Project Runway 7/16/08--"Let's Start From the Beginning" summary

Hello everyone! Welcome back to “Project Runway”! Did you forget it was on early? Because Bravo is mad they’re moving to Lifetime? Oh, come on, if they weren’t moving, there would be no reason to rush this season and they could wait until “Shear Genius” is over so it could have the usual time slot. (By the way, you should watch “Shear Genius” because it’s highly entertaining.) Also the long, long delay in getting the bios up, and the fact that none of the commercials have any of the designers in them, all that is being blamed on the “rushed” production schedule. There are so many theories out there. Frankly, I can’t bring myself to care about any of them. It’s not like I was going to refuse to watch this season or something. But I must admit to not being very excited about it. (click for more)

No musical intro? Jerell Scott, 28, started modeling and in order to afford cool clothes he started making them. Very cocky. Cute though. Blayne Walsh, 23. Oh, get a haircut. He’s a barista. Actually, he works at a coffee shop but does not say he’s a barista so he’s not even that. And he’s obsessed with tanning. Maybe he’ll be a stoner. Joe Faris, 41. He does not get to talk. Stella Zotis, 42. She seems to be like Jeffery, making clothes for rockers. She wants to step out of leather and denim, as she enters the apartments in her striped tights. Jennifer Diederich, who seems to live in Italy. She describes her style as “Holly Golightly in a Salvador Dali exhibit.” If you don’t know who Holly Golightly is, she is Audrey Hepburn’s character in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and she’s a prostitute. Her clothes do look cute though. Kelly Martin, 27, thinks she’s Vivienne Westwood crossed with Betsey Johnson. Another rocker chick. In Columbus Ohio. Terri Stevens, 39. Does not get to talk. Jerry Tam, 32, has his own company. All his clothes in his store are black. Some guy in ANOTHER FAUXHAWK… “Suede”? Really? That’s the name you want to be known by? At 37 years old? Suede has a fauxhawk, but to his credit, the sides seem really short. But then he loses his points by coloring the hawk part blue. If you’re going to do that, just go all out. Oh GOD and he talks about himself in the third person. I hate him already. Keith Bryce, 26. He doesn’t say much but I don’t mind at all since he’s pretty cute. (Kmanpat: “He should just stand there and look pretty.”) Korto Momolu, 33, who is originally from Liberia. Is she another Zulema? It’s hard to say. Leanne Marshall, 27. I like her clothes, lots of pleats and details, and she thinks she’s “the silent fashion assassin”. Emily Brandle, 27. Daniel Feld, 25. Another Daniel. Wesley Nault, 23. Ooohhhhhh. He is tasty. (Kmanpat: *drool*) Joe gets to talk now, and has daughters, and appears to be the token straight male. Everyone gets notes that they magically didn’t notice until now, and they’re off to the roof.

Heidi and Tim are waiting up on the roof, to welcome everyone and tell us things we already know. Tim calls them the most “diverse” group ever, but not the most “talented”. Heidi asks if Tim thinks they’re ready for the first challenge, and they’re all like, bring it on! But she says, just kidding losers! Now is party time! Everyone is secretly relieved. Tim pops open the champagne and the cork goes off the roof. Hee. Emily schmoozes with Tim. Terri says she’s really fast and that will get her far. Keith kisses Heidi’s ass a lot. No, really. He says that when he designs he asks himself if Heidi would wear it, and if not then it’s into the trash. I’m not talking about people’s clothes they’re showing, unless they’re really cool or really sketchy. Kenley Collins, 27. She’s rocking the retro look with really red lipstick and dark bangs. She says her aesthetic is loud. Daniel owns birds. There’s a dress where the skirt has a lot of square pieces or folds, and each one looks like a playing card. It’s subtle enough that it’s cool and not costumey.

At 4am the doorbells begin to ring. Tim gets to bother them. Hee. Now everyone is in a frenzy. One of the boys is in really short shorts. Not like, hot pants, but shorts that are like, mid-thigh. Tim takes them to Gristedes Mega Store, which supposedly is where the very first challenge ever took place, the one with the cornhusk dress. And now is the special guest: Austin Scarlett. In a hat and ascot. Girl looks fab. Everyone gets $75 and 30 minutes. Then they have until midnight to complete the look. Tim releases them and they run across the street with no concern for cars. Items chosen: shower curtains (Jerry), mop heads (Terri), bell peppers and kale (Korto), trash bags (Stella). Running. It’s Wesley that has the shorts on. (Me: “Kmanpat, don’t you have those shorts?” Kmanpat: “Yes, and I look damn hot in them, so shush.”)

