Project Runway: We've Got You Covered

Welcome to what’s probably the BIGGEST PROJECT RUNWAY RECAP we’ve ever had about this show.

The challenge last night was to create a garment for a super-secret celebrity (that the designers see almost every day) to wear on the cover of the April issue of Marie Claire magazine. Now that we’ve got that out of the way we can move on to the BIGGEST FINAL SENTENCE IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH OF A PROJECT RUNWAY RECAP ever.

If you’re annoyed by all the hyperbole, well that’s exactly how I felt having Heidi, Tim and Co. repeatedly jam this week’s challenge down our throat after inflating it with a false sense of (self) importance.

I get that it’s a big deal for a designer to have his or her work worn by a major celeb like Heidi and displayed on the cover of a major magazine, but overselling the “hugeness” of this challenge made me much less likely to buy it. To be honest, I thought last year’s Christina Aguilera/Bob Mackie, for example, was cooler and more inspiring for the designers.

Nevertheless, the designers got to work and it really must’ve been an important challenge because everyone was all business this week. So little happened in the workroom that the producers were left with no choice but to cobble a segment together about how quiet it was. Well, it was completely quiet except for Seth Aaron annoying prancing around the workroom to show what a jackass he was. The producers didn’t even need to show that footage this week — we already know Seth Aaron is a jackass.

Despite the fact that Marie Claire editrix/guest judge Joanna Coles (Helen Mirren could play her if they ever make a “Devil Wears Prada” type movie about Marie Claire) gave the designers VERY clear guidelines about the challenge (bright colors, focus more on the tap half of the garment because that’s what will jump out in a magazine cover), an astonishing amount of designers missed the mark.

Since I don’t really want to be done picking on Seth Aaron, I have to ask — what was he thinking with that hella tight suit. In what dimension would Heidi ever wear that (unless it was required by her job)? In contrast Jay Nicolas’ flowy dress was beautiful, but most of his lovely train would never EVER be seen by magazine subscribers, so what was the point?

The top 3 was comprised of Emilio, Anthony and Ben who, not coincidentally, had the brightest garments on the runway.

Emilio made a short, tight, little red number, but the highlight was when he whipped out a pair of scissors and cut the straps (that Tim had shown reservations about) right there on the runway. Still, no one did more with color than Ben (representing Tampa!) did with his design. I can understand how his color palette may not be to everyone’s taste, but I thought it was fantastic and it was my personal favorite. More importantly, Ben finally did something notable in this season of “Project Runway.”

The win ended up going to Anthony. I wasn’t too impressed at first with his bright turquoise gown, but the judges (and I, ultimately) ended up appreciating the winning combination of color and texture. I’ll be interested to see if Anthony continues to improve and becomes a legitimate threat to win this thing, seeing as how he’s far and away this season’s best quip machine.

Not surprisingly, the bottom 3 featured the dreariest creations (color-wise) on the runway.

Mila had an especially bad week overall. At the start of the episode she’d complained about how nobody congratulated her following her top 2 performance. (I didn’t realize that was really something that required kudos.) I don’t think Mila is a bad person – it’s probably more a combination of professional jealousy (she’d been kicking ass up to that point) and the fact that she can be a little off-putting. On top of that, Mila must’ve done something to piss off an editor because we were shown comments by Jay Nicolas and Emilio trashing Mila. (Though, to be fair, Emilio trashes everyone all the time.)

To top off Mila’s hellacious week, she sent down a dress that really was the color of used Band-aids and featured arrows pointing to her model’s crotch. One of my favorite things about this season has been the consistent presence of Michael and Nina. If this had been last season (with it’s awful lack of judging continuity) Mila would’ve been in REAL trouble.

As it was the bottom two came down to Janeane (woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown) and Anne Marie (making her second straight trip to the bottom two).

It’s not so much that Janeane’s dress was ugly – it’s more that her bridal-style gown was COMPLETELY wrong for Heidi. (I mean, had she met Heidi before?!) As a result, the judges had no choice, in my opinion, than to send Anne Marie home.

Sure, she gets credit for creating separates and for somehow salvaging those tragic shorts, but her ill-conceived outfit was both totally off the mark and uninspired. I mean the shirt-vest-shorts combo seemed like something Mayim Bialik may have worn as “Blossom.” Nina described it perfectly – it was DREADFUL. (It actually kind of reminded me of something last season’s Logan would’ve designed.)

So what’d you think of this episode? Are you surprised no one designed a truly boobalicious look given Heidi’s affinity for cleavage? Finally, what did we do to make Tim stop telling the designers to use the Bluefly.com Accessory Wall “thoughtfully”?