2 Tops and 1 Bottom

Which is either a dream come true or annoying, depending upon your point of view.

Althea:

Model: Tanisha Harper

This was a contender for the win. You can tell the judges, Rebecca especially, loved it. It wasn't without its problems, though. And considering that the winning outfit was pretty much flawless, it just wasn't the time for Althea to produce a less than perfect look.

We really like that stripe detail in the bust and the straps. Without it, this would have been a nice, but mostly uninteresting design.

Unfortunately, the execution wasn't what it could have been. The finishing on them looks a little rough.

And from the back, they look pretty uneven. Honestly, we're being a little picky here, but like we said, this was not the week to show a less than perfect look and expect to win. Shirin really brought her A game.

The other area where she faltered was the design itself. No woman as pregnant as these models were attempting to appear is going to wear something as low cut and with as little support as that.

Especially if that woman is Rebecca Romijn, who's got a bodacious set even when she's not pregnant.

Still, a good try from Althea and definitely puts her in the "one to watch" category. Although it's notable that her dress last week had some finishing issues in the bust as well.

Louise:

Model: Lisa Blades

This was a very sweet, very sexy little dress from Louise and it hits all the right notes when it comes to maternity wear. As we said previously, women in this state tend to want to look pretty and feminine and even a little sexy. She nailed it on all those fronts.

And while this is all those things, it also fulfills the other major desire of pregnant women: comfort. This dress looks effortless to wear. Everything is well covered and non-binding, while still having an easy, breezy sexy feel to it.

It's probably a little short for some women's comfort zones, but again, we're talking Rebecca Romijn here, who did three blockbuster movies wearing nothing but some strips of latex and blue body paint. Body issues just aren't on her menu.

She did a nice job on the bust. Not only was the hand-dyed lace a nice touch, but she designed a bust for multiple sizes, knowing that a pregnant woman's boobs don't stay the same size for long.

And as Nina pointed out, the layered hem was a nice touch, too.

We have a bit of a reservation declaring that she's one to watch as well only because if you've checked out her portfolio, you know that this is a pretty standard look for her. She's probably made this dress dozens of times already. Pretty, but if she can only send these 1920s-inspired pieces down the runway, the judges are going to get bored or she's going to run into a challenge where she can't get away with it.

Ra'mon:

Model: Vanessa Fitzgerald

It's like an Olympics Closing Ceremony outfit for the Women's Labor & Delivery team. We really don't like anything about this look; hate the colors, hate the color-blocking, and when you take those elements away, you've got a very basic dress with some alarming technical issues. All the criticisms we had for his dress last week are even more evident this week.

Namely, his technical skills and his fit issues. He clearly has no idea how to fit a bust. Granted, his model is pretty flat-chested, but that should have made his job easier, not harder.

And, as we said last week, you can see every seam from twenty feet away. It's Puckerville all over again.

You would think that if he knows this, he wouldn't have gone with all that color-blocking, but again, last week he pin-tucked the hell out of his gown, so we're assuming that he doesn't recognize this deficiency on his part.

Look, it's a design competition and not a sew-off. Having less than perfect sewing skills doesn't mean you're out of the game. But designing things that highlight your lack of sewing skills is definitely asking for trouble.

It's not a great dress and it's not a great design. Those Nike swoops were such a bad idea it was kind of funny. Part of the reason he didn't get more shit from the judges for it is because he owned up to it immediately and showed a sense of humor about it.

Extended Judging Videos:







[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]



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Bitchell

A little controversy for the weekend? Why, we don't mind if we do!

"The first thing that America is going to know about me is that I sent a naked lady down the runway."

And the next thing America is going to know about you is that you can't sew.

Yes, kittens, this will be the post where we step in a pile of shit by defending the new most-hated designer. We don't get it. We read all the comments from people proclaiming their hatred of this mostly inoffensive, somewhat personable guy and our mouths drop open in disbelief. It's almost as if people have waited so long for Project Runway to return that they're slightly overreacting to its arrival.

From a personality point of view, what has he done that's offended people so much? Yeah, he tried to blame his shitty design of last week on the fact that his model wasn't the size he thought she was and then switched models, causing the girl who worked the hell out of his caftan to go home. Not exactly covering himself in glory, we admit. But it's also not exactly the bitchiest or nastiest thing we've ever seen on the show. Not even close to it, in fact.

Plus, as far as we can tell, the other designers adore him. He seems to be laughing and giggling his way through the workroom and no one seems to mind. In fact, they all seem to enjoy his company. He called Ra'mon's dress a bowling bag and instead of getting annoyed, they both giggled over it. If he was as bad as a lot of the viewers seem to think, wouldn't we be hearing that from the other designers?

Yeah, the models don't like him. Part of that is because he's a "model jumper," a term they coined that we love, and part of that is because they think he's going to be auf'd any minute and don't want to be the girl on the runway in the shitty outfit. They have reasons not to want to be his model, but they don't add up to reasons for the vitriol we've been seeing from viewers. By the way, he's not the only designer to model jump, which reinforces our point that they hate him because they fear working for him is going to get them auf'd.

Maybe some of the anger is motivated by the feeling that both of his outfits so far should've sent him home. Thing is...

Model: Kalyn Hemphill

We don't think he should have gone home for this outfit. Especially in light of Malvin's chicken costume. That's why he's still here. He sent out two HIGHLY problematic looks that easily could have gotten him auf'd but lucked out because in both instances someone else sent something worse down the runway. Why that pisses some people off, we don't know. That's always been the way of Project Runway.