Work time! Suede declares this challenge “whack a doodle”. Tim tells them on each table is a card with info about the model they’ve been assigned. Winner gets immunity. 11 hours left, make it work. Joe’s theme is Italian, which includes dried pasta and oven mitts. And tomato can labels. That doesn’t sound costumey at all. Kelli has vacuum cleaner bags, which she wants to either dye or bleach. She thinks it’ll be pretty ugly in a great way. Yeah. Daniel has plastic cups and muslin. He’s cutting the rims of the cups, then he’s melting them with an iron to mold, and then laying them over muslin. Jerell tells us that all he hears out of Blaine is words ending in “licious” and he can take that crap back home. Leanne says a lot of people have tablecloths, and it makes her nervous. I would think that you’d want to stand out. Jerry says people are using crap. I guess he’s better than that; I’m sure he’s using tablecloths. Stella’s trash bags suck, because I guess she bought the store brand. So she’s worried about that since she needs them.
Jerell thinks it would be hilarious if they had to repeat this challenge. Heh. Someone kisses fabric and pins the pieces onto their dress. I’m not sure who it was. Tim time! Blaine starts us off by introducing Tim to “Girlicious”. Lord. There’s black…and some weird woven oblong piece…not very much is done. Tim admits he’s not bored. He was going for obnoxious. I see. Tim does look disturbed. Daniel has a wow factor going on with the plastic cups, but so far he‘s barely got enough for a bikini top. Kelli’s vacuum cleaner bags look like marbleized paper and are fabulous. Stella complains about her garbage bags. Tim says the judges don’t want to see that anyway. Suede has a simple shift dress made of a tablecloth, and “doggie bags”. Tim asks if the belt is correct for the dress, Suede worries that without the belt it’s just a tablecloth, and Tim is like, yeah, you should worry about that. Seriously. A belt doesn’t help you that much. Korto has a yellow tablecloth, which is cut into bell sleeves and a long skirt. She wants to use the kale as jewels, which is good because she needs something. Jerry has a tablecloth and a shower curtain. It’s just shapeless and white right now. Keith has another tablecloth, which at least is in a dress with a halter top and a poofy skirt. Tim has had enough and announces to the room how disappointed he is that he’s seeing a lot of tablecloths, and they went to the grocery store so they could use untraditional and unexpected. Then he calls them all slackers. Well, technically he says that the judges will say that. Bu you know he was thinking it. After Tim leaves everyone freaks out. No one wants to lose, Jerry especially.

Leanne is going to try to cover her tablecloth with other things. Jerry was only going to do a raincoat, but now he’s decided to do a dress underneath. Best get going. Terry has braided her mop heads so it looks like a sweater. Blayne is the first one done, with his wickity-wack garment. Stella starts declaring that she’s going to make a fool of herself and be eliminated, and Jerell is like, start duct taping trash bags! She continues to tell everyone she’s getting sent home, and everyone tells her to be quiet. She thinks if she’s first out she’ll be the biggest jackass of the nation. Oh, honey. You’d have to try harder than that.

In the morning we are treated to Wesley shirtless. Ah. The girls worry about Nina but not Kors. Hee. Stella has nothing on her dress form. She’s got some kind of a plan, though. Tim sends in the models and gives them an hour. Wow, short. I was planning to try to name models, but then I remember that last season every other challenge didn’t have the models in it. I see a lot of models being sewn into things. Korto frantically attaches produce.

