Aug 17, 2006

Project Runway After Party

Episode 6: Waste Not, Want Not or, The Great Travesty #2, or The Night of The Witty Quips
So Michael doesn’t get immunity for this challenge. Boo.

Models, blah, blah. Michael stays with Nazri (I want them to hook up.) Bradley’s model, Katie Holmes, is out.

Heidi tells the designers that the next few challenges are going to be tough, because she tells them that every challenge so far is a cakewalk compared to last season. And everyone’s rolling their eyes. Alison even was like, bitch, don’t even, I have an ulcer because of this show.

The next morning, Tim tells the designers to not wear open-toed shoes. They must be going to some warehouse. Now they're on a bus, heading out to some mystery location: The Jerz.

“New Jersey looks as awful as it ever did," Laura says.

Why the hate, Laura? Why so much anger toward The Jerz? Don't think I don't notice that this is the second time you're wearing that equestrian outfit!

So, as suspected, the designers are dropped off at this warehouse in Newark, at a garage of some sorts. That’s their new challenge. The garage door rolls up, and the designers are presented with mountains of recyclable materials. Mostly paper.

Robert, He Of The Special Pillowcase, is not happy. Let’s see if he succeeds in making garbage more boring than it actually is.

The point of this challenge is to innovate. Didn’t they already do this one? Or am I mixing up my seasons?

So everyone starts going through the piles of rubbish. Alison is not inspired, but then she is. Kayne tells he he feels at home in the trash. Robert isn’t even trying to dig through all this mess.

Uli busts a golden nugget with: “I guess fashion people don’t recycle.”

Michael treats us to freestyle beatbox. Angela treats us to white woman’s overbite. Stop that, Angela, I’ve seen enough of your bony elbows!

Back at Parsons, they’re told that they only had until midnight that night to finish the challenge. Yikes.

This looks like it’s going to be an interesting challenge – aside from the fact that we will probably be fleurchon-free this episode – I am starting to find a deeper appreciation for “deconstructed” fashion. It takes a certain level of creativity, another dimension of thinking, to take something apart and put it back together again to make it look like something totally different than what it originally was.

But back to those crazy workroom antics!

Laura thinks Vincent is “weird” and “unstable.” No argument here.

Then, Kayne and Robert talk shit about Laura over dinner.
Kayne: “She kissed me today.”
Robert: “I know, I was going to tell you to wash your face before you get a rash.”
(Does it make me a bad person because I laughed?)

Alison’s stressing out because she thought her de-constructed stripe thingy isn’t working out the way she planned. But now she’s planning on doing a voluminous skirt with crumpled paper.

Uh oh.

The last time someone did a crumply fluffy skirt, they got reamed by the judges. (Remember that first challenge from Season 1?) Hmm.

Kayne hates his dress: “It ended up looking like a toad exploded all over it.”

Jeffery is excited about this challenge, because all of his clothing is pretty much this style. “I think I got this in the bag,” he says.

So Tim comes to the workroom and offers his feedback. He says that Kayne’s green toad vomit dress looks like a “high school crafts project.” Kayne ends up taking the skirt off and throwing it away, and is going to make a new skirt out of mylar or something.

Tim tells Michael that he needs more sizzle on the skirt to go with the gold bustier he constructed. So Michael continues to add on the magic.

Alison’s outfit is starting to come together – it sort of reminded me of those buildings you see in Russia. But she’s still stressing out.

Kayne realizes that the judges would need to be smoking crack if they thought his dress was hot. Agreed.

Sidebar
: Don’t think I didn’t just love Michael more for making that “Clapper” joke.

They get two hours for fitting, hair, and makeup.

The next day, the models come for their fitting and everyone is having a hard time getting the stuff to fit. Back in the green room, Kayne and Laura have a tiff. It’s like watching a teenage boy fight with his mother.

Vincent is still convinced that his dress was a walking canvas of art. “Like …a drawering,” he says. Drawer-ing? Okay there, Simon.

God, I lovehate Vincent. Right now I love him, if only for this line:
“Why don’t you go stuff Harry Winstons up your nose.”
Bravo did a real great job in casting a bunch of quick-witted smart asses this season, didn’t they?

On to the runway!

Sidebar
: I’m loving Heidi’s top tonight.

Uli’s dress is so feminine. It looked very Chloe Leaf Dress. But … different.

Angela’s dress? Um … aluminum foil + gift wrap = Why isn’t she kicked off already?

Michael’s dress: Gold and white elegance. Lovely!

Vincent’s “canvas”: He says it was "like seeing art in motion.” Seriously, there really is some truth to the “art vs. insanity” argument Heidi brings up later.

Robert’s foil dress exuded the elegant, flirty, and feminine style I had started to expect from him. Don’t call it a comeback!

Jeffery’s dress was pretty cool – the newspaper bodice looked great, it worked, and it realy was his challenge.

Laura’s dress, with the plunging neckline, looked like something Laura – again – would wear. It was pretty cool. I guess this is what we can come to expect from her. I just hope she doesn’t turn out to be a one-note.

Alison’s dress was so cute, I loved the corset, but I don’t know about the puffy skirt. But then, the puffy skirt got Angela through a few rounds, didn’t it?

Kayne’s modified dress … he hates it. I do too.

Angela slithers on by to the next round. Darn.

Kors critiques Vincent’s execution, but Vincent vehemently defends his design, saying it “turns him on.” (TMI, Vincent. Really.) Heidi applauds his fearlessness. What is Heidi smoking? She then tells Vincent that “there’s a fine line between innovation and insanity.”

Indeed. Welcome back to Earth, Heidi.

The judges loved Lauren’s “elegant joke.”

