Pop Vultures

Project Runway S05 E02: Grass Is Always Greener

Last week on Project Runway, Jerry explored the possibility of serial killer chic and was the first one sent packing. This week, the designers must create environmentally responsible dresses for their model clients, and it turns out models really like the color brown.

We begin the episode as every PR episode begins, with the roommate of the aufed designer explaining how they just realized it’s a competition. I’m not sure where these contestants think they’re going when they sign up for the show – do they expect a carefree vacation in Disneyland where they might happen to make a new outfit for Mickey Mouse? In this instance, it’s Suede, expressing his shock but also talking about himself in the third person. In fact, this one interview clip summarizes all my conflicting feelings about Suede. On the one hand, he says that “any decision that’s not Suede going home is the right decision,” but then sweetly adds that he “totally didn’t expect” Jerry to leave. Oh, Suede. Stop naming yourself after fabric and just be the sweet, slightly goofy guy you clearly are. We’d get along so much better.

In the women’s apartment, Stella is rightly surprised to still be there, though she is also realizing that she’s in a competition. Kelli interviews that she expected to win the last challenge, which of course she did. Well-earned confidence or obnoxious hubris? Time will tell. As the men head to Parsons, we get a shot of the chalkboard, which proudly proclaims, “Teamlicious!” Please make it stop. This cannot be the catchphrase of the season.

On the runway, the designers get to choose their models for the first time. At this point we don’t know anything about them other than they’re all tall, slim and pretty, so this isn’t particularly interesting, other than Jerell’s comment when Jennifer snatches up his model: “I am salty!” I’m not sure what that means, but I plan to use it several times today. In case you were wondering, this is what salty looks like:

Heidi informs them that this challenge will involve designing a cocktail dress for their model/client. Tim will tell them the catch, er, details in the workroom.

The first catch is that the dresses must be made of organic fabric, because for one episode in five seasons the show has decided to go green rather than support the environmental horrors of the fashion industry. For every other episode, the earth is on its own. The designers are very happy about this. The second catch is that the models get to shop for the fabric – on their own. The designers are considerably less happy about this. They joke that their models better have good taste and pick nice fabric, but the twitching eyelids and compulsive lip-biting suggest they might not find it very funny. The models are given a budget of $75 and whisked off to Mood without time to consult with the designers.

At Mood, the models all cram into the one aisle that sells organic fabrics. Bless their model hearts, some of them don’t know how much a yard is, let alone which fabrics will work best. They are all drawn to the shiny fabrics – satins and silks – and hey, who doesn’t love a nice shiny thing? The fact that there is no fabric in the world as unforgiving as satin shouldn’t stop them. Keith’s model grabs some peacock feathers and looks at matching fabric, and the rest appear to buy shiny fabric in shades of cream or brown. Apparently, earth tones are big this season.

When the models return with their booty, the designers all pounce on the bags. Kenley immediately dismisses the hot pink jersey chosen by her model, and while I see her point that jersey may not be a typical fabric for a cocktail dress, her instant rejection of the fabric worries me a little. It would be nice to see her consider alternatives, at least. Keith is not impressed by the feathers, and Wesley does not care a bit for his model’s bronze and sea green color combination. The green gets chucked to the side immediately. Suede’s model brought him the same champagne colored silk/hemp blend that so many have, along with some red jersey. He does use the jersey, and uses it well, which rather proves my point. Thanks, Suede! Now go shave that blue fauxhawk.

Stella has a hippy model who wants something drapy, which is not exactly Stella’s strength. She interviews that she is confused and uncertain, which so far seems to be her normal state of mind.

As the designers get to work, they chat about their fear of the judges. Blayne calls Heidi Darth Vader. At first I assume this is further proof of his insanity, but he explains that “on the outside, she’s all shiny and all put together, but on the inside, she’s cuh-razy.” No, wait, he’s still insane.

Stella is still complaining about having to do something flowy and drapy, claiming that she’s never done it before and it will look half-assed. Considering her work in the previous challenge, I’d say she has a point.

With eight hours till the end of the day, Suede starts cutting a bunch of strips to sew onto his bodice. This is not the important part. The important part is that he does so while constantly talking about himself in the third person. Aloud. To other people. The other designers comment on it, but are sadly too nice about it to inspire any real shame and cause him to stop.

Leanne, Joe and Wesley all have the same fabric. Leanne’s plan is to stand out by making new shapes to add to her dress. When she says this, I’m at first hoping to see some sort of brand-new geometry, a 3-D rhombo-tetrazoid, perhaps. Apparently, she just means that she’s going to cut out pieces of fabric and hang them randomly about the dress.

