OPEN: INTERIOR: GIRLS DORM

And just as quickly flash on the boys’ dorm, where the shirtless vision of Little Emo Boy assails us. Oh, please, girl. That is not Rami of the Heavenly Arms, nor is it Kevin. It is weepy Ricky and the best that can be said of this is that he was without the twee little hat. But wait! There’s Rami sitting all backlit and shit, asking Christian how he felt about being in the bottom two last week. Predictably, Christian is in denial that he deserved it, saying that there was such uglier, shittier stuff on the runway and whatever like, he knew there was no way he was going home. And though I am loathe to say this, she has a point. That twittering little queen is most excellent teevee. And then we are swept off to Parson’s where we will see Heidi on the runway, telling the designers about the next challenge. And so she does. The challenge this week is to design an avant garde look based on the avant garde hairstyle of your model. And now, let’s shake things up a little more by bringing out the girls in their little black slips and outrageous hair, and THEN let last week’s winning designer choose her model. Good times. Victorya sticks with her model, but since I’m not keeping track of them, I can only guess by the pissy/pained looks on some designers’ faces when other designers’ call out names, that there is a lot of model switching going on. Ricky is last, and he has to choose between three girls. Since the models weren’t used last week, we have two spares. Ricky makes his choice based on which hair he thinks he can design around and then cries. Are you shocked? And I must point out that he went with an Amy Winehouse on crack (wait, that IS Amy Winehouse).... an Amy Winehouse by way of Hairspray, the Musical bouffant that I would never have chosen in a zillion years.

Back to the workroom to hear from Tim. It doesn’t have to be practical. It doesn’t even have to be wearable. It must be out there. Over the top. Ambitious. Wild. Haute. And because

the challenge is so complex, the designers will have to work in teams of two. Which teams will be chosen at random by Tim via the evil velvet button bag. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. They will need to pick a leader, and decide which of the two hair looks they will work from. And the teams are: Kit & Ricky; Sweet P & Rami-OTHA, Chris & Christian, and Victorya & Jillian. Sweet P is thrilled, and Christian even more thrilled because he has astutely figured out that the only person in the room who can do and has made a career out of doing Over the Top Excess is his new best friend, Chris. Chris, on the other hand, has figured out that for all his annoying ways, girlfriend can sew like a motherfucker, and they’ll be needing all the mad skillz and fast sewing that Christian has been flaunting around the workroom.

There is one half hour to figure those leader/look things out, and then there will be $300 for the trip to Mood. Christian gets to be the leader of Team Fierce, because Chris has watched the show and knows who gets sent home in a team challenge. So does Christian, but for once his obnoxious self-adoration does him a favor. Kit is the leader of her group because, really and come on, is there a question? Little Emo Boy in the stupid twee hat? Oh, puh-leeze, Nellie, he’d break down in tears at the very idea of a decision. Kit says that her models hair looks like a bird’s nest, and that they will be doing garden something. Rami-OTHA doesn’t even give P a chance to volunteer to be the leader because he assumes command and tells her that they will be using his model, her hair, his ideas and his choice of fabric, and his time schedule. And anything else, explicit or implied, that he thinks of between now and when they take their look down the runway.

A DIGRESSION, IF I MIGHT

By now, we all know that Rami is from Jerusalem. He is an Israeli, even if he is not a Jew. I say this because in this episode he proved to be a true Israeli, which is to say, an egocentric, misogynistic, overbearing douche. Ask anyone who has ever known an Israeli man, gay or straight, and they will tell you that last night, Rami of the Heavenly Arms was straight out of central casting. When you see P checking if she has enough cigarettes for another day of working with him? Even if she’d never smoked a day in her life, after a day in the employ of an Israeli male she would have hied herself straight to Nat Sherman’s. I say this as a woman who has done so.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT ANOTHER TABLE

Victorya and Jillian are in a battle to the death over who will become their team leader. Neither is willing to just say no, so it goes to a coin toss. Except that wasn’t a coin. Whatever it was, it landed with the Victorya side up, and she became the team leader. The model they choose to use has a funky-ass Mohawk thing going on and one of the two whispers these words: Apocalyptic Trench Coat. Which is totally the name of my next punk band.

