TV Recap: Project Runway - Trendsetter

Last Week: The designers dressed Tiki Barber. Carmen called Ricky a bitch and got auf’d.

We open with Chris and Rami hanging out in the apartment. Chris suggests that Project Runway should have a perfume. Rami says it would smell like “sweat, tears and…” “Chinese food” Chris helpfully finishes. Guys, that’s just the smell of New York in general. Unless you’re in Midtown, that is. In that case, replace “Chinese food” with “unidentified meat on a stick that may or may not be pigeon.”

The designers go down to meet Heidi for the pointless model exchange. Since last week’s episode featured male models, we have models from two losing designers who are about to have their dreams crushed. As last week’s winner, Jack gets to choose his model. He poaches Ricky’s, so Ricky ends up with Jack’s, and the two losing models go home.

Challenge:

In the design room, Tim has a not-so-special guest: Nina Garcia. She has twelve photos of fugly trends that have graced the pages of Elle over the years. This week’s challenge is to take these trends and update them into “fashion do’s.” Each of the designers chooses a trend and then Tim tells them that they’ll be working in groups of three. The groups are to blend their three trends into a cohesive collection. There’s no drama as the designers choose their teams, proving my point that this season’s competitors are just too damn nice. I want to see some hair-pulling!

The teams are as follows: Kit, Christian and Jack; Jillian, Rami and Kevin; Ricky, Victorya and Elisa; and Chris, Steve, and Sweet P. Tim gives them $250 and two days to complete their collection and they’re off to Mood.

Workroom:

Here’s one of my favorite things: Jillian is wearing hideous overalls, which happens to be one of the bygone trends that they’re working with. Their other trends are 70s flair and poodle skirts. Ricky’s team has all of the trashy trends: Neon, cutouts and underwear as outerwear. Chris’ team gets two easy ones: baggy sweaters and dance wear along with the dreaded shoulder pads. Christian’s trends are appropriately insane: zoot suits, pleather and fringe.

Although the designs that Ricky and his team are coming up with look kind of ugly, he’s doing a great job as team leader, because he’s accomplishing two things I don’t think I could: he’s reigning in Elisa and not smacking Victorya. Ricky interviews that he was a dancer, and as a modern dancer he constantly had to deal with instructors who were “high on pot,” and that you really had to just speak to them in their language, and that dealing with Elisa is no different. He tells her that she needs to “feel the crease” and “find her center.” She seems to be helped greatly by this advice. Meanwhile, Victorya is busy undermining every decision he makes. She seems to spend most of her time worrying about other people’s designs and decides to change her own design without consulting Ricky, her team leader. All of these actions may be justified, but it doesn’t make her any less annoying.

Jillian spends a lot of time worrying over Kevin’s shorts and hovering over him to make sure he’s doing his work. She’s kind of overbearing and Kevin is way nicer about it than I would have been. To his credit, Rami just kind of hangs out and works on his own dress the entire time.

Christian’s team is just kind of chugging along with their designs. There are no arguments and they seem to be finishing everything really quickly. From what I can see, their outfits are actually pretty cute, which surprises me.

Chris’ team is using a lot of camel-colored fabric. I like it, but there’s a lot. Sweet P’s dress looks like it’s going to be cute, Steve is making some sort of wrap-shirt thing, and Chris’ dress is gorgeous, but he’s also taking on the burden of shoulder pads and appears to be constructing a jacket out of papier-mâché, which leads me to…

My favorite moment:

I told you guys last week that Steve was going to be featured in this part of the recap a lot—and here he is again. As Chris is constructing what is sure to be a hideous jacket, Steve ambles over and asks what he’s doing. When Chris says that he’s making a jacket, Steve’s deadpan delivery of “Sweet, merciful crap” is priceless. He immediately follows it up with a Chris impression in the interview room: “Girl, this jacket’s gonna be hot. Don’t worry about it.” Steve is clearly not on board with the jacket.

Runner up: Kevin’s assertion that he’s “gotta pull a magic rabbit out of my ass to make it work.” Not just any rabbit mind you…a magical one.

Runway:

Donna Karan is the special guest judge this week.