Korto is worried because she thinks Wesley’s pleating looks too much like her pleating, and asks Stella if she’s being paranoid. Well, considering that Wesley’s is shaping up to be a hot mess and Korto’s looks inside out, I’d say they’re both off-track, though in completely different ways. Stella agrees with me and informs her that she is being paranoid, but leaves out the bit where the dress rather sucks.

During Tim’s walkaround, he asks Korto about the darts, and assures her that if it’s done right, no one will see the darts. She informs him that he’s looking at the outside of the dress. His drawn-out, “Oh!” is the exact same sound of a man who just asked an overweight woman if she was pregnant. He tries to cover by telling her that everything needs to be perfection, but it’s fairly clear he’s not convinced. She does not look happy.

He is intrigued by Suede’s dress, despite the fact that it currently looks like a candy-striper’s uniform after a week-long bender, and is worried about the fit of Wesley’s. He needs Leanne to explain exactly what the parts of her dress are – he can’t find the armhole on the first try – and she tells him that she’s going to add more “floopy things” to the back. This causes me to make up a new and entirely arbitrary rule: if you must give something a nonsensical name, it doesn’t belong on the garment, okay? Tim tells her to edit, but she doesn’t want to, claiming to have “so many ideas.” Yes, Leanne, but you don’t need to put them all on one dress. Never ignore The Gunn!

Before leaving, Tim announces that the winner’s dress would be manufactured and sold on Bluefly.com. Considering that is a fairly big prize for an unknown designer, it would have been nice if they had chosen their own fabrics, but I’m sure there will be plenty of other chances for them to provide opportunities to the designers AND blatantly promote gigantic corporations. He also tells them that one of Hollywood’s glamorous young stars will be the guest judge.

At the end of the evening, Stella is complaining (I might need to do a macro for that sentence) about how much she dislikes the fabric and wants to stick with using leather. “I want to just sew leather. Burn it up, dye it up…stud it, spike it.” And then Blayne, of all people, cracks me up when he says, in a really terrible New York accent, “My husband’s leather. All my kids came out of me, leather, they’re all made of leather.” Stella hears him and calls him over, telling him to wear his diaper and to remove the leather from his teeth. He hugs her and says, “I love you, leather face.” They’re both laughing through this entire sequence and it’s the sort of loopy, friendly banter that we don’t usually see till halfway through the season. I love the way no one seems to hate each other yet. In fact, after that scene, even I can’t hate Blayne.

The next day, everyone rushes around, madly trying to finish their garments. Daniel’s, in particular, is still in pieces. Despite how much the show tries to build tension with the whole, “Will they finish in time?” edit, everyone does with no drama, so it really doesn’t matter.

The models arrive, and once more Kenley did not leave enough room for her model’s boobs. If she keeps this up, her model’s going to be topless by mid-season. Stella’s model is happy with the non-Grecian result, and even says so in interview. It’s remarkable how much they let the models speak in this episode.

Runway time! Before the show can start, Heidi introduces their glamorous Hollywood judge:

Natalie Portman, who actually is a bonafide, glamorous Hollywood sort. Well done, PR. She is also apparently a pixie.

Showtime!

Keith’s dress is up first, and I can’t say I like it. At all. The skirt looks like a window treatment – a poofy window treatment, at that - and the bodice somehow makes the model’s boobs disappear. Trust me, Keith – very few woman look for that in a dress. Perhaps he should have gone with the peacock feathers, after all.

Terri has a nice, clean aesthetic. The outfit is smart and carefully edited, with the smooth skirt balancing out the ruffled collar. Still, that’s two weeks in a row she’s given us a straight skirt with a more detailed top, and I hope she mixes it up soon.

Wesley says, as his dress walks down the runway, that he likes his dress, “but there were just things, like the fit, that I wish I could have worked out.” Yes, little details like the way the dress fits do matter, and this dress really, really didn’t fit. Anywhere on the model’s body. I don’t think it’s supposed to look as if she wore it for a morning walk of shame after it had been lying in a crumpled heap all night. Plus, it’s way too tight and short. She looks like an aspiring high class call girl who makes all her own clothes in an effort to get her foot in the door of a competitive business.

Jerell, Jerell. I want to like you. I do. So would you mind making a dress I can look at without scratching my head? Here, you have the separated breast thing that I hate, patterned fabric on the hips - just to make sure the eye is drawn to the widest part on a woman’s body - and, yet again, some muppet fur as fringe. This does not look good.

Now this, I like, even though there are only seventeen women in the entire world who can wear orange well. It’s pretty without being sweet – a vast improvement from Jennifer’s dress last week – and extremely flattering to a range of body types. Of all this week’s dresses, this is the one I’d wear, though not in orange. Never in orange.