Christian and Chris have a shared vision of 50 yards of organza, cut into hundreds of circular layers and building up the model to an organza Venus Rising From The Waves Clam Shell flying off her shoulder. Flying as in a flying buttress, not as in winging away. Chris is building the superstructure for the flying clam shell out of wire. There’s a wonderful exchange where he says that he’s trying to make an antenna to call out. And someone (P? maybe) asks if he’s trying to contact Elisa’s planet. And Chris says that Elisa left him the instructions. Brilliant. They could come drink and hang with me anytime.

Rami-OTHA is announcing that they will have a corset and attached gown over a pair of fitted trousers. P will do the trousers, because the corset and draping requires the hand of the master and he cannot, as commandant, allow anyone to sully what may be his chance to win big. And then he proceeds to micro-manage Sweet P into an early grave, all the while complaining that he has to micro-manage her and that is eating up his valuable time.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering and dithering and dithering. And fretting. And dithering. And then, just like that, it’s time to go home.

MORNING: DAY TWO

We see P packing up her smokes and wondering how horrible her life is going to be today, and says, ever so politely, that Rami may have heavenly arms, but to work with, he is a total dick. Girl, we hear you. Once in the workroom, P offers a few bits of feedback which are blown off and ignored. Maybe thrown on the ground and kicked a little, too, just for good measure.

Tim comes in and because

the challenge isn’t hard enough, tells the designers that, GUESS WHAT? You also have to send a second look down the runway: the commercial, prêt a porter version of your avant garde look. They will only get $50 and 15 minutes, and only one of them will get to buy the fabric.

Kit says she’ll pick out the fabric and Ricky’ll make the dress. Jillian and Victorya are not even close to being finished with the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (Oh, I love that name. Do you think the band should be Japanese? Like the 5.6.7.8s?) and Victorya says that she feels horror and nausea. That’s funny, ‘cause, like, that’s what she engenders in me! Christian offers to go to Mood because he’s fast. And he is.

Back over on the Gaza strip, Rami-OTHA is telling Sweet P that no, they won’t be using navy as she suggests, and that unless she shows him sketches (and he approves them)  he won’t let her make the dress, either. I wonder if P started biting her nails when she ran out of smokes, or thought about cutting herself with the Olfa? Or cutting him, because didn’t she used to be a biker? Sadly, no blood is shed, and P buys some silver shantung silk. Mmmmmmm.

FITTINGS

The models are sent in for fittings, and we see Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude sticking whickety-whack all over everything while P rolls her eyes and accepts that she is not going to have one word of say in this.

Jillian has nothing finished, and Victorya only has the pants mostly done, but she also has immunity and that’s giving Jillian hives, because if they are the bottom team, she’s saying bye-bye-bye.

Chris says that he just wants to send out a dress that makes the judges’ jaws drop to the floor and never forget it till the day they die. OK. I can accept that as a goal. The second best footage of the night comes next, as Christian gives his model some lessons in how to walk a couture catwalk. It’s all about the broken back and the thrown out hip. Hey, haven’t we heard Tyra or Miss Jay say that, like a million times a season?

And over in the corner, we have Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude brow beating P over her time management skills…or his perception of her lack thereof, and all the while she’s sitting there steadily working on the ready to wear dress. He storms off, and the model pets P’s hair while she cries.

UNDER PRESSURE, PRESSURE, PRESSURE

Surely we haven’t had enough sturm und drang, so Tim comes in with a special guest, Nathaniel Hawkins, the Tresemme guy. He’s there to help them get a street version of the avant garde hair. He’s also there to tell them that the winner of the challenge gets a Tresemme ad in Elle magazine with their models.

Then Tim circles the room, striking fear into the hearts of those wise enough to listen to his advice. Team Fierce (Chris and Christian) he tells that their day look looks cheap and that it worries him. They fret. To me it looks like another version of Daniel V’s winning flower pot pencil skirt and poofy blouse, except not poofy, just ruffled. Tim tells Kit and Ricky that their effort looks very costume-y, and not in a good way. It needs some more work and some more exuberance, because right now it’s looking a little Mary on the Prairie.

When he comes to Rami and P, he tells them that this is another Rami draping exercise and it’s starting to get a little old. This also worries him. Rami tells him that the problem is that he and P think differently, or to put it another way, that she doesn’t know her place and she keeps trying to have an opinion.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering, but Tim is encouraged by the look of their coat…if they can finish it. They are moving as fast as they can, but you know, hamsters in a wheel. They haven’t even started their second look as the day ends.

