Project Runway - The Baron of Burgundy

"What arbitrary thing shall come out of my mouth next?"

Guess who's been a total slacker in the recap department? That's right - me! But I have excuses, and since it's my blog, I am allowed to hide behind them. The week after Pablocito wrote his manspective of Project Runway, I was faced with a choice - recap Project Runway or compete full force in the office bake-off. I won the office bake-off and was crowned 2009 office bake-off champion, a title that was toasted with champagne, and a burst of serotonin that lasted at least 24 hours. The following week, I was off to Los Angeles to frolic with my friends and family. I had every intention of writing a recap then, but found myself so out of time, that I couldn't even get my eyebrows threaded in little India. So there I was last week, recapless and bushy browed.

And then this week - no other than HoneyGangsta is coming to sleep on MY couch for a much overdue weekend visit. Even Pablocito mocked me last night for taking notes during the show - why bother? So I have to cram in this recap now - for all of the 1 or 2 of you who are reading.

HG!

Episode 7 - Something blue

OK! End of excuses. Episode 7 was a bit of a snoozefest - their challenge was to design something freaking blue! Heidi hinted to the designers that their next challenge will be very colorful and Shirin guessed that they were making outfits out of parachutes! Brilliant.

It was a team challenge and they had to make a holiday dress in blue for Inc. Designs for Macy's. The winning designer got to design a dress to be actually sold at Macy's.

One particular interesting part of this episode was when Tim Gunn declared that Christopher and Epperson reinvented the shirt dress, then said shirt dress was crapped all over by Heidi and [WELCOME BACK!!!] Michael Kors. Awesome.



Irina ended up winning, and then during the commercials they showed us the holiday dress Irina "designed" to be sold at Macy's and it was this ridiculous piece that I could have designed:


What makes this a holiday dress, I have no idea. I have tank tops that are better designed than this. Who is the target of this? Mariah Carey?

"Did someone say butterflies? And rainbows? And happy faces?"

Irina won, Louise lost. Christopher cried.

Episode 8 - Wedding dress bonanza

This week's challenge was to turn divorced women's wedding dresses into something cool and hip to wear everyday. Some women came out on the runway to join Heidi in their crusty old wedding dresses. Upon announcing how long these women have been divorced, Gordana pipes up and congratulates them for either failing to keep their promise or making a terrible judgment in getting married in the first place, I couldn't figure out which. The designers then had to pick their wedding dress as worn by the divorcees, and the strategy was getting the dresses with the most fabric.

Shirin had a complete meltdown this episode, she started crying in front of Tim because she was so frustrated. Tim was really sweet, he hugged her and gave her some advice to play with the different textiles on the work desk. I thought he was going to sit down and start stitching up the dress with Shirin, but alas, he walked away.

Michael Kors was back!!!! And we had another guest judge - the founder of Jimmy Cho, which I could have sworn was an Asian man, but alas, it was British woman named Tamara. Very odd.

The top 3 dresses were those of Gordana, Shirin, Irina, and the bottom 3 dresses belonged to Christopher, Epperson and Logan.

Gordana somehow managed to win, and Epperson offended Heidi Frau by mimicking her Octoberfest '08 outfit and was dismissed immediately.



Episode 9 - Glitter!

We are all caught up now! And we start off with Shirin's gigantic ego rivaling the size of the balloon that could sweep a little boy up in the air in Colorado. If we recall, last week she was getting pieced back together by Tim Gunn after she lost it on the wedding dress challenge. Carol Hanna meanwhile feels like she's been riding in the middle. I feel that predicament is unfair, as I think she has deisgned some really awesome stuff. I thought her newspaper dress was the best of them all and she didn't even qualify for top 3.

A True German

Heidi comes out in a weird loose black silky top and some even weirder red tight pants. My friend in NJ once made fun of those darn Germans and their red pants - and here it is, stereotype personified!

Other Germans in Red Pants:

(honorary German)

She has some cryptic message for the designers about their next challenge and how they'll want to really shine, blah blah. The designer meet Tim at the FIDM museum along with Bob Mackie - the Sultan of Sequins! Their challenge is to create an extravagant stage look. Bobby tells us that this is not fashion, it's the stage! It's many steps above. He continues to tell them to take their designs to another level, another period, another Goddess from a mythical character. Bobby is a nut job.

We also find out that the design is for Christina Aguilera! Except, they're not saying that she will be wearing it or buying it. Even during the judging, she makes no commitment to even trying it on - so how exactly is this for Christina Aguilera?

In any case, that little detail did not register with Nicolas, who has been peeing all over the floors of the FIDM museum since he first laid eyes on Bob Mackey and has now started extracting liquids from other parts of his body with excitement at the proposition of having Christina Aguilera exist as his muse for this challenge.

The designers have $300 (!!!) for this challenge and two days. Carol Hanna and Shirin are struggling with this challenge, they haven't made anything so extravagant. Gordana is a complete mess and remains one throughout this episode. I've become scarred by her yelling and complaining in that Eastern European accent, and can't really talk about her anymore. She reminds me of someone I don't want to be reminded of, but also can't figure out who. I juts want her off my telly screen. But she has immunity, so one more week.

Tim comes to the work room to mentorize. Christopher shows him his outfit, which consists of a cover up and a reveal outfit - so a jacket and then something underneath. Tim Gunn tells him that if he's gonna have a reveal, then he wants the outfit to be more slutty. Nice one, Tim Gunn. He then talks to Alteah, who also is going to have a reveal...duhn duhn duhn! Tim then criticizes her and Christopher for creating a pumpkin that will pop out on the runway. Geez Tim - is it that time of the month or what?

"More slutification, please"

Then he tells Nicolas that his outfit looks exactly like his winning ice queen outfit from a few weeks ago. Tim warns Nicolas to be careful of being labeled a "one note."

Irina confessionals that she doesn't get how Shirin is still in this competition, and labeled her a bargain basement designer. Ouch!

We then get to see her tell her model that the "little blonde one" (Carol Hanna) really annoys the crap out of her, and that if she was going to be a mediocre designer, at least she should have a good personality. Nicolas over hears it and tells us that Irina is a giant biatch and she acts like everyone works for her.

It's runway time, and our judges are Bob Mackey, the Sultan of Sequins, Nina Garcia (welcome back!) and a really short, round faced Christina Aguilera.

Au Natural

Here were my initial reactions:

Althea - silvery
Logan - rock and roll
Shirin - interesting
Christopher - underwear
Nicolas - cute
Gordana - nightgown
Irina - ice skater
Carol Hanna - glamorous

Irina is excused, her scores qualified her to go to the next round. Next, Gordana gets a verbal whipping from Heidi who tells her that she is extremely lucky to have immunity, because her look was a disaster.

The top 3 desingers are: Althea, Carol Hanna, and Nicolas
They of course loved Nicolas' dress, despite Tim's warnings that it looked a lot like the frozen ice queen look - it was never even mentioned.


The bottom 3 designers are: Logan (again), Christopher (again), and Shirin.
They called Shirin's dress an upscale witch halloween costume. Christopher got criticized for revisiting Christina's Lady Marmalade look - Bingo Christopher, you officially got "slutty" stamped on your outfit. Too bad you followed Tim Gunn's advice. And Logan's dress was called cavewoman-esque.


Carol Hanna finally won, and poor Shirin was auf'd despite the fact that both Logan and Christopher are frequent flyers in the bottom 3 shit train.

Winner

Loser

Looks like next week someone finally calls Irina out for being a giant biatch. Sounds like fun.

Tell me what you guys thought about the glitter episode...