To go even further into Controversy Land, we think this was a pretty decent outfit, from a style perspective.

HORRIBLE execution, absolutely. No argument from us. And as we said, on another day he could have and should have easily gone home for it. Especially since it's the second badly executed look in a row from him.

But if you squint your eyes and tilt your head and pretend that everything fits perfectly and was sewn perfectly, it DOES have a certain "L.A. celebrity mom" style to it, which, not coincidentally is exactly for whom the outfit was designed. It's probably a bit too youthful for Rebecca Romijn, but she admitted that she could see some of her girlfriends wearing it.

We suspect that this is part of why he keeps skating by. As bad as his outfits are, you can still see a certain sense of style there. In fact, it's probably a little early to be making this prediction, but he strikes us as more of a stylist than a designer. He can put a look together. He just can't design one from scratch and he definitely can't execute one.

But fear not, Mitchell-haters. He obviously used up all his chances. No matter what anyone else does or how bad any of the other entries are, the next time Mitchell screws up, he's outta there. Nina has HAD IT with him:

"She's going to lunch with her girlfriends, they'll be going shopping, living her day-to-day activities."

"Is she showing up to lunch drunk? Is that it? She's an alcoholic? Or was she hit by a car on the way? I don't understand."

"She's hip and ...um...stylish..."

"And blind? Help Nina out here. Did she pull this out of her hamper? Is she depressed somehow? Did the father of her child leave her? Who IS this woman?"

"She looks messy, No?"

"She looks like SHIT. You are PISSING me off here, kid."

"Sorry. I'm Sorry Ni- Miss Garcia. Sorry. Please don't hurt me."

"I LOVE it when Nina get's pissed off! Don't you? It's so FUN!"

Honestly, we can't do it justice. Watch the extended judging to see just how pissed Nina got:




[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Video: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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All-Star Sweet P

Alright poodles, we're rolling up our sleeves and getting back into it.

This is the part where we talk about her personality on the show and blahblahblah. Nothing against her, but except for a minor and highly edited storyline about a rivalry with Uli, there's nothing to talk about, so let's jump in.


Let's start off by admitting one thing: Sweet P has an aesthetic; a sort of shabby romanticism of faded flowers and hippy chick girliness coupled with an ever-so-slight L.A. edge to it. It's not our thing at all but it's a perfectly commendable aesthetic and you can do a lot of interesting things with it. We're going to try and bear that in mind in our critiques. It's only fair to admit upfront when something's just not your thing.

This was a pretty nice dress. Somewhat plain, and we don't like the color, but cute nonetheless.

Our main criticism is the fit on this garment. Generally speaking, Sweet P shies away from fitted garments. That's fine, but this is clearly a dress that's meant to fit the wearer a little better than this. Admit it, if your girlfriend came out of the dressing room looking like this, you'd say, "Let's go down a size and see how that looks."

Still, a good first entry and one that made us and the judges sit up a little bit because it was different from what we'd expected.

Okay, here's what we're talking about. That faded, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, rocker chick thing she does. Definitely not our thing but if you're going for that, this is a very good design.

Again, it's very away from the body and floaty, but with this dress, it makes sense because she clearly wasn't going for a fitted or tailored look like the previous dress.

It's also not a color that we particularly like but if you like that sort of thing, if you're one of those airy, poetry-writing, flowers-in-your-hair, boyfriend-rides-a-motorcycle types, then this is the dress for you.

A pretty dress, no doubt. Main criticism: technical. Look at that side seam. You can hide that kind of sewing with a lot of frayed ruffles but you can't hide it in a basic seam.

We should add that we DO like those frayed ruffles as well as the frayed and ripped fabric roses. A nice touch.

This look got a lot of criticism in the comments section but honestly? We have no problem with it.

Except for the fact that it doesn't hide that it was made from unconventional materials and therefore could never "pass" as "real" clothing, it's still a kind of cute, kind of witty design for her.

A costume? Sure. But a cute, well-made one. There were certainly entries a lot worse than this one in this category, including the one from the winning designer.

The silhouette, the colors and the flowers all tied it in nicely to the rest of the collection.

If you read our previous posts on the show, then you know we felt this collection received higher scores than we felt it merited. The three previous looks deserved whatever praise the judges wanted to heap on them, but we were totally befuddled when the judges all praised this look.

It's not awful, mind you (at least this part of the dress isn't); it's just so incredibly basic and style-less. Plain Jane. And regular readers know how little we like big floppy bows as embellishments for grown women.

It's a pretty fabric, even if we don't like the color (again), but it doesn't remotely look like a red carpet dress, which, at the very least is supposed to look expensive.

This, at its best, looks like a home-sewn bridesmaid dress. Put her in a big floppy hat and she'd be right at home in a 1978 wedding party.

The absolute worst part of it is that awful dust ruffle on the bottom. Unfortunately, there aren't any good shots of it, so if you can't see it or remember it, trust us. It's bad.

It's really not a bad collection at all. As we said, it showed some growth and expansion on her part (as well as some improvement) while remaining totally within her aesthetic and identifiable as her work. We have no doubt that she has or could have a decent sized customer base to build a line on. We just think the judges over-praised and over-rated it. In our imaginary judging, she would have rated a solid 5th place, possibly 4th, but definitely not ahead of Uli's.

Which, come to think of it, is probably why the editors worked so hard to create an Uli/Sweet P rivalry.

[Photo: David Russell/myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]



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