Rami and P are no longer talking. I think that this may be a good thing, but it’s making Sweet P sweat. Still, having heard Tim dis the draping, she is working like a fiend over the ready to wear dress, so that she will have something of her own to hold up should their team go down in flames on the runway.

RUNWAY DAY

As the girls prepare to leave their apartment, we hear P saying that she doesn’t want to end up in a fist fight with Rami. I should think not, sweetie, we have ALL seen the size of those biceps. Assuming that he uses them, and doesn’t slap fight.

In the workroom, Jillian cuts a spiral of black jersey. The high concept models are already in hair and make up. The designers have two hours for fitting the ready to wear look and getting those girls off to hair and makeup.

Ricky and Kit are making a cute little sundress (or so Kit says) but Ricky is worried that maybe it isn’t so cute and that their haute look is not so haute. (Oh, man, I just couldn’t NOT do that, could I? I’m sorry.)

Christian is bouncing up and down, sure of the win. Jillian has somehow managed to get a dress on her model, but she thinks it looks like an afterthought. I think it looks a little, what with the pink silk plaid edging and funky layers and levels, sortakinda like Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo’s yellow plaid haute couture dress. But Team Last Minute has done a most excellent avant garde look.

On the runway, Heidi comes out in a brown dress with a big old belt, an asymmetrical neckline and some weird-ass bunching in the arm pits to start the fashion show. Judges tonight are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Alberta Ferretti.

First up we see Team Rami’s drape-y, corseted thingie with the long flowing skirt over a pair of plain black trousers, and a great little silver short dress that has very little to do with the haute couture look, but is absolutely wonderful on its own. Go P.

Team Fierce’s model comes out doing the broke down doll and thrown out shoulder, just like Chris taught her and sells the shit out of a giant flounce. And there’s a skirt and blouse with a ruffle to go with.

Ricky and Kit send out Scarlett O’Hara by way of Forever 21 and a forgettable sprigged cotton shift with pockets. As the model exits, we see that there is a ginormous hoop and train with furbelows and bows and whickety-whack that actually looked sort of cool. Well, the one red bow, did.

And in the evening’s shocker, the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (no, really, like punk covers of Broadway show tunes? In Japanese? There is nothing like a dame…with a Ramones’ kind of guitar riff?) rolls down the catwalk like a fucking chrome-plated Peterbuilt. That thing is awesome. I mean, fucking brilliant. Black with a pastel pink silk plaid lining? And oversized lapels? And a white equestrian, bustle-backed blouse and jodhpurs. Where the fuck did that stuff come from? How did they manage to sew all that and we not see even the first glimpse of it? Oh, you evil, naughty editors.

Ricky and Kit, and Sweet P and Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude have the lowest scores, and will be dealt with momentarily. For now, though, we will revel in the gloriousness of the two top teams.

Christian chirps that they wanted old-world romantic, and Michael Kors just comes undone. It is beautifully crafted, he coos. Soignée, even, he sighs. The skirt on the day look is a throw away, but the blouse is yummy.

Victorya and Jillian say that they were going for punk equestrian, and they surely succeeded. When the ATC comes off, and the judges see the little plaid ruffled peplum, they just fall off the director’s chairs. You have three looks here, says Michael Kors, and Victorya agrees, adding, “so we should win.”

The losers are called up to answer for their sartorial sins. Ricky is getting weepy. Rami steps up and says that they wanted to combine corsetry and flowing, like the model’s pleated hair. He admits that he made the corset and gown, and that the pants you don’t even see came from P. NinaGarcia is bored. She says that the judges know Rami can drape, but really, and come on, can he do ANYTHING else? And they say that the little silver day dress was much more avant garde than the same old draped rag he keeps showing them. And much more fashion forward. Then they look at the pants, and say that the model looks like her ass is on her front. P ventures that she wanted to put that fullness or bustle shape on the back of Rami’s piece, but he told her to stuff a sock in it.

Alberta Ferretti disses the Ricky/Kit effort by saying it looks like a cheap Scarlett O’Hara. Michael Kors says that Scarlett took her momma’s drapes and made haute couture, but that what they are showing looks like Scarlett ripped the sheets off the bed and ran out of the house. Schnort. And your day dress sucks, too, he adds.

