Project Runway - All The News That's Fit to Wear (and Steam!)

Welcome to the 5th episode of season 6 Project Runway. There are still 12 designers left, one Heidi, and a missing Michael Kors. We begin with the designers letting us know that things seem to be quieter without Qrystal, who got the boot last week and Johnny feels empty for being in the bottom 3 but is determined to make it to the finals in Bryant Park! Althea, last week's winner, is concerned that they will think she was just lucky and wants to show that she can produce winning garments week after week. Then we get to Irina, who doesn't feel that Althea should have won last week. She said that she was "shocked," yes, we all were. Then she adds that she doesn't feel like Althea's win was well earned. Ouch.

Nicolas, on the other hand, doesn't think that Johhny and Irina deserve to be there at all. Well, in Nicolas' truth, everyone doesn't deserve to be there, cause he's supposed to win.

Heidi comes out to do the designers a big favor and give them a chance to be in her presence. They are off to meet Tim, who is waiting to take them on another field trip. Heidi does let everyone know that the challenge is tough, but the answers will be in black and white.

Those pants age Heidi about a decade in dog years

Logan takes a guess that the challenge will have something to do with old hollywood black-and-white movies. Tim takes the designer to the Los Angeles Times newspaper headquarters - the destination for their next challenge. A giant woman named Booth Moore (how appropriate) greets them, and she explains the specifics of the challenge, which is to make their next look out of newspapers. This is the fabric for their challenge. For some reason, the newspapers are divided into section of newspapers, I wonder why?

I hear the sports section makes fabulous deep V tees

Some of the designers react differently; Nicolas is speechless. They have 3 minutes to collect all the newspapers they can, and in Project Runway style, they attack the piles. Irina pipes in during her confessional that she doesn't get why people are taking pallets of newspaper, since they're dressing a human not an elephant. She has a point.

"I'm dressing Rebecca Romijn"

Back at the work room, Tim informs the designers that they have access to dyes, markers, brushes, and most importantly, they can use muslin as a base but it can't show - which is critical. Muslin is an inexpensive, un-dyed cotton fabric. Designers (not limited by an 8 hour deadline) often make their dresses in muslin first to see how it would fit before committing their expensive fabric. In an earlier season of Project Runway, one of the first challenges was to make a design from plain, white muslin.

Tim then breaks into this weird lecture mode and tell us the history of paper dress (much like I broke into that weird informative episode above about muslin). The first paper dress was created in 1968. Paper clothing made headline news and there was quite a fervor for paper clothing, dresses, pants, and even slippers (???). I tried to find out more for you guys about this, but came up short after 3 min of looking, which was all I was able to commit to this task. However, I did find this site: Papier Couture which is super cool! They have dresses made of paper that look pretty awesome. And if something like this would have come down the runway, I guess I would have been more motivated to find out what happened in 1968 to cause the paper dress fervor. Oh well.

I hope she doesn't spill her martini

They only have until midnight to finish this task. Nicolas' ego has suddenly taken a nose dive. He has no idea what he's doing, and he's definitely lost confidence in himself. Then we get a little montage of just how annoying Shirin is, constantly running her trap and getting on everyone's nerve. They show clips of her asking the other designers if they've named their mannequins, which seems reasonable to me. I definitely would have named my mannequin, especially since it has no head. Poor Nicolas' mannequin is completely naked; he's genuinely lost.

Back from commercial, Tim comes to mentorize. He first stops by Gordana. Tim loves her outfit so much that he blows her a kiss and makes this face of approval:

Love, love, love!

Tim then becomes woeful when looking at Johnny's outfit, and says that it looks like a bunch of kindergartners did it. Johnny campaigns for the dress and says it's supposed to look like a bunch of birds are holding it up, and Tim unravels his metaphoric origami and says that the birds actually look like they're attacking it. Johnny is crushed and feels that he has to start over.

The original dress

Tim is out, but before he goes, he tells the designers that he's wowed and inspired, and he can not wait to see the runway show. Me too! Johnny then tells us that he threw the dress away after it got criticized by Tim.