Daniel is definitely gunning for top 5. I’m not sure if he’s original enough to make it to Bryant Park, but two weeks in a row he has produced a clean piece with just enough detailing to keep it interesting. He clearly knows how to edit himself, and sometimes that’s enough on this show to keep the judges happy. In the end, this is nothing more than a nice little black dress, but sometimes that’s all you need.

Joe is the only one that managed to use the bronze fabric well, thereby proving that it can be done and the other two messed up all on their own. The dress is perfectly wearable (if you have a BMI of 18 or below, that is) and looks sleek, though I can’t say that the silhouette is particularly new. Also, I kind of hate the cut-out in the bodice. Kind of a lot. The rest is fine, though.

Improbably, Suede’s dress actually works. It shouldn’t, really. It’s a series of cut-up strips of fabric for the bodice, and the skirt involves tulle. TULLE. And yet, somehow, it comes together, without evoking thoughts of a mad candy-striper/ballerina. No one over 25 should wear it, perhaps, but I still like it. Damn you, Suede. You’re going to stick around and torment me with my conflicting reaction to you for several weeks to come, aren’t you?

What is it with the ruffled collars this season? Would you ever wear one? Would anyone? Sure, they look good on the runway, but I don’t ever want to be able to scratch my nose with my dress. Still, Kenley’s outfit does look good on the runway, and that’s the important thing here, though I will be far happier if clown-chic does not become a running theme for the next twelve episodes.

Kelli falls a long way from last week’s victory. It’s too tight, the color is too washed-out and the shoulders and collar are just too damn weird. Plus, multi-colored boobs. I like the ties on the back - long, gold and braided -but on the whole it looks like an outfit constructed by Wesley’s call girl during her experimental phase.

Leanne’s dress came out exactly as expected, overdone with various floopy things. Perhaps there really is no other word to describe them. The frustrating thing is that there’s a good outfit in here somewhere. If she’d limited the odd touches to just the shoulders and armholes, this could have been a very interesting piece. She’s got another week to learn to self-edit before I write her off, but I don’t think she’s going to be long for his show. Then again, I said the same thing about Angela once. My favorite part is when they cut to show Leanne’s reaction and accidentally get Emily’s at the same time. What we have here is a prime example of the “WTF?” face.

Yes, quite.

Stella gets the most improved award this week, although I’m not a fan of asymmetrical design. Most people actually want to look as if the two sides of their bodies match each other, after all. However, she did a good job of combining her own design sensibility into the challenge, using unobtrusive lacing on the sides, and the dress fits quite well. Far better than the trash bags, at the very least.

Competing for most improved is Blayne, who turns out a relatively simple dress with a nice, dramatic top. I do have to take points away for the color combo. The black on the sides reminds me of nothing so much as the Lycra bike shorts people actually wore as daily clothing during the late 80s/early 90s, and that is a period of fashion that should not just be buried, but drawn, quartered, and burned on a funeral pyre, with the ashes buried somewhere beneath the ocean. Though, to be fair, Blayne is about 12 and far too young to remember those dark days.

Unfortunately, Emily inspired me to do my own WTF face with this dress. The top is cut far too low, and seems to actually drag her model’s boobs down to her waist. The skirt is cut so high you could be asked to change into it when seeing an upscale gynecolgist. The detailing is nice, though, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that her model was one of those who had difficulty knowing what a yard was.

I don’t like Korto’s at all, and for more than just the visible seams, which are bad enough. No one wants to have to explain all night that no, they did not get dressed in the dark and/or a drunken stupor. Also, the fins at the side are inexcusable. It’s a dress, not a 50s model Cadillac. No one needs big old arrows pointing at their hips, saying, “Look here!”

In the end, Stella, Kenley, Suede, Korto, Leanne, and Wesley are all left on the runway. They like the first three, calling Kenley’s chic, Stella’s flattering and Suede’s unique. The latter three don’t fare quite so well. Nina correctly says, of Wesley’s design, that “shiny, tight and short is the quickest way to look cheap.” They call Korto on the fins and say that Leanne made “five dresses in one.”

After the judge’s chat, Stella is in. Suede wins, which I completely agree with, based on its originality and construction. He says his mother will be proud and tells her in interview that he loves her, and I like him again. Kenley is in. Korto is in. Leanne is in, with a stern warning to edit her work. That means Wesley is out, as he should be, though I fear the vast amount of search traffic I’ve had over the last week for “Wesley Project Runway” will be rather disappointed with the decision. He gets the second kiss-auf of the season.

He interviews that he is proud to have even made it on the show, considering how young he is, and leaves with his dignity mostly intact.

Next week: it’s another field trip, this one involving rain ponchos, some sort of cell phone and Keith acting like an ass. I knew someone would step up eventually.