with some squiggles of applique to create shape and interest where there is really none.

Our judges today are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Milla Jojovich, who actually has some really great stuff in her clothing line.

Logan sends out his tight white leather jeans with black suspenders. Althea has made burnished gold metallic leather shorts and a sheer top over a tank, Nicolas has made some interesting pants and a wrap top in jersey that evokes the sails of the windmills on the Greek Islands. To Miz Shoes, but apparently to nobody else on the planet. Carol Hannah’s halter dress is boring. Christopher is extremely proud of his nothing dress. Irinia has made snow-bunny clothes. The sweater is revealed to have a stupid vee-shaped cutout for no reason in the back. Gordana’s grey dress is pretty and the necklace is cool.

Althea leaves, safe in her mediocrity. Michael Kors loves the Irina does Aspen thing and says it isn’t a too literal interpretation of the 1980s. Christopher claims to be inspired by the colors of Santa Fe and is immediately taken to task for using washed out colors and no taste. Milla says she likes the 1983 vibe she gets from the belt. The judges go wild for Carol Hannah’s print. Milla says she’d live in the dress. Miz Shoes says that she already does, but that it’s made out of polyester jersey and she bought it early in the summer at Marshall’s for like, twenty bucks. Nicolas is told his inspiration is not Greece, but Grease. Milla points out that the top is cool, and if he’d made it into a dress, he could be a winner. Gordana’s necklace is loved, as is her little grey dress. Yes, it is very New York. Logan’s Hollywood is declared Hollywouldn’t, and NinaGarcia tells him that his styling is all wrong. Michael Kors says: They’re clothes, not fashion.

Irina’s pieces had, says MK, runway power, but too much brown. Gordana hit the right tone for up-town Park Avenue, but she personally lacks confidence. Carol Hannah totally looks like Palm Beach. Christopher’s dress is sad and unwearable. Nicolas’ idea could have been great, but it wasn’t. Logan’s outfit is summed up as belonging on Project I Didn’t Mind It.

Carol Hannah is in. Irina is the winner, and no doubt will be even more insufferable next week. Gordana is in and given a lecture about confidence. Logan is in. Christopher and Nicolas are forced to hear that they missed the mark and had no sense of place. Nicolas is aufsie daisy and Christopher gets

to stay. Milla cries and says that she doesn’t know how Michael and Heidi do it every week. Michael just smirks, and you know that the auffing is their favorite part of the show.

Next week? More boring shit, more nastiness from Irina and more clueless, talentless crap from Christopher.

Entry two for the Great Halloween Tweet

My parents loved Halloween, too. I remember them dressing up and going to some dinner dance every year, and working on their costumes. My father dressed as Little Lord Fauntleroy and my mother as Little Bo-Peep one year and I still have parts of Mummy’s costume. This picture is from long before I was born, and it hung over my father’s desk in the back room of the store. It’s still one of my favorites. That’s Daddy in drag, and my Uncle Irving in the zoot suit.

Here is your humble narrator, age 2. She is dressed (by her mother) for Halloween. Note the skirt. My mother was very fond, in later years, of showing it to anyone who would hold still long enough. It was all of 12 inches long, and my mother never ceased to marvel at how it came to my ankles. I was such a tiny, tiny child.

Anyway, except for the scuffed mary janes, my wardrobe is today, some 50 (very) odd years later, almost identical. I still wear too much jewelry, hangy-downy earrings and maxi skirts. Also, not so much with the do-rags. But basically, this is still me.

Happy Halloween.

Did you guys miss me? I missed you. All of you. Both of you. Terribly. I had no idea how much I am tied to the world by my laptop, my blog, my twitter feed, until my laptop died. Right after I posted my Project Runway recap two weeks ago, the hard drive in this machine went belly up.

I had to buy a new hard drive and bribe a Mac Genius with home made pie, but we were able to recover all my data and so here I am, and with SO MUCH to say.

First up, though, I must get the code set for RJ’s Great Halloween Tweet. I have a little something for you.

Miz Shoes is feeling a bit dyspeptic since this week’s Project Runway.

Previously, on Project Snoozefest, we saw an episode entitled “On the Blue Bore-you” where-in Irina is replaced by her evil twin and wins and Louise emotes blankly into oblivion.

But that was then and this is now, and we see bacon and Logan, and women applying make up. Something for everyone. Carol Hannah is sad because Louise is gone. Gordana came to America with nothing and now has everything. Evil Twin Irina gloats that she’s won twice and no longer trusts anyone, so no matter how nice they are to her face, no telling what they’re saying behind her back. In case you wondered, Logan interviews that now that Irina has won twice, she’s full of herself. Logan is not yet aware that this is the Evil Twin.  Christopher recognizes that he has to step up his game, and Miz Shoes takes her first shot in the “Drink to Cliches” game.