The models come in for a fitting, and Johnny's feeling really dissapointed in himself. He's bewildered, his idea was not as good as he thought it would be. So he tells his model Emmarie that he was ironing the paper dress, and the iron started spittling and water got all over the dress. The other designers are obviously annoyed that he has made up a story about an excuse instead of the truth which was the he threw the dress away because of Tim's critique. As the models leave, they go and hug their designers, and we see Althea tell her model that she loves her so much! And lucky for her, Althea's model loves her back. So weird.

Love, love, love

Johnny is tired and annoyed at how the day has turned out for him and he started to work on a cross word puzzle instead. The other designers complain that they are sick of Johhny's attitude and lack of passion and time spent on his designs.

Back at the apartment, Johnny then tells the other men his story about how the iron stated to sputter and ruined the dress. But no one's buying his story. They all saw Tim criticize his dress and then he threw his dress away right after that, so they basically accuse him of lying.

The next day, Tim comes in to tell them that they have two hours with their models to dress them, and to get their hair and make-up done. He also warns them to rally, as he feels that the designers have stalled out. I'm not sure what he's referring to, just a few hours ago, he was saying that he was wowed. Anyway, we see the designers make some last minute adjustments to their creations, and Althea is whispering to Ra'mon about not getting Irina's trench coat creation. Of course Irina is completely aware that they're talking about her and declares that she doesn't care what smack Althea is talking about. These two obviously have some animosity between them. Nicolas hopes the judges rip Johnny a new one on the runway for his work.

Here are everyone's designs:




Our judges tonight are freaking Tommy Hilfiger and Eva Longoria Parker, UGH! Not a fan of either of these. Tommy's spawn Ally Hilfiger and her friend Jaime Gleicher were once on a show called Rich Girls on MTV, where they pranced around New York thinking they were going to write novels and design clothing lines and just generally annoying the crap out of me. I watched that entire season of Rich Girls, and was so appalled by these two on so many levels, that I swore I would NEVER EVER buy anything from Tommy Hilfiger and contribute to that girl's lifestyle or lunch money. And then there's Eva Longoria, who is just plain annoying all by herself. I haven't been able to watch a Spurs home game without the mandatory Eva interview in the bleachers about some B.S. that no one who is watching a Spurs game gives a rats ass about. And beyond that, she's a troll, or as The Superficial permanently refers to her, a lawn gnome. She's stuck up, and her career is a major FAIL. She was on some soap opera and now is on Desperate Housewives, a show no one I know watches. Beyond that, she's my age but she looks like she's in her forties. She poses for all sorts of photos in her underwear (Google image her) and that's basically all she contributes to anything. To summarize, I'm not happy with tonight's judging panel at all.

Last time I checked, MICHAEL KORS was a judge on this show!

The "judges" liked these designs by Irina, Christopher, and Althea:


I'm kind of surprised, I don't really get Althea's dress, and I CERTAINLY don't think it's better than Carol Hanna's dress, which I thought should have won.

Didn't even make it to top 3?!?!

Irina's creation did not wow me at all. I think it was an honorable mention at best. But Hilfiger said it's Coco Channel and some other flattering nonsense. I mean, I get that he's a designer, and that he has more training than me to call that newspaper trench coat Coco Channel, but it looks blah to me. And I'm the audience for the show.

The "judges" disliked these designs by Gordana, Johhny, and Nicolas:


During the questioning of Johnny's dress, he declares that he made two dress. The first one got ruined because the iron sputtered all over it. Heidi tells him that his model looks like a two-bit hooker in the dress. Then Johnny adds that his other dress was pretty hard core, and had a [Christian] Dior feel to it. To which Nicolas almost faints in disgust. Heidi pounces on Nicolas and wants to know why he's making a face like he bit into a lemon. Nicolas tells Heidi that Johnny's original dress was NOT a Dior, but rather a red mess.

Subtlety defined

The judges think Nicolas' dress looks more like insects than punk. More specifically, it looks like a cockroach. Burn!

The winner is Irina:



The loser is Johnny:



It looks like next week some crazy stuff happens.


This week on Project Runway Beauty, we learn how to get smooth bangs. Yessssss!

See you next week.