IT COMES DOWN TO THIS

The Team Fierce of Chris and Christian, despite everyone’s misgivings, turned out an amazing piece of work. NinaGarcia is ready to give it the cover right now. Team Last Minute cranked out something that women would want to wear, says MK, and Miz Shoes says damned straight. Where can I get that coat, and where can I possibly wear it?

Rami, it is generally acknowledged, was a shit and tried to throw P under the bus, but the judges saw what he was doing and won’t let him. Besides, her dress was beautiful. Over on the other hand, we have Ricky, her tears and her stupid little twee hats. And Kit Pistol, who is firing blanks. What they sent down the runway was rank amateur, from start to finish.

Team Fierce wins!!! Christian gets immunity! Christian does the chicken dance of joy. Miz Shoes loves how he worked with Chris and doesn’t hate him anymore. At least until next week.

Ricky gets to keep his stupid little twee hats and stay. P gets to stay. Rami gets to keep his heavenly arms around for our viewing pleasure, even if he was a jerk and a lousy team captain. And that means that poor Kit Pistol gets fired.

Next week looks like the recycled trash challenge again, and Ricky cries and Victorya hates the challenge. As they say on 7th Avenue, so nu?

So in all the years the RLA and I have owned the Casita des Zappatos, we have never filed an insurance claim. The no-name storm caused our living room to flood? We mopped and squeegeed and toweled and dried and threw out some papers. Katrina and Wilma decimated our trees? We sawed and cut and cleaned up. Lost tow truck forcibly removed about 80 feet of chain link fence? We found a fence guy, repaired and replanted and went on about our lives. Never a claim.

But the insurance industry is in the toilet. And we were lucky not to have our insurance canceled. No, we just had our rates adjusted. To about triple what it was last year, which means the escrow account at the mortgage holders now has a shortfall in the many, many thousands of dollars, which I either have to pay up front, or let my mortgage payment fucking DOUBLE! Double to pretty much exactly my monthly take-home pay. Which means that I couldn’t pay the other bills. Or, I can find about nine thousand dollars in the couch cushions, pay the escrow, and watch my mortgage go up only three hundred dollars a month. Or I can tell the mortgage holder thanks, but I’ll pay the insurance and taxes myself when due and hope that the change in the couch cushions builds up really fast, so that I actually have the money when the time comes to pay the piper.

Or, I can just pay off my mortgage, and only pay the taxes and insurance. That’s assuming I can bring myself to gut my brokerage account to do so. Or. Or what, exactly are my other options? Get a second job? Cut back on my other bills? That would mean turning off the air conditioner for the entire summer. Or selling my car. Or canceling the cable and the land line and only using a cell phone and NetFlix.

Time to tighten the belt another couple of notches.

Well, we all knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Many thanks to RJ for sending this my way.

You gotta be kidding me, right? Who would give this fucking blog an ‘R’ rating. Did they not read my archives? Did they not notice the many and permanent links to the Rude Pundit?

I’m offended. As Groucho Marx said, I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would accept me.

This is my second attempt at this recap, the first having been swallowed by the fucking aether. At least I thought of a better title this time. Allow me to first apologize for a lack of recap last week, but between the chest cold from hell and the massive doses of Theraflu (which shit rocks, by the way, and I can’t recommend it highly enough) to combat said chest cold, my notes are less than coherent. I think I can read this, though: who the hell dresses Jillian? Half the time she looks like Rosie the Riveter/Sassy Car Hop and the other half she’s wearing Mork’s suspenders. WTF? Elisa the gently bewildered finally got sent home, but before she did we were treated to the tale of her broken skull which may or may not go a long way toward explaining that whole airy-fairy thing she had going on. What it didn’t explain, and what I found unsettling, was why she felt the need to throw her mannequin on the floor and straddle it to sew. Every time. And though it pains me to say this, Christian was right about the silver sleevettes on that thing looking like those little inflatable thingies that you stick on very little children to keep them afloat when they are first learning to swim. Michael Kors was correct as well when he said that thy looked like shower caps. They looked like crap, and there’s no getting around that. So, on to this week.