Heidi announces the challenge: New Models. Women who can still fit into their wedding dresses, who are now divorced or in the process of becoming so, and who are eager to have new design mistakes made from the ones they made when they bought them, however long ago. Mistakes of youth, Miz Shoes says, are quite excusable, especially in the areas of bad clothing and bad first husbands.

Irina gets the first pick and grabs the one with the absolute most yardage: something between a George Washington Milkmaid and a “Southern Belle”. There is mileage, not yardage, of shiny white lace. You know Nicolas was jealous. Epperson gets second and goes for a nicer fabric. Logan grabs something that reveals to be pulling a twelve-foot train. Nicolas, Carol Hannah (clouds of tulle), Gordana nabs the hippie (of course), Althea grabs the appliqués and Shirin is stuck with a short woman wearing a sleeveless, white column dress. There is nothing to work with and Shirin knows it and won’t shut up about her handicap for the rest of the episode, so forgive your author if she sums the general content of Shirin’s endless rants (“OMG! Like, LIFE is so not fair. I have 2 yards of polyester and a psycho client and no clue and no time and OMG!! Wahwahwahwahwah”) in all future references as Wah-Wah-Whaah.

Just to twist the knife, winner will get immunity…the last one of the season. And they have till midnight. It’s another one-day challenge. In come the gay divorcees. Gordana is planning on going punk. Well, we’ve moved to the late 70s. Shirin’s client wants to be a Half-Breed Cher Barbie with a peacock feather headdress. Again, Miz Shoes is inclined to forgive as, when she was 30 and had the chance to commission a mask from the then-president of New Orleans’ Maskmakers Guild, asked specifically for a crest of peacock feathers. And got them. Nicolas meets his

his client, who demands crunchy-granola, animal-crueltry-free fabrics only. At Mood, the final blow: they can buy only 2 yards of fabric total, and whatever findings, trims, thread, etc. they need.

Epperson is clearly dazed and confused, glassy-eyed, even. Logan grabs two yards of the widest tweed he can find, heedless of color, drape or quality. Shirin: Wah-Wah-Whaah. Carol Hannah says that she makes her living making wedding dresses and this is like cannibalism, cutting one apart. Evil Irina finds the concept of shredding the mistakes of the past quite empowering. Gordana dyes fabric (steel grey/blue/plum) in the lady’s room, in a Styrofoam cooler, then calls her kids, only to talk to the answering machine, and cry. Epperson thinks that the challenge is to use the least amount of wedding dress possible. Did Epperson take a blow to the head and we were not shown the footage? Shirin: Wah-Wah-Whaah

Tim’s walkabout begins with Christopher. Tim and Christopher agree that the client’s taste level is non-existent, her (apparent, but perhaps unfortunate genetics) plastic surgery bad, and that she is just asking to be dressed like a cliché cougar. Does that qualify for a second shot? Irina has managed to dye her poly into a sort of toast or strong tea color. Tim tells Epperson to use the damn wedding dress, fool. Logan is going back to his design well for a: wait for it: suit. Tim fears the sheer quantity of the trouser fabric. But, whines Logan, she didn’t want a dress.

Gordana’s doing a sort of mummy wrap dress, fitted to the body, a gorgeous shade of grey, and with all the visible seam edges frayed. Tim tells her that her mantra must be “I’m going to win.” Shirin: Wah-Wah-Whaah. Tim: Get it together. Throw away this mess and focus. Eyes on the prize. That woman isn’t going to be here next week, and if you listen to her, neither will you be. One last reminder to Epperson that the wedding dress had to be the core of the design, and our Mr. Gunn is gone.

Epperson comes to from his walking nightmare to discover that he never was asleep. This isn’t a dream, he screwed the pooch on this challenge and he’d better start over. Logan starts over, too. Shirin, inspired by Mr. Gunn, does the “As God as my witness” soliloquy from Gone With the Wind, followed by an encore of Wah-Wah-Whaah.

Enter the gay divorcees for their fittings. Nicolas is seen briefly showing off a beige vest that appears to be basketweave, or quilted stripping, or something pretty cool. Shirin’s client asks what she’s been up to all day that this is what there is to show for it. And we cut from must certainly devolve into a fist fight, to the next morning where the designers are preparing for runway day. Shirin: Wah-Wah-Whaah. Epperson is still walking around like zombies ate his brains, and yet his client is delighted with her dress and tells Epperson that he gets her style. Althea and Gordana also get the love from their clients. Christopher is doing something with sheer over a black body garment, cinching in the waist with a little bit of black lace. She looks like a lamp shade from a Goth brothel. As Nicolas’ little lady raves over his garment, Nicolas admits that the piece has become a travesty, but it is a travesty that makes his client happy and hopefully, won’t send him home.

