Pop Vultures

Project Runway, S04 E05: What’s the Skinny?

Last week on Project Runway: Millions were mystified when Chris’s frumpy shoulder pads were considered a more heinous fashion crime than Ricky’s poorly fitted 80s-reject of a dress and he was sent packing. This week: The designers face the ultimate challenge when they must dress actual, non-size 0 women.

We start with – take a guess! – yes, it is the mandatory scene of designers talking sadly about the latest aufing. People love Chris! They’ll miss him! Having seen this episode already, I’m not going to get too caught up in their emotional pain.

Cut to Jack and Kevin as Jack dabs at his upper list and seems a bit concerned, as well he should, considering that he’s had two skin staph infections already. Now, I’m a ridiculous spoilerphobe and have tried to avoid any mention of whether or why Jack goes home, but even a blind monkey with access to the Internet has heard the staph rumor, so things aren’t looking too good for Jack right now, and not just because his upper lip has swollen to twice its natural size.

Ricky, the voice of sensitivity, says, “Get over it. Let’s go.” Because Ricky only cries when it’s about him.

Back on the runway, it’s model time. Sadly, no model swap drama this week, because it’s the Real Woman challenge! Specifically, the models are women that have recently lost between 45–160 lbs and are still wearing their old clothes, yards of fabric hanging off their slimmer selves. Heidi has the designers give them a round of applause, and I’m not really comfortable with that. What are they celebrating, exactly? That these women have chosen to take control of their health and have made positive decisions for their self-esteem? I’m down with that. But on a show as shallow as Project Runway, it feels a bit too much like “Let’s applaud these women! They have come one step closer to meeting society’s idealized and unrealistic standards of beauty! Now go eat a carrot.” It’s not necessarily bad, but I don’t think it’s good, either.

The challenge is to create a new outfit for the women, using their now-voluminous clothing as the material. In addition, they will have $10 to spend on additional fabric or notions. The designers are randomly assigned models, and there is only one thing worth noting. Steven gets the woman wearing this:

Yep, that’s a wedding dress. A big, lacy, beaded, polyester wedding dress, and arguably the most conservative designer on the show gets it. When faced with his challenge fate, Steven says, “It felt like death on a stick.”

Christian drama queens that he’s going to die, because this whole everyday-woman thing is so not him. I don’t think he’s being unreasonable either; we have yet to see any evidence that Christian can function in the real world with real people.

In the workroom, Tim reminds the designers that the outfits must be suitable for the client’s everyday lives, while also expressing their point of view as a designer – and using, in some cases, some fairly dire fabric choices. No pressure, though. The designers have a chance to consult with their models and it is, at first, a big love fest. Victorya interviews that because these are normal women, rather than freakish models, the rules are completely different. Yes, Victorya, now you are being asked to make something that the other 98% of the population could actually wear. Don’t hurt yourself.

Kevin, on the other hand, is excited to make clothes for real people and seems to genuinely mean it. I don’t know when it happened, but I’m starting to like Kevin.

Christian’s model doesn’t like color, skirts, dresses or anything that shows her arms. Black and jeans, that’s it. Give him hell, random woman whose name I never bothered to learn. Steven is still trying to come to terms with The Dress, which is “ten yards of white polyester satin. That’s sequined. And beaded. And covered in acetate lace.” Methinks Steven is having trouble getting into the spirit of this challenge.

The designers ransack Mood and make a few questionable shopping choices. Jillian decides that her shirt has too many seams and darts, so instead opts to buy $10 worth of fabric in a matching color. Steven, in clear defiance of the white horror, loads up on a bunch of black cotton. His plan is to design a black dress and only use the wedding dress as an accent at the collar. Tim, along with every single viewer, is dubious.

Sew-time! But before we can get into the manufactured drama, there’s some genuine, real-life drama with poor Jack. His lip has now swollen to the point where he looks like a Meg Ryan-level collagen disaster. He calls his doctor, who says he needs to come in immediately for aggressive treatment. Finally, Jack makes the long-rumored announcement: he has to leave the show. Cue waterworks all around, because everyone loves Jack (oddly enough, we do NOT see Ricky crying). Bye, Jack! Unlike most other reality TV contestants, I do actually hope to see you again.

The mood in the workroom is somber, but this is Project Runway! Keep it frivolous! Tim agrees with me and makes yet another announcement. In order to keep the high level of competition, they’re bringing Chris back. Yeah, it’s all about the high level of competition and has nothing at all to do with the number of episodes they’re contracted to produce. Screw it, though – Chris is back! The designers have a very short and enthusiastic party. Because of his late start, he will have the option of working through the night.

Time for a fitting. Kit, Rami, Kevin and Christian all have happy models, but Steven’s is not sold on the black. During Tim’s walkthrough, we also see the potential disaster that is Elisa’s outfit, a complicated mess of layers of fabric. Cause the one thing that a woman who’s lost a lot of weight wants to do is cover her body in drapes of fabric. Oy.