Open: Interior Morning: The Boys’ Dorm

Christian is blow drying his hair with the exact technique and attention to detail one would expect. But what is this? Rami of the Heavenly Arms, dressed only in a towel? Swoon. Miz Shoes thanks the editors for that one. And over in the girls’ room, Victorya is bemoaning the loss of Elisa and telling us that the girls have been consolidated into one room. And with that, we are out the door and over to Parsons for the next challenge. Heidi tells the designers that they will be designing something for one of the most important days in a woman’s life. The dress she wears when the divorce from the first husband is final? The models come out, and we see a gaggle of school girls in school uniforms. This is a gaggle of Jersey girls, and they have each chosen a designer with whom they wish to work. In Heidi’s world, one of the most important days of a woman’s life is her senior prom. Of course it would be. She was probably the prom queen of Friedrich Nietzsche High.

Christian, predictably, is not thrilled with the idea of working with little girls, or of making a prom dress. He says “the other designers are all excited. But I think proms are tacky, horrible and gross.” Not that I particularly disagree with him, but (and it takes one to know one) those are the words of the high school social out cast. Scarred for life and still bitter. In what is a perfectly delightful bit of schadenfreude, the shortest, plumpest, and least attractive of the girls choses Christian. She is his doppleganger: abrasive, opinionated, rude and socially inept. The designers and teens will have half an hour together to discuss looks, then the designers will hie themselves to Mood with $250 dollars. The actual workroom time will be until midnight of this day, and all of the next. Tim reminds the designers that, as teenaged girls, they will have very strong opinions, and it is up to the designer to both rein it in and make it their own vision.

I Want It All

Sweet Pea’s girl wants a super low cut front and back, accentuating her booty. And she wants white. I have a horrible vison of J-Lo’s most memorable fashion don’t, that turquoise thing that was split in the front to her pubes, and held on with double-stick tape. In white. Christian’s girl, Maddy, immediately grabs the pencil out of his hand and begins to sketch. She coyly tells him that she, too, is a designer. He dies a little. She wants it all: brown, black and gold and lace and beading and flounces and more lace and down to here and up to there and satin. Kevin, who is straight, is also, it turns out, from Jersey, and we see his prom photo. It is very, very, Vinny Barbarino. I say that with all due respect. He tells us that being from Jersey, he remembers what goes on at those Catholic school proms, and assures his girl’s mother that he will be sewing a chastity belt into the garment. Nice. And? Jersey.

It is a quick flash of Mood, and then we are back in the work room, where Christian is telling us that he was the best dressed person at his prom. Chris, from off-camera, asks if that was his opinion, or did they take a vote. Christian says they voted, and then we see his prom picture. He was in a group, HAH! OUT CAST! And it looks like they took the photo last week, because he has the same hair and the same look of insufferable superiority that he’s wearing when the camera returns to him in the present.

Jillian is working with Tiffany blue something or other, and other aquas and pastel teals and saying that she wants to make a jewel box of a dress. Well, she has the Tiffany blue…Ricky reminisces about growing up poor with a mother who was a seamstress (did she sew his new blue jeans?) and, predictably, weeps. And wears one of his stupid little twee hats. Oh, little emo boy, don’t cry any more, or Miz Shoes will be forced to reach through the television screen and bitchslap both the tears and the stupid little twee hat right off your face. God. Get a fucking grip already, girl. Sweet Pea, on the other hand, is totally butching up and says that she is not going home because she listened to some 17-year old girl. Way to go, Pea. Miz Shoes has hopes that we will finally get to see the Bad Pea. Not butching up at all is Christian, who is just in tears over how tacky is the dress he is being asked to make. I can’t let a 17-year old over power me, he cries. Get real, sweetheart, my dog, JoJo of Very Little Brain could over power you. A powder puff could over power you. I’m amazed you don’t blow away every time you turn on your hairdryer. Jeez.

Commercials

We are treated to the worst commercial in Levi’s history, you know, the one where there is some random guy pulling his pants on in a barren loft, and when he tugs, the city comes up through the floor, and he sees a hottie in a phone booth, so he thinks about it and then yanks the pants up and then he and the hottie walk away? Yeah. That one. But this being Project Runway, the hottie in this version is another guy.OOOOH, gay commercials. So daring. So ho-hum. Then, to add insult to injury, we have to see the Neck of All Evil, Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo take us to the hottest clothing store in El Lay, which is actually the back room of some sneaker emporium. But he tells us that it’s just super secret and super cool. And it seems to have all of his super crap from his runway show. Oh, ho ho, Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo was making jokes. I think. Or the only place he can sell his crap is in the secret back room of a sneaker emporium. What evs.

