Friday, September 5, 2008

Project Runway Ep. 8 "Double O Fashion" Part I

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Okay, let's just get it out of the way up front: the wrong designer was sent home, and Tim needs to take some Pamprin.

But first! Two days of adventure.

Morning at Atlas apartments, as the designers shake themselves awake and prepare for the next challenge - "real fabric," hopes Korto. Stella is trying to make coffee, and asks Terri whether she should do "one tablespoon or two," but she's holding a ladle. Terri remarks bitchily about how it's not hard to make coffee - jeez, she just asked you a question, Terri, and an important one, because there's a big huge difference between those two measurements. Stella decides she'll go strong, and ladles that shit on in there. Terri gets her b-slap when she sips her coffee and nearly falls over, pronouncing it "kick" with wide eyes. That's what you get for not answering a simple question, jerkface.

Heidi greets the designers (wearing godawful leggings), and we go through the usual want-to-switch-your-model?-no-OK-blahblah-losing-designer's-model-is-out. Then, a special guest is here to announce the challenge: it's Tim Gunn! Aww, he looks so cute up on that runway. He totters out, saying, "It's just little ol' me," and tells the designers they will be designing for a Fashion Legend.

Who ever could it be? Blayne immediately thinks of Mary-Kate Olsen. As a fashion legend. Eh? Legendary for dressing like a starving homeless person, maybe. But he then goes on to grace us with possibly the best string of consecutive words this season: "I want every challenge to involve Mary Kate. I want to marry Mary Kate. Who doesn't? Except Tim Gunn!"

I don't want to marry Mary Kate, Blayne.

They all head down to the Meatpacking District and find themselves in the office/studio of Diane von Furstenberg! She descends from a fucking palatial four-story staircase accompanied by this Love Boat-style music, like she just won Miss Universe, which she should win every year because she's so awesome. She floats to the bottom - I can't believe she doesn't wave like the Queen, she's so elegant - and shakes the designers' hands. It's almost surreal. In interview, Kenley is seriously overwhelmed and in tears over meeting DvF, in an I-haven't-slept-more-than-3-hours-in-30 kind of way.

So the designers will be creating a look to go with DvF's fall collection, which was inspired by Marlene Dietrich in A Foreign Affair. Diane tells them that the winner's look will be produced and sold exclusively to American Express cardmembers. "Thrilling!" chirps Tim, helpfully.

The designers get 15 minutes to pick fabrics from DvF's sample room to use for their creations (only ten yards total for each designer, so they don't get piggy about it). And what a sample room it is! Shelves upon shelves of bolts of amazing fabric, delicious prints - the designers are going apeshit, and Suede interviews that it's lucky Diane's not there to see all of them trashing her sample room in their rush to get what they want in the allotted time. Hey Suede - she just saw it.

Stella, who doesn't deal with bolts of fabric and has previously had trouble at Mood, is being a little whiny about not being strong/tall enough to get the fabrics she wants, but Tim is a total bitch to her! He dismissively tells her to move on to something else if she can't reach, and rolls his eyes. Tim made it clear in last weeks' Tim's Take that he thinks that Stella, well, sucks and shouldn't be there. That's fine if you think that, but you don't have to be a snot about it. She's actually sucked it up pretty well all season for someone who has never worked with bolts of fabric.

Tim finally calls time, obviously annoyed at the chaos - geez, he's a crankypants this week - and they all head back to the workroom, where they're given the usual "until midnight" to work. Each designer gets a look-book for DvF's collection. We see Leanne quietly, proudly pin her name on last week's winning garment. She interviews that while she's relieved to have immunity, she's not going to coast - she's in it to win again.

Joe notices there's lots of layering in DvF's collection, and all of the other designers think the same and design multiple pieces - except for Kenley, who's decided to make a dress. Not just a dress, but THE dress. She's picked a print that looks like someone puked on it, then someone else came along and got grossed out by it and puked on it again.

One by one, most of the designers make a bitchy insinuation about Kenley's single piece. She interviews that she'd rather spend 9 hours making one great thing, than 3 shoddy things. Hey, some people can turn out 3 amazing things in that amount of time - remember Christian? Whatever, she's focused and made up her mind, and is going with the Shanghai part of the theme.

The editors have decided that it's time to make everyone a bitch, apparently. The competitive stuff is really being played up. Joe and Blayne have the gall to rip on Terri's outfit, and Joe calls her a "one-trick-pony" because she always makes pants. Well, everyone else makes dresses, are you going to snipe at them for that? We also see Stella eating dinner with Leanne and Terri, and when they ask her what she's going to do, she's evasive. She interviews that she doesn't trust Terri and she doesn't think that what she's doing is any of Leanne's business. She doesn't like it when people ask questions and look at the other designers' things. Stella babe, these ladies are not looking to copy from you. Neither of them do the same kind of stuff you do.

The bitchitude carries over into the sewing area, and designers are interviewing about how competitive everyone is. More than once we hear the every-person-for-themselves thing. Producers: we GET it. They're all rabid and self-centered and will CUT YOU.

We get a weird silly interlude where Leanne is pretending to be a spy, and sneaks around the workroom. She's so cute. Joe looks at Kenley's dress and actually makes a barf face. Why so confident, Joe? God, I'm really starting to dislike this guy.

NEXT: The designers struggle to get their shit together. Terri: "We're so screwed!"

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