Project Runway After Party

Episode 12: Reunion
Oh, Lawdy. It’s the reunion episode. Aside from the Olympus Fashion Week episode, the reunion shows are always my favorite. This is when 15 designers stop being polite and start getting … REAL.

Oh, wait. Wrong reality show. Moving on:

At first, we see Kayne, Vincent, Stacey, Kate, Bradley, Bonnie, Malan, Angela, Robert, and Alison. They discuss being recognized on the street now that the season has been on the air. Bonnie brings up how one day she was chillin' around town and some fan asked her if she was from Project Runway. Bonnie's started to catch that celebrity vibe and was all, why yes, yes I was. So then this "fan" says, something like, I thought so - you sucked! What follows is Bonnie's response/recounting of the story, which, I'm sorry to say, is somewhat verbatim:

“I was like, omigah!”

And they were like, “eww!”

And I was like, "gag me!”

And they were all, "fer sher!"

And then I was like, “whatever, bitch!”

And then they were all like, "molded!"

And so it went.

A very pregnant Heidi (damn, that bitch is fertile!) and Tim introduce the finalists, fraulein Uli Herzner, Michael, Jeffery, and a very pregnant Laura. There’s a little bit of mutual admiration of the pregos between Laura and Heidi.

Someone asks Laura if she owns a pair of jeans (She doesn't). She wears riding pants if she ever wants to go casual. The better to stay off that slippery slope, m'dear.

They go over a brief recap of last week’s announcement of the winners.

Sidebar: Is Michael wearing a grill? Or are they braces?

The other contestants are supportive of the “Final Four” idea. Jeffery (with a way better haircut, actually) says – quite diplomatically, I have to say – that it could have been any of them in the Final Four.

They bring out Keith, who talks about how his friends have reacted to him. But first, let’s relive the pain and show a clip of the episode where Keith gets disqualified and kicked off the show. Alison starts tearing up, I think. Or her nose starts running, I can’t decide.

Heidi asks the designers if they thought the decision was fair, and everyone pretty much agreed that it was.

“Obviously you can see in my eyes I’m upset,” Keith says, trying to intimidate Heidi and Tim with his piercing stare. It doesn’t work, though.

Keith says that he doesn’t remember reading the fact that you couldn’t have books/magazines/whatever in the contract, but everyone speaks up, especially Stacey (isn’t she a lawyer?). Keith says that the books were removed a week before that whole conflict began, and then they were returned to his room a week later.

“Uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Basically, implying it was a set-up or conspiracy. “I don’t know how they [the books] got into my room.”

Don't even.

Then they bring up the fact he left production for a few hours. Keith explains that his reason was that he wanted to cut out because things were being hectic. He said a PA pointed to the door.

Everyone rolls their eyes and Uli says that you couldn’t so much take a piss without being followed by cameras.

They transition to commercial, and Keith’s all, “Yeah, I thought so.” Like he won that argument or something.

The next segment talks about Tim Gunn’s vocabulary. For example: Are you familiar with the term faux bois? I guess it's French for "fake wood." Not to be confused with foie gras, or "fatty goose liver," which I thought he said at first. From thence, I began to drool. Screw animal cruelty. Foie gras rocks. But I digress.

I have deep admiration for a man who uses sturm und drang in everyday conversation. He could have thrown in a few schadenfreudes in a few conversations and I'd be all over him like a fleurchon explosion from Jubilee Jumbles. But, I kid!

A viewer asks if Tim Gunn designs clothing. He doesn’t, but he Tim tells us that he paints, sculpts, etc. Again, who knew?

On to everyone else's “idiosyncratic lexicons”!

• Laura: “serious ugly”
• Robert: “boring”
• Vincent: “turns me on”
• Now-Beardless Bradley: random noises/sound effects/beat boxing

Someone asks, What was it like to work with Tim? They all love Tim, he's a mentor, blah blah blah.

They discuss Vincent’s various disparaging comments about his fellow designers from EW.com, and Tim’s blog. First off, Vincent says that the show was full of “amateurs,” as in “not up to that level of design.”

“I think Vincent’s delusional,” Laura says.

No arguments here, girlfriend.

Vincent talks about certain prerequisites to becoming a great designer or something. The rest of the designers get on him because of the “amateur” comment, and Vincent does a simultaneous backtrack while standing by his original statement – the likes never before seen outside of the Bush Administration! But, I digress …

Kayne talks a million miles a minute. And we love him for that.