NINAGARCIA says Kayne’s outfit look costumey. Kors tells him that he “stepped past the boundary of taste.”

I found Jeffery’s dress to be totally creative. I was impressed. Kors says it’s the only dress that moved down the runway. “Ugly/Beautiful, which I think is your aesthetic.” I’d take that as a compliment, I guess.

Heidi thinks Alison’s dress makes her model look huge, and that she looks like Minnie Mouse with that hair bow. Heidi says, “she looks like a plus model and it’s just not flattering at all.”

I’m sure a model on Project Runway actually looked like a heffa. Right.

In perhaps in a subconscious nod to all plus-sized models and customers out there, Kors keeps it real:
“She’s like a paper brioche.”
God, I SOOOOOOOOOOOO missed this man!

The judges are absolutely gushing over Michael, even down to his presentation.

The judges then proceed to trash Alison’s dress for the next five hours, that the shape sucked, that it was too avant garde, that it just wasn’t working. But Heidi keeps it real:
“Would I rather look like a fat Minnie Mouse, or would I want to look slim and long?”
Whatevs, Heidi. Why don’t you just go and get pregnant again … oh, wait.

Michael wins again!!!!! Dude. I can’t contain myself right now. Give me a moment.

I do have to say, I initially felt bad for Jeffery for not winning this one, until he had to be the token dick and player hate on Michael’s winning dress by saying it was “food for a diabetic neighbor.”

Oh no he didn’t.

Leave it to the judges to hold Alison to a different standard because she has a vagina:
“We can’t believe a female designer could be so careless with the female form.”
And with that, Alison is OUT. What the ----- ?

You've GOT to be kidding me.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

a) yesss Michael won again. Back to back.

b) it's mutual admiration recap time. Love it!!

c) Laura is so crotchedy (or whatever that term is) but I love that she can probably dish it and take it. It makes sense that she's pregnant while taping, she seems moody. Although, her ribcage does NOT make sense.

d) Alison was in my top 3! She was too sweet, but not nearly crazy enough to stay on a reality TV show.

Adobo said...

What a biiig effin letdown! Allison is more talented than Vincent's orgasmic creation. I was up there with Laura's frustration. Heidi was also a big beatch with her "Disney" comment. I'm sure that another 10 thousand more girls voluntarily puked their dinner after viewing the show. She sooo needed to be slapped-twice! Despite Michael's win, this for me, was season 3's low point.

Adobo said...

Also, did anyone notice Laura's areola practically disobeying curfew at episode's end?

Anonymous said...

You're kidding, right? How is Allison off and VINCENT still on? How was he EVER on? Remember the THOUSANDS of designers these people supposedly beat out to come on the show? Can you imagine how BAD these thousands had to be to lose out to VINCENT??? Watching him is like watching a car wreck: you know it's a horror, but you just can't take your eyes away.

And Michael's inexplicable win. What the...??? At least half the other designers produced things that were better than his, but by some mystery (perhaps related to Nina's recently acquired special glow? She can smile! WHO KNEW???) he takes first. Laura, Uli and Jeffrey all popped out designs that actually approximated CLOTHING, while Michael's looked like something that dropped off the back of a tractor trailer after a too-sharp turn. I've been seeing badly assembled canvas and plastic covered shipping crates on the backs of eighteen wheelers all my life; last night I found out I've been looking at haute couture!!!

Jeffrey is a sad waste of oxygen as a human being, a giant thumb with a tattoo around the knuckle. But this challenge was his. All the way.

Anonymous said...

I hope to clear something up about how this type of critic is done. Some times it's hard to understand because of mass marketing we are lead to believe the finish product is what matters. There are 2 things that are looked at Exeacution and Idea. What weight more on the scale of the judges? Ideas the thought process that created the idea. You can make a great looking well done outfit but it's no thought went into it then their is no point into making it. Even if the idea is bad but is a strong idea it will weight more then excellent contruction.

Mags said...

Anonymous #1: I like Michael, so I'm glad he won. But I really thought this was Jeffery's challenge to win. I enjoyed his dress. Uli's was awesome too.

Anonymous #2: Huh? If you're defending Vincent's "thought process," I think you're way off. Vincent doesn't really plan - his process (using the basket hat with the chains as an example) is a lot more extemporaneous than planned. In this last challenge, he failed in idea AND execution. Vincent seems to just vomit up some kind of garment and then create some kind of explanation around it. I think that as a designer, his ideas are very dated and TIRED, and not at all innovative. Alison's sculptured dress - while voluminous - had a bodice that I thought was very innovative and gorgeous. How she got The Auf over Vincent is such a travesty.

Mags said...

Anonymous1: I respect your opinion too, and I thank you for sharing yours with me.

I may simplify things with my language when I say "I like Michael," but there's more to it than that. I've mentioned in my previous recaps that I've been impressed with the garments Michael had constructed in previous episodes, so of course, I've started to pay more attention to him. Fortunately for us viewers, the designers are starting to become a bit more three-dimensional, and I'm not going to lie - Michael's refusal to gang up on Angela (as much as I don't like her) in the previous episode revealed a lot about his character. I can't help but respect that about him.

Yeah, I like what Michael did with this challenge, but I also think this was Jeffery's challenge to win.

At this point in the show, I don't have a single, clear-cut favorite yet. I have several. But thanks to the PR producers, each of the designers I like manage to get kicked off almost every episode.

Overall, this show is about entertainment, and so, of course, there will be some personalities a viewer responds to more than others.

P.S.: What kind of Wal-Mart do you have that sells fuschia hot pants? Was it part of the Jacqueline Smith collection? Oh wait, that's K-mart.