Project Runway: Miz Shoes Reviews

Wow. What a rotten episode last night was, and only partly because my boy Vinny-the-Loon got sent home. Not that he didn't deserve it, of course. I mean, if couture means hand made, I don't think they mean hand-glued. And why, oh why, oh why did he listen to the voice that told him to put a beige hopsack flower in the middle of the back?

There was plenty in the margins, as it were, to keep me amused: Laura's hand-printed sign that warned "Fleur Champs [sic] making session in progress", the scene of Vincent, buried under a pile of blankets, calling Jeffrey a fuck (high point of the night, IMO), any of the footage of Paris, although why the editors felt the need to use the same bilious green and yellow filters that they use for New York City on the City of Light, I will never know, and the mystery woman on the barge who had a huge tribal tat on her forearm.

But the challenge, to make a couture dress in two days, was patently ridiculous. The footage of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo cackling wildly about being allowed, nay ordered to make a couture dress was unnecessary and insane. Equally unnecessary was all the footage of Jeffrey trash talking all the other designers and their work.

May I interupt myself at this juncture to say how much I loathe that hack, that creature, that monstrosity? And the fact that he's being given a winner's redemption arc is making me toss my Tangerine Martinis. He doesn't deserve it!

Anyway. They get the challenge and they go shopping in a Parisian fabric store. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo buys two variations of Ronald McDonald yellow and orange and black plaid. In cotton. Uli buys a dove grey/lavender solid. Kayne buys golden brown ombre, gold foil mesh, brown velvet ribbons, gold lace. Laura buys a black wool knit and a lot of white organdy. Vinny buys gold/ivory brocade and ivory satin. Michael buys blue something, I couldn't tell what kind of fabric exactly. Silk, probably, but not a charmeuse and not anything as nubbly and stiff as a dupioni.

Another aside here: color response and psychology. Yellow is cheap. Orange is cheap. The more pure the color, the simpler it is to describe, the more it appeals to the unintellectual, lower-income masses. Think about it. McDonald's and Burger King use a lot of yellow and orange and bright, pure blue. Simple colors for the kinds of things that you buy with pocket change. Kayne and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo used yellow or variations thereof.

The more complex the color, the more words it takes to describe it, the more educated and wealthy the person that color appeals to. Ralph Lauren? Deep, blood reds, dark wine-bottle greens. The only fabric that came close to that kind of complexity was Uli's greyish-lavenderish chiffon.

Black and navy blue are power colors. Authority colors. Judges wear black robes. Police wear navy blue uniforms. Laura's maid's uniform YSL... was it YSL?? It was some old respected designer or another... rip-off was black and white. Very dramatic, I thought. I also thought it looked like couture, and was striking in its simplicity. Elegant, even. Unfortunately for all concerned, it traveled back to New York about as well as Angela's outfit traveled to Paris, which is to say, not at all well.

Blue is the most popular color in the spectrum. More people list blue as their favorite color than any other. Blue is the color of the sky, it is the color of water and it is the color of the Virgin Mary. It is calming and peaceful and nobody doesn't like it. It's the color that Michael used.

And then there is the non-color of sand and nothingness that Vincent used. Let's face it. I love(d) Vincent. I GOT Vincent. I respected Vincent... don't ask me why. But this week? He deserved to go. We got some footage of him, and some interviews from the other designers revealing that Vincent did the Daniel Franco shuffle. Bad. Very, very bad. We saw him being snarky. Not so bad, considering the jerky shit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo says or said: specifically the shit about who cares if Kayne gets sent home or hurt.

Vincent glued his dress together. 'Nuff said about that. He also had to be the smarmiest ass-kisser ever, even more so than Satan-ino licking the toes of Nicky Hilton, when he was sucking up (and is there a stronger description that I can use?) to Catherine Malandrino... and what's up with that bitch, too? I mean, she savaged Angela last week, told her she was just from another planet, and then hires her to work her (Catherine's) New York Fashion Week show? (Makes derisive French noise.) I don't get it.

