PROJECT RUNWAY: Episode 9, Double Team

POSTED: Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:25 PM

Filed Under: TV ProjRun

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Top left: Amy, Maya, Seth Aaron, Jay
Bottom left: Jonathon, Anthony, Emilio, Mila

We're left now with only eight designers — half of what we began with — and there's still no blood. No major catfights, no name-calling or hair-pulling, and no one's hand was forced through a sewing machine by an opponent. It's just been weeks of sewing, bitching and Tim Gunn.

The latest competition, in which designers were grouped into teams of two, felt like the perfect set-up for them to hate on each other. Doc Gunn told the pie-eyed babies that New York City would be the source of inspiration for this challenge. Right, because this has never been done before and it's not entirely vague and tired. What a lazy-ass assignment. Are the ProjRun writers just circle-jerking now? Are they really saying, "Well, how about we do something so totally wild? Let's make them use New York City as an inspiration! And to add an M. Night Shyamalan-sized twist, we'll make them pair off and assign each group a neighborhood. Yeah, then since each designer has their own model, we need two outfits per team. A day look and a night look! It'll be perfect!"

Pure genius, guys.

And thanks to these masterminds, we were given yet another episode that didn't end with Mila leaving the show. Very little stands between her and Bryant Park, and this makes me nervous.

Team leaders were picked from a hat and the responsibility was handed down to Anthony (who chose Maya as his partner), Amy (who picked Jonathan, duh) and Emilio (who strategically picked Seth Aaron because — shock of shocks — he's not a huge fan of Mila). This left Jay with the color blocker.

Anthony and Maya went to Chinatown for their day and night look. Inspired by paper dragons lining the shop windows, the two made a plunging neckline mini dress that was adorned with origami style diamonds crossing the body like a vine. The structure was killer, but sadly, the color palate was dull as piss. The beige origami looked like cardboard pieces. It was like the dress was decorated with those separators that are inside every case of beer. The day design was cut out sleeves on a classy jacket that was tailored to echo the pagoda shape without replicating it. This outfit also had a dark skirt that had two simple red details that lit up the entire piece.

The winners of the challenge were Emilio and pal Seth Aaron, who went to Harlem to pick up some inspiration. There they found lots of denim and boatloads of color. Naturally, Seth Aaron turned this into an over-worked (but impeccably tailored) jacket with high waisted jeans made from dark denim. Seth must have got a Scottish or Irish impression from Harlem (understandably, right?) because he decided to throw a bagpipe on the noggin of his model. For the team's night look, Emilio wanted to do old school, classy Harlem, like Billie Holiday. It didn't work. I'm thinking that Lady Day would never have worn a black, wrinkly, bomber-jacket-material gown with a gold zipper up the center. Just a guess, though. But it was these two doofuses that won the challenge. Fair enough, there wasn't anything better.

The bottom two teams were pathetic. Jay and Mila went to the East Village and came out with a mish mash of trash. Jay made eccentric grey pants that were more or less blah, and a black and red tank top that was, um, a tank top. He couldn't even do that well. It was so sloppy and ill-fitting that the model's lady lumps (that means boobs, right? I was never sure) were "floating around in there," as Heidi put it. Let's take this chance to blame Mila for Jay's mishap. Had he not been forced to work with that she-devil, he would not have been so clumsy in his sewing. The judges loved Mila's evening look. But why? I demand to know. I'm sick and tired of her getting away with this bullshit every single week. All she does is color block. And she only uses two colors. For anyone who missed last night's episode: you can already guess what her outfit looked like. Now just a pair of red tights and you've got Mila's latest masterpiece.

Perusing the streets of the Upper East Side and checking out the swanky architecture were sweetest buddies ever, Jonathan and Amy. Their adorable camaraderie made it more difficult to see Amy hit the road at the end of the episode. The two over designed and lost out in the end. Jonathan's cut-away handiwork was something to be admired, but the sheer flesh and charcoal colored dress was too fussy. The team mentioned that they wanted to make a shirt dress to represent the high end snobbery of Manhattan's ritziest neighborhood. Instead of something simple and flattering, Amy made a peachy, pleated mess. The saddest moments came with Jonathan's tearful goodbye to his friend. Then his tearful confession booth monologue about her amazing personality. Then the shots of Jonathan wiping away tears and trying to be happy.

Jonathan, you're great, but it's time to sack up. She was, after all, your competition.

Sossy

Posted 2010-03-27 09:16:59

I'm with you - getting oh-so-tired of Mila. Haven't checked your blog here for a few weeks, but I'm glad to see you've got her nailed. I want to puke each week when I see her disasters come down the runway.

Posted by Julia West @ 9:25 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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