Runway time! Kors, Nina, and Austin get introduced. Nina is now an “editor at large”. Austin wears a suit and somehow still manages to look like a girl. Emily: very short tan dress, with a large blue collar that I think is made of balloons and the remains of one of those giant rubber balls that they always have in cages. It looks cool, actually. She’s left the trim along the edges of the tablecloth as the hem of the dress. Jerell: one shoulder fitted bodice, made of a lawn chair with trim of cocktail paper umbrellas, and a fringy skirt from a tablecloth. And a Koosh ball on the shoulder. Leanne: pink bubble hem dress, covered in candy. With coffee filters as like a lace detail. It reminds me of a dress that someone would make out of chocolate, as a gimmick. Korto: long yellow dress, which is cool, and the tomatoes and kale down one side of the neckline as an accent. It looks like a real dress. Jennifer: paper towels and lipstick. It’s strapless with a tiered skirt, and the lipstick kisses are like trim. It’s a little too cute, but in terms of construction it’s good. Daniel: it’s a plastic dress. It’s a nice silhouette but it’s plastic. Terri: her mop tops ended up looking like a knit sweater, but it’s obvious she just wrapped the tablecloth around her hips for a skirt. Suede: Oh, honey, it still looks like a table cloth. It’s coming below her knee which doesn’t help, and the dog bags are attached all over. Blah. Stella: still a trash bag, which she is calling a dress, even though it’s a long skirt and a long piece of fabric draped over the model’s boobs and tucked in the skirt. The skirt is so low you can pretty much see what kind of wax job the poor girl has. Joe: holy crap. I take back my comments. The oven mitts make a top, and they’ve been cut down so they don’t look like oven mitts, and the skirt has muslin but he’s used tri color pasta so at first it looks like a print. It’s really cute. Kenley: I’m not sure if that’s a strapless top or if the girl has her own bra on, but the skirt is interesting. Like a flap, over the front, but not an apron. Jerry: the raincoat fits horribly, and the cape part just gets thrown over her head and is attached at the back. It really is poorly fitted. Wesley: it’s a yellow strapless dress made out of a tablecloth. It’s saved by the plastic cups and flyswatters he cut up and made a strap out of. I will admit it looks like a real dress. Blayne: sigh. It’s a swimsuit, apparently, made of shelf liners. The top has a lot of volume, and on her stomach is a piece woven from jump ropes. It just looks stupid, is all. Kelli: I like the a-line skirt, and the interesting patterns, but on top it’s two coffee filters opened up and placed over her breasts. You could not make a bigger “LOOK AT ME” sign for her chest. Keith: still a halter top with a poofy skirt. Now with netting.
Heidi calls forward Daniel, Jerry, Korto, Stella, Kelli, and Blayne. Everyone else is safe. Daniel gets to start. Austin loves that his material isn’t a fabric substitute. He took a chance, and it’s really creative and they all love it. Jerry’s mini dress under the raincoat kind of sucks too. There’s lavender, and some kind of netting. Kors is freaked out and says the dress is a Handi-wipe gone wrong. Jerry thinks it could be worn out for a night on the town. Nina and Austin are bored. Korto explains her produce = jewels ideas. Of course Austin likes the produce. Nina thinks it looks impeccable. Stella says she just sewed and draped. Everyone is bored with this one too. Heidi nails it by saying it just looks like she did something because he had to. Kelli’s bust coffee filters were burnt to make a pattern, and she actually has a hook-and-eye closure on the back, made from a spiral bound notebook. Nice. Kors thinks girls will want to wear it. Now is time for Blayne. He says the last thing he wanted to do was bore the judges and they snicker as they promise him they aren’t bored. Heidi labels it “Playboy bunny gone grunge”. Kors says it’s not pretty and Blayne’s face falls.

Loves: Kelli (actually pretty and a lot of work), Daniel (sexy plastic dress out of something unexpected; he has confidence), Korto (loses points for the tablecloths but the overall picture is wonderful). Austin also likes that Korto is the only one who used fresh produce, ignoring the fact that if someone tried to make a dress out of produce they’d be condemned for copying. Hates: Stella (ugly and boring), Jerry (weird looking and appealing to small children, or if you were killing people), Blayne (looked like a diaper and was hideous).

Korto is in. Kelli is the winner and gets immunity. Daniel is in, of course. Blayne is in. Great, another week of crazy. Jerry’s look was not wearable and memorable in a bad way. Stella took the easy way out and it still sucked. Jerry is out. He says it was a rollercoaster. I’m a designer, my clothes are good, etc.

This season: lots of flailing, Tim Gunn calls something gay, lots of fighting. Tim says “Holla atcha boy!” which is hilarious. Kors calls something slutty.