Sidebar: Bravo’s “Sound Auf” text-message campaign? CORNY. Don’t even play along, y’all. I don’t even want to read any kind of crawl on my screen during Project Runway, alright?

Malan talks about the support he’s received from fans since he got kicked off the show. He talks about being gay when he was young and about the lack of support he got from family. They talk about his accent and Malan’s laugh.

Sidebar to Malan: You're still one of my buddies on MySpace, Boo. But I had to unsubscribe from your blog, because it was too uplifting and loving for me. Sorry. Love you, mean it!

And while we're on the subject of Malan, I gotta say: I had no idea his laugh sounded so … sinister. So … conniving. So … so …

“Cary Grant meets Eddie Muster.”

Yes, that’s it. Thanks, Robert!

Alison says that the Doggie challenge was her favorite, while Katherine’s in the back all making a sour face and looking like, “fuck that.” You know. Since that’s the one she got kicked off on. Ahem. Awkward much?

The Mom challenge, everyone agrees, was a difficult challenge. Angela’s getting pissed off. They discuss Jeffery and Darlene, Angela’s mom. Let’s relive the pain with a clip, because we love picking at scabs!

Jeffery says that he never intended to make Darlene cry. Jeffery’s issue is that Darlene never told him that she didn’t like the dress, so basically, she would have gone down the runway and then told the judges that she hated the dress. I think Jeffery's saying that the process could have been a bit more collaborative. (Oh, really?) I can see his point, though – Darlene said she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Angela is still pissed, and understandably so. Laura said that Darlene took the challenge personally. Robert says that Jeffery didn’t handle the situation correctly, which I agree with. I mean, you just don't get nasty with a client, hel-LO. Angela says that they could have been friends under different circumstances. Jeffery’s like, whatever, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Angela set herself up for that one, I’m sorry.

Vincent’s incident with the producers – previously unseen footage!

Apparently the producers do the designers’ laundry. Jeffery’s pissed that they did his laundry. Vincent totally raising his voice, acting a straight up diva! Vincent wears $125 shirts? Honey, please. Lighten up – it’s just fashion!

On to commercial!

You know, no matter how many times I’ve seen L’oreal’s Collier Strong show us how to do the smoky eye, I still can’t get it to come out right.

We come back from commercial and Heidi announces that Michael is the Bravo fan favorite, and he won $10K just for that! Michael Kors and NINAGARCIA come out with those big, corny poster checks, too! Yay, Michael!

At this point, Heidi, Michael, and NINAGARCIA talk about the judging process. I think this is the equivalent of that part on the Academy Awards when the accountants come out and talk about the counting of ballots, or whatever they count at the Academy Awards. Blah, blah, blah.

Ooh, but now the designers get to ask for feedback on past decisions!

Angela asks if she didn’t bust out with the "Jubilee Jumbles" story, would it have mattered. Angela. Seriously. N-O. Heidi said that everything about her outfit was “hoochie.” Well Heidi, I guess that's one way to put it.

Kayne asks about his couture dress – was it just the fabric? What was so over the top about it, because he's received tons of fan mail saying that the dress was awesome? Kors basically said that his exuberance needed to be tempered. But he sort of implied that Kayne will always have an audience. Just not Park Avenue.

They ask Alison about the recycling challenge in which whe was elminated. Alison says that she has moved on, but she did realize that when it came down the runway, that it didn’t look so great. I still liked the dress - as avant garde as it was - but in retrospect, she could have lost the bowtie made out of hair.

Laura asks the judges if they ever thought they made a wrong decision. Kors says no. Heidi says it was hard enough coming up with a decision in the first place.

On to the blooper reel:

• The fire alarm goes off during the Zac Posen episode.
• During the Final Four challenge, Jeffery’s model almost fainted. Further back in the show, Katherine and Kayne’s model, the chatterbox girl, also caught the vapors a few times. Three words, girls: Eat. A. Sandwich. Damn heffas.
• Jeffery farts. A lot.

I think Keith actually cracked a smile during the farting clip. Cool.

Heidi asks everyone to weigh in on who they think is going to win. They even ask former Project Runway designer contestants like Jay McCarrol (Michael Knight) and Chloe Dao. Lil' Chlo thinks that he’s the black version of herself. Daniel Franco thinks that Laura will win, because she’ll make a great CEO. I forgot what Kara (Season 2) and Robert (Season 1) thought, because Chloe cracked me up with that comment and I couldn't hear the TV over my snorting.

Who do I think is going to win the competition this season? I really don’t know, but the clip of Jeffery's Laura’s son trying to hand turtle poop to Tim Gunn is PRICELESS!