Team Jillian:

They start with her design: it’s heinous grey, high-waisted, pleated overalls with a sheer shirt. She manages to work the other two trends in by flaring the legs of the overalls and making kind of a poodle collar instead of a poodle skirt.

Kevin pairs his crazy high-waisted shorts with a sleeveless floral shirt, the collar of which looks like it is attacking the model, who has about thirty seconds before it squeezes the life right out of her and continues upward, feasting upon the dead flesh of her once beautiful face.

Rami’s dress is the only thing I kind of like. It’s the same grey fabric with a full skirt and floral piping made from the same fabric as Kevin’s shirt. The straps are kind of overall-ish, but the dress has more of a milkmaid flair than a 70s one.

Team Chris:

This was the only team in which each outfit in the collection took on a trend, instead of combining them. Chris’ long, gorgeous camel-colored dress comes out, but is unfortunately being taken over by his grandmother’s sofa.

Sweet P took the baggy sweater trend and made an adorable belted bubble dress out of the same camel fabric and paired it with a black sleeveless turtleneck.

Steve had dancewear, so that automatically means the dreaded leggings. He made a gold wrap shirt to go over it. This outfit looks way different than the other two.

Team Christian:

Since the team worked so well together, I’m not entire clear on who designed what. In any case, the first outfit, which is probably Christian’s, is a gorgeous black jacket with pinstripe pencil skirt and silver shirt. The outfit itself is a little over-the-top, but the individual pieces are very nice. It’s also surprisingly sedate for something that involves pleather and fringe.

The next outfit, which I’m pretty sure was designed by Kit, is a grey striped parachute dress over leggings. It’s nice, but kind of boring. I feel like I could go to the mall and buy something similar right now.

The third design, which I’m guessing is Jack’s, is a black and white print dress with a striped vest.

Team Ricky:

Yikes. Ricky’s design comes out first. It’s a fuchsia skirt with a gold, fuchsia and blue block top. It’s satin, which is crazy because you can’t even look at that fabric without it turning into a wrinkled mess.

Elisa’s dress comes out. It’s a pretty cute black one strap dress with multicolored cut outs at the top. It is super short.

Victorya’s dress is a boring bustier with red and grey color blocks and a grey skirt that seems a little bit flowy. I picture bustiers more with pencil skirts, I guess.

Judging:

Heidi says that they’re going to be doing things a little differently. There’s a clear winner, so they’re just going to announce it and it’s Team Jillian. Blah. I liked Christian’s the best, but I do have quite the aversion to both high-waisted garments and pleats. Christian’s team came in second, so they can leave the runway.

Ricky and Chris’ teams had the lowest scores. The judges don’t feel as though Chris’ team is cohesive. They love Sweet P’s dress, but they still think Chris’ outfit looks dated and not only does Steve’s outfit not go with the other two, but it doesn’t even seem like it comes from a dancewear trend.

Nina likes Ricky’s concept, but the product is poorly constructed. Donna Karen likes Elisa’s dress and thinks the fit on Victorya’s garment is excellent. Victorya amazingly gives Ricky his due credit for fixing the fit right before runway and teaching her the important lesson that smashing the model’s boobs isn’t a polished look. Nina, however, thinks Ricky’s outfit is the most poorly constructed. Elisa sticks up for him though, and says that this is probably due to all the time he spent helping her and Victorya. Heidi does that mean thing where she asks the team members who they think should be out. Victorya of course says Ricky should be out, and he thinks Victorya should go for not being a team player. Elisa says that she’ll always choose herself.

Heidi asks Chris’ team the same question. Steve wants Chris to go and Chris takes responsibility and says that he should go as well. Sweet P says Steven but only after Heidi practically threatens to kick her ass. I think Sweet P’s going to cry.

The judges come back. Sweet P, Elisa and Steve are all in. Thank God; I’m not ready to give up Steve yet. Unfortunately, Victorya is in as well. I’m more than ready to give her up. The judges say that Ricky’s choices made life harder and his look was the worst. They tell Chris that his team’s collection wasn’t cohesive or modern and that his look was the worst as well. Chris is out, which sucks. He was fun and I wanted to see what he could do. Ricky’s collection was ugly, although it was nice to see him doing something besides crying.

Next Week: This is the Jack episode that people have been talking about. (Potential spoilers if you follow the link).