Project Runway Season 10 Recap- Episode 8

Conventions of Democracy

Last week NO ONE went home and Christopher, AKA Ted Bundy, is furious.  You can bet your ass he'll make sure that won't happen again this week.  Just ask Andrea and Kooan (too soon?).

All photos courtesy of Lifetime

This week the producers of Project Runway have officially run out of money.  Their budget was supposed to last for the entirety of the season, but between Ven's insatiable ego and Nina's insistence that everything look "expensive," including the toilet paper and chicken caesar salad, the producers found themselves flat broke by episode 8.  Fear not!  Nothing can stop the show!  Tim Gunn holds up the Michael's on 100th St. at "Gunnpoint" and makes it back to Parsons with a shitload of puffy paint and t-shirts.

So- the challenge this week was for the designers to use the arts & crafts materials to create and sell items on the street in order to raise money for fabric at Mood.  How... pedestrian.

Tim Gunn "randomly" draws the teams of three in the same way Tom Cruise "randomly" met Katie Holmes and Tori Spelling "randomly" landed a role in 90210 and the teams are as follows:

Christopher/Sonjia/Gunnar

Elena/Alicia/Dmitry

In case there was any doubt, Elena (if that's her real name) wants to be clear: she hates sparkles and glitter.  And shit.

Ven/Melissa/Fabio

Oh, they are all but pawns in this game we call Lifetime!



Why the designers didn't just write Make It Work on every damn t-shirt I don't know.  Instead they started spray painting, dyeing and otherwise torturing the cotton in Medieval fashion.  And then, to add insult to injury, Dmitry sews a silver sequined fleur-de-lis applique on a brown spray-painted shirt and tries to charge $30 for it.

All the designers seem to be peddling their wares in what looks like the West Village- and they just can't figure out why no one wants their t-shits, er, shirts that is.  Um... ever heard of Times Square? Herald Square? Union Square? Any of those squares where the be-fanny-packed congregate?  Tourists are often known to have, shall we say, less-refined taste AND a few spare bucks leftover after buying their foam statue of liberty hats.  I have to think they would be a better target market than jaded New Yorkers leaving their $3000/month Meatpacking District apartments on their way to unpaid internships.

But somehow the designers manage to find enough un-jaded New Yorkers to cough up some decent dough, mostly through donations.  The teams raise even more than the show would normally provide, I dare say.  Team Ven, Melissa, Fabio raised a whopping $800, Team Christopher, Gunnar, Sonjia raised $684 and Team Dmitry, Elena, Alicia raised $500.

It's only after arts & crafts time that we find out what the real challenge is: to create two looks for Fall, with one being an outerwear look.  Uh oh!  The math-eee-matiks don't add up!  Three designers, two looks, multiple-personality disorders.  But no matter how you count it, Team Ven, Melissa and Fabio seem to have a big advantage with their 800 big ones.


There was plenty of workroom drama this week centered around the precarious pairings:

Christopher and Gunnar went head to head tonight.  After realizing neither was going to be able to out eye-roll the other, they called a truce and managed to play nice for most of the episode.  Sure, Gunnar didn't like Christopher's camelhair coat at first, but who did?  And Babyfaced Bundy just couldn't victimize Gunnar's lean and mean leather dresses.  These two may have found worthy adversaries in one another, but I have a feeling the next time they meet they'll bring out the claws.

My favorite showdown had to be between Dmitry and Elena, who have a strange love/hate relationship.  They're cruel to one another (Dmitry calls Elena "walking depression") yet paradoxically tolerant of each other.  Christopher said they were like Boris and Natasha from Bullwinkle and now I can't help but imagine them sneaking off in the middle of the night for hate sex.  Dmitry says in order to kill the witch we'll need a silver bullet and a wooden stick and I'm thinking, keep your 50 Shades of Grey shit to yourself!  If there's one thing that could derail Elena and her top-secret mission to Soviet shoulder-pad domination, it's sleeping with the enemy.