So. They all make pretty unimpressive dresses. They're nice, but not great. They get their French models and they head off to a barge on the Seine for their runway/party. Somebody throws eggs at them while they are walking, and Michael's dress gets spattered. This whole thing is left unresolved. Who threw them? Why? (Oh, well, let's see: cameras, Americans, beautiful people hoofing it along the Rue? Can't imagine) Were there any repercussions?

The models walk, and walk like real models, something that Kayne proceeds to gush to the models about in another piece of footage that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Can you say obsequious?

Catherine scores the dresses, they continue their par-tay, they fly home to NYC, they re-fit the dresses for the New York models and they walk again. Richard Fucking Tyler is the guest judge, and although he is a FAB-ulous designer and all, boyfriend needs to learn how to shampoo-rinse-repeat. GAH! His hair was as greasy and stringy and nasty as the Great Satan-ino's. And how awful was this episode that I have had to invoke his name twice? Once more and he'll show up, Beetlejuice-like.

And before I do the dress-by-dress, let me say that I thought they ALL were pretty uninspired and unattractive.

Kayne's corset top has one very interesting detail: the back lacing is asymetrical. The gold mesh, with the gold lace with the beading and the brown velvet ribbon over the boning: it's all just too much. Nina Garcia invokes the dreaded "The taste level just is not there." Michael Kors loves the ombre skirt and notes that you don't even see it with all the other crap heaped on top.

You all know that I love me some excess. In fact, I think I used to have a t-shirt that said "Wretched Excess is Just About Enough". But in all honesty, Kors is right. It IS just too much of everything, except taste and restraint. There isn't a hint of either of those two things in sight.

Uli has made the Same Fucking Dress. Again. Except in one color and with beaded lace on the halter top. For some reason, this has the judges just pissing themselves over it. The oohs, the aaahs. "I don't see her wearing flip-flops with this!" coos Michael? Nina? Heidi? One of them, I don't have TIVO, and it doesn't really matter. One of them.

Vincent's dress is awful and I don't want to talk about it. Nina points out that it would have looked better backwards, and what more is there to say than that, really?

Laura's dress gets slammed for being derivative, stark, somber and looking like a French maid. The judges attacked her collar saying that it could have been more alive, and it was... in Paris. Maybe if she'd stuffed some tissue between the layers of organdy?

Michael's dress is a serious piece of architecture, and he is decidedly unhappy with the workmanship. He has (for the very first time, he confides to the camera) done ruching. A lot of ruching. An entire top worth of it, and he is not at all pleased with his own handwork. The judges point out that the sculptural lines of the top do not need the roundy parts on the top (one of them refers to these as "the bunny ears") and, in fact, when the bunny ears are folded down, the dress comes alive and probably could have won.

But it didn't. No. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo takes back to back wins and becomes (he says) the first contestant in PR history (all both seasons of it) to win a challenge when already in possession of immunity. Thankfully, there will be no further immunity. His dress is yellow plaid on plaid. He claims that his inspiration was the Statue of Liberty. I suppose I should throw Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo a bone here, and acknowledge that he knows that France gave the Statue of Liberty to America, and that makes her a French inspiration... I suppose.

I see no relationship to the SOL at all, except that she is wearing a floor-length toga, and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo has made a floor length gown... with a slit that goes so high we know what the models had for lunch. Say it with me, fans "Entirely too much tootie!" Maybe a pair of matching knickers would have been in order? There is some sort of folderol going on in the back. There are straps and strings and things hanging off. There is the slit that goes on forever. There is not much else, except the gloating and gloating and gloating of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo.

And, oh yeah, Vincent and Laura are the bottom two, and my martini glass is at the ready for throwing at the TV if it's Laura getting the auf. But it isn't. Vinny the Loon goes away, too soon for me, and not soon enough for everyone else out in TV land.

There is also the One Big Tease. A preview which shows 1) the announcement that there will be not one, but twospecial guests next week, and 2) Laura having a nervous (pregnant, hormonal) breakdown and telling Tim that she just can't design for the Olsen twins??? WTF?

The OLSEN twins? OK, so the blonde one is a "fashion icon" (bwahahahahahah) but the dark, very very anorexic one? Puh-leeze. Since when has dumpster-diving homeless person layering been chic?

Till next week, sweetiedarlings, keep your scissors sharp.