Day Two: Mothers and Daughters and Tim

Victorya is not happy with her dress, she thinks that her girl has asked for a dress that is evocative of an Italian divorcee. How many times do we have to say this? Jersey girls. Anyway, Victorya isn’t having any of that, so she changes her silhouette to something a little more modern and youthful. And cobalt blue. Tim comes in and tells the designers that they are getting half an hour with their models for fittings and reality checks. And they brought their mothers. Kevin’s model’s mother is awfully skeptical about the baby doll dress he’s made: she thinks that it makes her daughter look pregnant. Victorya’s girl though, despite not getting what she wanted, thinks that it is exactly what she wanted. Chris is working with what looks to me like a pistachio green silk charmeuse, and it is wonderful and sleek, but still exciting and different. Chris’s girl and her mom are both in love with Chris’ portfolio of giant drag queen costumes. It’s really sweet, and they are totally shocked to learn that it is Chris in every one of the pictures. Are they blind? In any event, both mother and daughter love Chris and love the dress. And so do I. Sweet Pea didn’t cut as low as her girl wanted, and used what also looks like a champagne-colored satin charmeuse to do a beautiful halter dress that is cut very flat across the front, and beautifully full and draped in the back. Again, girl and mother are nuts for it.

In another moment of secret evil pleasure for me and everyone else in America, Christian’s model is not so happy. And the dress does not fit at all. Christian must not have been able to believe his tape measure, because there is a good 10-inch gap in the back of the dress, where it will never close. Maddy is very unhappy that Christian didn’t do all she wanted, until someone else compliments her at which point she allows as how she designed the dress her own self. Christian dies a little more, and Miz Shoes enjoys another shot of schadenfreude.

Over at the sewing machines, Sweet Pea is grimly determined to do well, since she was in the bottom two the prior week. Chris lets loose one of his enormous laughs and says HA! for the bottom two, Honey, I’ve been voted off. Much hilarity ensues. Miz Shoes thinks it might be getting late. Tim now arrives to give the designs a once over and impart those pearls of Tim Wisdom that we all live for. He is concerned with Kevin’s dress, and especially the hem. Kevin does not want to hem the bottom, despite Tim telling him that an unfinished hem is certain death on the runway. Tim is also concerned for Rami of the Heavenly Arms, who has done one of his signature toga thingies with a really dark and somewhat drab olive green. Tim thinks that the young girl will look like she’s wearing her mother’s dress. Rami pays no attention to Tim and says that look at what 18 year olds look like in El Lay. Miz Shoes (and Tim) say oh, please let’s not. Tim is concerned for the amount of work that Victorya still has to do on her dress, because she has a ton of giant chunky crystals that still need to be applied. Tim tells her to work. And then he gets to Christian, who is not feeling fierce. He is, says Tim, all gloom and doom. Christian doesn’t even want to try to fix his dress, he’s ready to go home, defeated by an obnoxious little girl. Tim gives him a splendid pep talk, which ends thusly: “Rally.” My god, that man is good. Rally, said in a sort of up-beat deadpan may replace my current favorite phrase: sack up, ho.

Interior: Night: Boys’ Dorm

Chris, exhibiting a touch of the old schadenfreude himself, opines that Christian might just be losing it. Christian then comes out in an enormous orange towel turban and tells everyone else that they’ll miss him when he’s gone. And there is some truth to that. And then it’s morning, and Christian is shaving. Really? He shaves? Rami tells us that he is from Jerusalem, and there is no prom there. I feel like there should be some sort of joke there, like… in Soviet Union, prom… I don’t know. Fill it in your selves.

Back at Parsons, Ricky is telling us that he made his girlfriend’s prom dress and that should have been a clue. I don’t know. Did he wear a stupid little twee hat and weep copiously while he sewed it? Sweet Pea is entertaining the girls by showing off her various tattoos and piercings, and telling them that she was a Catholic schoolgirl once herself, and that she is their future. This makes one of them happy and the other two a little scared. Or scarred. Then we see Pea in her prom photo with a California blonde surfer dude, and Pea fans herself and blushes as she says that she remembers her prom, but will not elaborate further. Kevin has not hemmed his dress and Christian and Maddy are still arguing as he sews the last bits in place and she rolls her eyes and trash talks him.

