ElectricTangerine

Yet another challenge that made me think “Oh yay! This is gonna be gooood…”

And it was.

The laughs, the tears, the fit pitching and foot stamping, Christian in the floor in a fetal ball, overbearing mothers, teenagers pouting, bejeweling, scraps of lace and metallic fabric everywhere…it was glorious.

Before I forget to mention it, what is up with Project Runway this season and the inevitable lead-in beefcake shot? Someone is always naked from the waist up and grooming himself as the show begins. Not that I’m complaining at all, mind you, it just seems to me to be a bit gratuitous. I have the feeling that I’m being pandered to somewhat.
This week it was Rami’s turn to be eye candy. Nice enough, I suppose…if you like that sort of thing.

I miss Jack. I’m just sayin’.

So Heidi sashayed out onto the runway this week and I have to say, her bangs are killin’ me. I have a sneaking suspicion that she may also have a case of bangs regret because I’ve noticed that twice now she’s come out later on in the program and her bangs have mysteriously vanished - either slicked back or pinned under her other hair. I just picture Heidi glowering at her bangs in the mirror and barking at her stylist “How long until these damn things grow out again?” Which just goes to show you that even the world’s most famous supermodel can make a fashion blunder now and again.

Which would explain some of her dresses as well…but I digress.

This week we have yet another challenge wherein our regular models are banished to Scrim Purgatory and some new mystery models are brought in. When I saw the shadow pop up behind the scrim (scrim, scrim, scrim, scrim, scrimity scrim!) my first thought was “Oh no, they’re going to have to design for children!” but it turned out that I was wrong. It was far worse than that. They weren’t going to have to design for children, they were going to have to design for teenagers!! And not just any teenagers - teenaged Catholic school girls! From New Jersey!

I screamed out loud.

The girls stomp out on stage (more about that in a moment) and Heidi explains that this weeks challenge involves designing their prom dresses. Cue groans and a great deal of head-in-hands reaction - which honestly, I can’t quite understand. Last week they had to make dresses out of candy wrappers and a buck fifty, but this week they find out that they’re going to get to work with a real budget and actual fabric to design some evening wear and they’re upset about it? C’mon now! I know prom dresses have the tackiness cachet generally reserved for bridesmaids gowns but hello! That’s where designers come in. Saving the world from purple velvet, St. Pauli girl, poufy sleeved dresses one teenager at a time.

Heidi goes on to say that each girl has chosen which designer to work with based on their portfolio.
You gotta love Chris’ reaction to this news, which consisted of dissolving into a fit of the giggles over the fact that his portfolio consisted primarily of completely over-the-top drag costumes featuring himself as Wonder Woman and a Valkyrie and so on. Not exactly the kinds of outfits that your average young girl would want to wear to the prom. I adore Chris a little bit more every week.

The other “laugh out loud” moment this week was Christian’s declaring Proms in general to be “horrible, tacky and gross.”
Needless to say, I completely agree with him.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I just love Christian. He’s become my clear-cut favorite.
And now that I’ve said that, he’ll be gone in a week. I tend to have the “Kiss of Death” as far as these things go, so I’m sorry, Christian. I can’t help but like you best, which means you’re doomed.
I was worried that this week was going to be the week that the Rob “Kiss of Death” manifested, because it was a near miss for him. I knew from the moment that camera zoomed in on his new client’s face that Christian was In For It. That girl might as well have had “Trouble” written across her face with a magic marker.

I thought it was quite astute and timely for Tim to take the opportunity (right before the girls came in to meet with their designers for the first time) to warn them all about not letting the “whim of iron” of a teenaged girl rule over their design sensibilities. It certainly turned out to be the crux of the problem for poor Christian, but you know…when there’s a charging rhino coming right at you, it can be a bit hard to steer the jeep effectively mm’kay?

I completely empathized with Christian when he curled up in a fetal ball on the floor after having his rhino…er…client tell him all about how she was also a fashion designer (which should be enough to totally get you kicked out of the pool of potential clients by the Project Runway producers if you ask me) and how she wanted her prom dress to be “brown and white and gold, with ruffles and lace.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Run away! Run away!

The other designers had it easy by comparison, although Victorya didn’t look to be having barrels of fun when her model tactlessly let it drop that she hadn’t really chosen Victorya so much as defaulted into her because none of the other girls wanted to work with her. It’s not a real confidence builder to be told that you got picked last.

Chris was a bit of a worry with his offhand comment about making a poinsettia Christmas dress, but it turned out that he was making a joke. Whew!

Victorya worried me too, with the decision to bejewel her dress. I am not a big fan of the bejeweled look. In fact, I can’t even hear the word “bejeweled” without hearing Cyndi Lauper’s voice saying the word in my head (she did a guest stint on “Mad about You” back in the day, on an episode where the word “bejeweled” was a major plot point). Most of the time “bejeweled” is right up there with “bedazzled” and “puffy paint” as far as my fashion sensibilities go.

Anyway, enough of this natter! Who won? What happened? Who went home?

Well…Victorya won. I can see why, grudgingly. Her dress was one of the only ones which seemed to be wholly age appropriate. The other dresses all seemed to be designed for someone five to twenty years older than these girls, and there was a certain glittery playfulness to the dress with it’s bright colors and swingy shape. That being said…I still thought the bejeweling was atrocious. I could go in for a cheap New Jersey girl joke here, but as I have a modicum of taste myself, I’ll just let that go for now.
So Victorya wins and she has immunity next week. Whee.
Have I mentioned that Victorya is not one of my favorites? Yeah. So, she’ll probably be around forever.