Finally, there's the Chosen Ones.  The team with 3 Winners and $800.  They float into the workshop on clouds of prestige, friendship and unicorn farts, leaving a trail of Project Runway fairy dust on anything they behold.  Well, actually it's just leftover glitter from the arts & crafts project, but let's not split hairs.  Fabio, Melissa and Ven get along swimmingly and it's only when Tim Gunn critiques their designs that they stop for one moment to question their collective genius.

Fabio's tops are slops and if they were, say, the Nancy Pelosi of designs then Ven's skirt was straight-up Ann Coulter.  They were just on opposite ends of the spectrum; the two designs didn't even belong in the same STATE, let alone the same collection.  Tim convinces Ven to ditch the skirt and he ends up making a more cohesive, yet equally dowdy new skirt.

Here's a couple Ven(n) Diagrams that illustrate how I feel about Ven's designs:

And now, the runway!

This week our guest judge is fashion designer Anna Sui.  Full disclosure: I am predisposed to love her.

 

Seeing the collections as a whole go down the runway, I completely agree with the judges that Team Christopher, Gunnar, Sonjia was the clear winner.

The judges ogled Sonjia's green wool jacket, which was well-made, interesting, but if you asked me, it was a tad costumey and didn't really pair well with Gunnar's dress.

 

I preferred Christopher's camelhair sleeveless trench because I always seem to love the world's least practical clothing.  Gunnar's dresses, particularly the one under the camelhair coat, were really really great though.  Anna Sui was impressed that all three of them were able to put their huge egos aside and design to one another's strengths.  Then Heidi asked the designers who should win and Christopher nominated Gunnar instead of himself.  What could that MEAN?  Surely he wasn't serious.  Sinister Christopher is planning something dark and terrible, I just know it.



There wasn't a clear losing team as the other two teams were equally tragic:

Team Dmitry/Elena/Alicia 

 

 

Team Dmitry/Elena/Alicia sent down an unbalanced collection.  Dmitry's dress was the highlight and my favorite design of his thus far- sure he's getting to be a bit of a "one way monkey" with all the dresses, but it was the only thing worth looking at.  Dmitry's shawl, however, reminded me of a fleece football blanket and Elena's coat paired with Alicia's nothing separates was a bore.

The judges said Alicia's designs were a throwaway and I'll take this moment to point out that Alicia's designs have mostly all been throwaways.  She's managed to stay under the radar because she's likeable, but I just don't think our token granola has what it takes to win this competition.  As for Elena's coat, Nina said it looked like a mistake and Anna said you could see the team conflict reflected in the clothing.

And with that, Alicia camoflaged herself into the background while Boris and Natasha started going at it again... I'm mad because... You wake up mad! You're controlling... No you're controlling... Fashion eeez shark... You're a one way monkey... I think they're still bickering now, as they waltz off into oblivion to the tune of "Once Upon a Dream," like an emo Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip.

 Team Fabio/Melissa/Ven

And then there were The Chosen Ones.  Oddly enough, Team Fabio/Melissa/Ven chose a similar color palette to the previous team.  Nothing worked, except possibly Melissa's leather jacket, however the outfit underneath didn't do it justice.  As for Ven, Michael Kors couldn't see his aesthetic anywhere in the collection.  He took no responsibility for the "dirndle" skirt, and whined about the other skirt he left out. That sonofabitch got off scott-free based on skirt the judges never had to see!  No matter that they would have hated it, they liked the idea of it and so Ven will live to sew another fan-detailed garment.

Melissa's pants and Fabio's coat didn't fare so well.  Michael Kors said there should be something in the crotch of Melissa's pants that girls don't have (whatever might that might be?) and that Fabio's mohair coat looked like a grandmother's housecoat.

As the models walked the runway, I kept looking for wads of cash stashed in pockets, because there's no way this collection cost $800- perhaps it was in the pants crotch?  Heidi agreed that their collection looked like worn hand-me-downs.  Anna Sui, in all of her divine wisdom, said that the designers didn't challenge one another enough.  And with that, the Chosen Ones all hung their heads, the stench of unicorn farts still lingering.

In the end, Sonjia won with her peter pan wool jacket and we said Auf Weidersehen to Alicia.

Next week the designers will be creating their own textiles!  There will be homages to menstrual cycles and a crotch-eating pacman, hopefully in the same textile!

Until then, Riot on!

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