Finally we are at the runway with the usual suspects and guest judge Gilles Mendell. Sweet Pea’s dress is first and it is really beautiful. It is sewn well and fits like a glove. Her girl is just loving it. Victorya has made a cobalt blue bubble dress with some interest at the neck, where the crystals are centered. Chris’ green charmeuse is another beauty, with a complicated back that has v-straps and a cape-y/train-y thing happening. His girl walks like a moose, but rocking it. Kevin’s short halter is meh. Jillian’s dress does look like a jewel box, but shockingly, her bodice fits terribly. Christian’s dress is hot mess in many flavors. It doesn’t fit, it’s shorter in the back than in the front, and it makes his stumpy lumpy girl look stumpier and lumpier. Rami’s olive dress is clearly too grown up, and the length is awful: neither short nor long, but hits just below the knee.

And Our Loser Is…

Kit, Jillian and Chris are sent off the runway because their scores kept them safe. The best and worst are Kevin, Sweet Pea, Christian, Ricky, Victorya and Rami of the Heavenly Arms. Sweet Pea is asked about her direction from her girl, and she says that she wanted Hollywood glamor, and a sort of Grecian drape. The girl says that it was exactly what she wanted and she loveloveloves it. Michael says it was flattering and well done, but NinaGarcia thinks it might have been a little too sophisticated for 17. Kevin’s dress is shredded. The color is awful against her skin. The dress is matronly and not young. And of course, Michael Kors zeroes in on the unfinished hem and says it looks messy and cheap. And he has a point. Victorya’s dress gets raves from all. Michael says it’s chic and young, NinaGarcia loves the fun color and that it is modern and appropriate. Christian immediately whines that he had the hardest job because his girl was a demanding diva. Gilles and NinaGarcia are having none of that and shut him up fast and dress him down for blaming his model. Ricky’s dress is seen as cute (and I don’t know why, because all of his stuff has those stupid bubble hems) but he gets called out for poor execution. Heidi hates the color, saying it washes out his model (it does) and MK says that Ricky needed to turn the volume up on all of it: the color, the draping.

Rami pleads that his girl wanted something comfortable and different. Gilles says, yeah, maybe but it ain’t a prom dress. Nina says it’s too sophisticated for a teenager, and points that the length is all wrong (told you so). And Michael Kors says it looks like a 35-year old woman going out to dinner dress.

The judges have nothing but love for Sweet Pea and Victorya. Rami, they say, was designing for Rami. Christian blamed his client, and that sat very badly with the judges. Ricky was seen as yet another non-event. Close but no cigar, again, says Michael Kors. But it is Kevin who gets the worst analysis: NinaGarcia says that he showed poor taste. Victorya wins with a modern, age-appropriate mini, and Sweet Pea, Ricky and Rami get to stay. It is Kevin and Christian in the bottom two. Christian, despite his unforgivable sin of blaming his model for his own failure and his poor execution, is still good TV. He stays. Kevin, with his head to toe cheap and poorly constructed, goes. Still, he says, it wasn’t all that bad: he got a hug from Heidi Klum. I guess he really was straight.

Next week? Ricky cries.

Sometimes, my padawan learner, you just have to scratch the itch.

I bought the Nikon. I have been shooting tons of pictures. Oh, lord, how I have missed an SLR. Of course, this purchase was directly responsible for my only resolution of 2008: This is the year I rid myself of unwanted weight, be it body fat or excess possessions. I spent new year’s day listening to the Moody Blues and making Mild Burning Symptoms a live website. There’s nothing there but an “I’m plotting great things” note, but I am in fact, plotting great things.

I will be dumping possessions all year. Art supplies, ephemera, artwork. I have sworn not to buy any new supplies for the entire year. No new cloth, fiber, beads, books or magazines. I will trade off old supplies for new, but only if I end up with less volume in the process. Speaking of which, anybody out there interested in about 30 years of Gourmet back issues? I think I’m only missing 6 or 7 issues in all.