The ModelsoftheRunway try to teach these women to stomp a catwalk. Not pretty. Backstage madness: Shirin’s dress’ zipper gets stuck. Wah-Wah-Whaah.Logan is ready to cry because even he can tell that his suit is a disaster of Ishtar proportions. Evil Twin Irina talks trash about everyone else.

Heidi intros the judges: Michael Kors, Z-named Marie Claire person, Tamara Mellon (founder of Jimmy Choo). Irina’s dress is a kimono, and it has dyed up very pretty. Shirin’s dress is short, fitted, and has a surface pattern made of machine embroidery in black thread. It’s nice enough. Logan’s pant suit is awful. Carol Hannah has made something strapless that looks flapper-ish, with the sort of self-fabric flappy fringing that whatever his name was from that other, entertaining season loved to attempt and fail. Althea has made blue. I guess she was still thinking about last week. This was not a do-over. There is a lot of princess seaming showing. Nicolas has made olive green pants to go with that vest. By the time he added all the wickety wack on top of the basic shape, you can no longer see what had looked to have such promise.

Gordana’s mummy wrap is great, even paired with black hooker boots, which is how Gordana styled her. You can take the girl out of Eastern Europe, but… Christopher’s client is completely unaware of how ludicrous she looks and takes that runway like she owns it. It is embarrassingly short for a woman of her age. Rode hard and put up wet, as we say. Mutton dressed as lamb. Epperson sends out a bolero over a full skirt, with a tight bodice and scoopy neck. The bodice is criss-crossed with Epperson’s signature strippy appliqué/layering. Miz Shoes loves the silhouette. Miz Shoes has owned that very dress as often as possible. It is the perfect look for a woman of Miz Shoes shape: narrow in the waist and full in the hips and bust. You accentuate that waist for all you are worth. Ask Mae West or Dolly Parton.

The judges send Carol Hannah, Nicolas and Althea away and turn to the remaining designers. Gordana’s strapless dress was made only from the lining fabric of her wedding dress. It is edgy and chic, says Michael Kors. Shows the woman’s shape. Christopher, though… Christopher explains that his client is an actress (Phoebe Price, meet your future) and needs this dress to go to parties and network. This evokes cries of “Oh, honey, no. Do NOT go to an industry party in that” and “Only if you want to end up on the worst-dressed list” from the judges. MK manages a feeble disco hefty bag insult before they round on Epperson.

Oh, Epperson. Miz Shoes would wear that dress. Miz Shoes would rock that dress, despite it being white. Miz Shoes has in the past rocked that dress. Miz Shoes would have given you high marks for that dress. Alas, Miz Shoes was not a judge. Heidi shrieks that it reeks of Oktoberfest, and someone else says it looks like a pirate wench. Shirin’s client says that she thinks that the dress is too safe, and it wasn’t what she wanted and Wah-Wah-Whaah. When Tamara Mellon says that she likes it, Shirin’s client begins cooing that it IS fabulous.

Logan is dispirited and says that he just did what the client wanted, as if that excuses the pants. Heidi says that the top is another Oktoberfest costume, and Tamara calls the whole thing a tragedy. Even the client has to admit that she wouldn’t wear it on a first date. The love is pouring down like rain upon Evil Twin Irina.

Who did the judges like? Shirina, who didn’t listen to her client, but did something nice instead. They didn’t have to listen to the Wah-Wah-Whaah, or they might not have been so generous. Gordana finally did something edgy and not safe. She can design in addition to sew. Evil Twin Irina’s dress is so sexy, yet age-appropriate, which is Michael Kors code for it looks a little Mother of the Bride, but I like it. Epperson’s dress is called a theme party without a party. Logan did something too matronly, too unattractive and too badly sewn to be tolerated. Christopher’s dress was too much and too short and would be noticed in a bad, worst-dressed list way. (Second time the judges said that, so DRINK)

And, Shirin is in. Gordana is the winner (and about time she got some recognition). Evil Twin Irina is in, and she is not happy to come in second. Christopher, for reasons completely unknown, is allowed to stay, which leaves Logan and Epperson in the bottom two and Epperson gone.

You’re kidding me, right? Epperson’s dress was in no way uglier or more poorly made than Christopher’s. Further, if the argument is that Epperson went to his safe silhouette (volume below, raggedy things sewn down randomly, corselet at the waist) then the same argument could be made about Christopher and his bubbles and ascots/bibs, which suffer from the additional charge of being butt-ugly.

The wrong person went home and Miz Shoes has been dyspeptic ever since. Next week sees the return of NinaGarcia, and a challenge that involves a multi-Grammy winning singer and Bob Mackie. Even Lifetime couldn’t be that obvious, could they? Other than Elton John, who could it be? Cher?