Tim makes the wise suggestion that Chris make all his decisions now, rather than at 3:00am, as Tim has made “more bad decisions at 3:00 in the morning” than he can say. Oh, Tim, haven’t we all. The designers immediately guffaw and demand names. Bless his fabulous heart, Tim says he’s “an old fart” because his “brain didn’t even go” to the naughtier ways that could be interpreted. Don’t worry, Tim. The designers and viewers have their minds in the gutter for you.

While everyone else scurries to finish by the end of the day, Christian is packing up his gear and gloating about being done. Sweet P wants to know if it’s okay to kill a 12-year-old. In this case, I think it would be considered justifiable homicide. Christian proves my point by declaring, “Some people just know I’m way better than them.” Seriously, what jury would convict?

The next day. Chris managed to steal a few hour’s sleep after working all night. That exhaustion is only relevant so far as it goes to explain his outfit. I love ya, Chris, and I’m ready to blame this week on sleep dep, but you really need to get it together, dude. Christian must comment on Chris’s and the other’s outfits, calling them “hideous” but acknowledging that “the judges might die over it. Or they might die because of it.” This is the exact thing he said last week, and it could certainly be sloppy editing, but I choose to believe that Christian is a tiny gay robot who is programmed to say the same 50 things over and over. “Fierce,” says the robot if you pull his hair. “Fabulous,” it pronounces, when faced with the new Vivienne Westwood line. Once we find a way to short-circuit his motherboard, we’ll all be safe.

Model mayhem. Ricky must fight back tears when his model looks so amazing. For real.

Steven is running so far behind that he’s forced to resort to gluing his hem. Sadly, it’s unclear exactly what he was doing that took so much of his time, cause it surely couldn’t have been the construction of his dress.

Runway time!

Sweet P did a fairly cute halter dress. Considering that she was working with an army-green polyester, I’d say she did just fine, though the construction isn’t as refined as Jillian’s:

Yep, it’s another halter dress. Now, I do love me a good halter dress, but I would expect a bit more variety on a show that’s meant to showcase the next big fashion mind. Also, see the black piping on the dress? No, really. You may need to squint. That’s all that was used from the original outfit. Jillian didn’t exactly stick to the spirit of this challenge, although the construction is excellent.

Okay, the top is cute, absolutely. I think it’s probably the best thing Ricky’s done so far. The capri pants feel a bit 2001, but even that I can forgive. What I cannot forgive is squishing this woman into pants so tight that I cross my legs in sympathy.

Chris, I do love you, but I have no idea what you were thinking here. The top is cute. The skirt is fine. The red bow is foul. Let’s chalk this one up to stress and lack of sleep and check back with you next week, okay?

Oh, it kills me to say this, but Christian’s outfit was hot. Possibly even fierce. The model looked good in her fitted jeans, and the top is fabulous. The silhouette looks a bit like his jacket from the first challenge, but the overall look is too strong to split hairs. Damn you, little gay robot! Damn you!

Meh. I have absolutely nothing interesting to say about this outfit. Victorya continues her freefall in my estimation. The color is nice, but she had nothing to do with that and the design is…a dress. Woo hoo.

I think “Huh?” is the only proper response to Elisa’s outfit. The skirt, which is hard to see in this capture, is approximately three different layers that are all bunched up in the back. It’s like Elisa decided that if one dress was good, three would be great! Fortunately, Elisa is here to explain it to us: “I like working with layers, and I like the layer that underneath this new body she also has an increased sexuality.” Well, now it all makes sense. (You didn’t think we were going to get out of this episode without at least one example of Elisa-speak, did you?)

It’s cute, though I’m also pretty sure I could pick one of these up at Macy’s. I’ve got Kit as my Dark Horse for the final three, but this ain’t gonna be the sort of thing that gets her there.

Okay, it’s the dreaded leggings, but the top is kicky and sexy and the model clearly loves it. Kevin is actually showing some signs of having talent. More to the point, he seems to understand how to design for a woman’s body, which makes him a far more interesting designer in my eyes.

The horror. I mean…no, I mean the horror. Steven has already shown evidence of being a somewhat limited designer, but the minute he was asked to step out of his comfort zone, he created this…thing. My grandmother would have dismissed it as being too dowdy. If this episode has aired when I was writing The 5 Worst Project Runway Designs, it would have been a serious contender.

Rami is just Mr. Reliable, isn’t he? It may not be the most exciting, but it’s always well-tailored and the taste level is consistently high. At this point, he seems a shoe-in for the final three.

Christian, Kevin and Jillian are in the top three, while Elisa, Steven and Chris are in the bottom. No surprises there, though I’d replace Jillian with Rami due to her liberal reinterpretation of the brief. The judges interrogate them, with this week’s theme being “French stereotypes.” Steven is accused of sending a French maid to a funeral and Chris has apparently referenced the well-known 50s French prostitute cliché. I would imagine a 50s French prostitute would be considerably hotter, but that’s just me.

Christian is deemed the winner and GOD HELP ME it was the right decision. Just don’t do it again, you little mutant. And the loser? Yeah, it had to be Steven. I will miss his dry wit, but that dress was a crime against fashion and, more to the point, he showed no signs of inspiration or originality. This was a well-deserved kiss-auf.

Next episode: The designers go on a field trip to someplace in New York and are all very excited about what they find there.