Who I thought should’ve won: Chris: Again. Or at the very least been given more credit that he was given for this dress. The chartreuse, with the coloring of his client, was sensational! It moved beautifully, it fit his model’s body shape and had a great sense of drama with that beautifully ruched bodice and fall of fabric down the front. It could’ve gone horribly wrong and screamed out “prom dress” at any point, but he kept it elegant and elevated and I loved it.

Runner Up - Sweet P - Sweet P worried me after last week’s meltdown, but she redeemed herself in my eyes with this extremely sophisticated dress. I thought her choice of color was absolutely spot on. The champaigne against her client’s skin just sang and depending on the light, became a brilliant platinum at some times and deepened to a delicious ambery color at others. The dress seemed to be impeccably executed and the dramatic elements were all there. The only reason I don’t think she should’ve won over Chris’ dress was the fact that this dress is a bit mature and a tiny bit stodgey for a seventeen year old. For a twenty five year old? It’d be divine.

Jillian - Amy Irving…er…Jillian actually surprised me a bit this week. Her dress was still trapped in the 80’s…or maybe even the late 70’s (tell me you couldn’t see that dress on someone doing “The Hustle”) but the color choice was good and I thought the bodice with the contrasting shades of aqua and teal was pretty. I still predict an off the shoulder peasant blouse or asymmetrical sweatshirt with the collar torn out will make an appearance in the near future, though.

Kit - Oh Kit, honey…why? There were so many cool, funky, edgy and subversive places Kit’s style aesthetic could’ve taken the whole “prom dress” theme…this was just disappointing. I especially hated that strange three panel insert on the bodice. It just seemed odd and out of place - and that, in addition to the way that the straps were designed, made her model look like she had shelf o’ boob…or that she was selling cigarettes at a 40’s style diner. Not a good look at all.

Rami - Rami needs to get over the fact that one of his clients was J-Lo and start designing for other people. Is it me or is every other design by Rami something that we’ve all seen J-Lo wearing? I didn’t think that this dress worked on any level. The color seemed really off for a prom dress to me. It was too old for the client by a good twenty years (or ten, depending upon which version of J-Lo’s life story you’re reading) and the style was…puzzling. Was he trying for an Grecian “Amazonian” style dress? Y’know the kind that makes it look like the client has surgically amputated one breast? Because that’s what I thought this strange little dress did.

This week’s Hot Messes

Christian - Oh where to begin with this trainwreck? It was as if a tacky fashion bomb had exploded all over this girl. There was a bit of lace here and another bit of lace there. There was a line of lace wandering aimlessly up the bodice. There was a terrible, off center, ugly, wrinkled mess of a bodice attached to an even uglier pouf skirt. There was some kind of netting under the hem of the skirt. Can we say “adding visual bulk?” I had to wonder if some of this mess wasn’t a bit of Christian’s revenge on his obnoxious and rude client. I know that I would’ve been seriously tempted to decide that if she was going to act like that, I was going to make her look like Miss Piggy stomping down the runway.
Speaking of which - I know that normal girls do not walk like models, but good Lord! These girls clomped and stomped and stampeded down the Runway as gracefully as….a herd of Rugby players in high heels.
I didn’t know who to feel sorrier for, the girls or the designers who had to watch their designs come tramping down the Runway like that.
Anyway. Christian’s dress this week was a mess and I felt bad for him and I’m glad that he could stumble during a week when other people fell flat on their faces so that he didn’t have to be sent home for one lapse. I don’t think it was entirely fair of Nina to get all indignant that he dared to blame his client for the fact that this dress was a big puddle of prom vomit. Hey Nina, YOU work with that girl for a week and then get back to us, okay?

Ricky - Here’s who I thought should go home this week.
Ricky’s generally underwhelm me as far as their execution and design sensibilities go and his color choice this week was god-awful. Was he trying to match the model’s dress to her skin tone? Because really, nothing says fashion like being unable to really differentiate where the wearer ends and the dress begins. Ugh. I don’t think anyone particularly wants a flesh-toned evening gown! Sometimes I really wonder about Ricky…

Kevin is Auf’d, and I’m not sure why exactly. Is Kevin boring as homemade sin? Yes, he is. But his execution is normally very good, his color sense is also quite strong and his style isn’t always coming right out of a Fredrick’s of Hollywood catalog - you can’t say any of those things about Ricky 9/10ths of the time. That being said, this dress was pretty darn horrible. What was he thinking? His muddled explanation about how he saw that she was Asian and thought “red dress” just flew right up my nose. It smacked of unacknowledged racism to me, especially considering the fact that he then opted to put this poor girl into a Bangkok hooker dress!! I agreed with the girl’s Mom too…the dress made her daughter look three months gone. The halter top was so very Marilyn Monroe “done to death” and as an additional bonus, made the bust of a seventeen year old girl look saggy. Bleah. The icing on the cake was the decision not to hem the bottom of the dress, which was just blatantly stupid considering the fact that the judges have made it explicitly clear that unfinished work is a serious peeve of theirs.
Ricky should get down on his hands and knees and thank God that Kevin decided not to hem that dress, because it really should’ve been his head on the chopping block this week.