Project Runway 8/6/08--"Rings of Glory" summary

Previously on Project Runway: we had yet another challenge repeat, which required the contestants to take pictures of New York at night for inspiration for an outfit. Pretty much no one did a great job of turning their picture into a good outfit, except for Leanne and possibly Joe. Of course neither of them won. Kenley won with an 80’s inspired dress that had nothing to do with her picture, not even the colors. Emily went home for making a boring black dress with a random giant ruffle, but at least that sort of looked like a line of light, unlike Jennifer’s super boring non-clock-looking dress. Judging seems to still be wonky from last season, although to be fair Emily’s dress wasn’t very good. (click for more)

Everyone looks very tired. Korto says that Emily’s gone but oh well, life goes on. Kenley is glad she won and is recognized by people who matter in fashion. If you say so.

Kenley gets to pick a new model but she sticks with her old model. This method seems to make the models more useless. It’s not like someone else will snap up the losing designer’s model because she’s awesome. If your model isn’t very good the only way to get rid of her is to win. Heidi sends everyone to meet Tim for yet another field trip.

Jerell fears female wrestlers. Hee. Korto wants hip-hop. That would be cool. Kelli sees a hospital and freaks out. Tim tries to ask Blayne about his tanning routine. Don’t encourage that, Tim. Blayne says he goes tanning every other day. Do you know nothing about skin cancer?!?! Everyone ends up at The Armory Track and Field Center. I would be confused if I wasn’t already spoiled, especially since there’s a big building called the Armory in San Francisco. I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called. They don’t have track and field there, they make…”videos”. Yes that kind. Everyone goes inside to the track and up skates Apolo Anton Ohno, on racing rollerblades, looking very good. (Kmanpat: “Oo, yes.”) They do not mention “Dancing with the Stars”. It’s hilarious how Stella and Terri are confused about the crazy skating person, as if they don’t understand speed skating. Their challenge is to design the outfits for the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. (Kmanpat: “OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT”) Daniel has never seen the opening ceremonies. Under a rock, apparently. They only have to do the women’s outfit, which is a copout. They should have to do both. Apolo thinks the opening ceremony is like the catwalk, except usually the opening ceremony outfits suck ass. When my friends and I get together to watch the opening ceremonies, we take a drink every time another country has better team uniforms than the U.S. We drink a lot. Tim says that Ralph Lauren has already done some stuff for this year, I think. Blayne says something stupid about going for the gold. Apolo tells them they’ll have 30 minutes in the museum there to get ideas.

Joe talks about how great the Olympics are, especially for telling the whole world how great America is. And he has a sportswear background. Daniel cannot even identify which photos are opening ceremony photos. Terri wants classic sports wear. Stella is talking about gladiators, or something, since there’s a photo of a competitor wearing fur. Who knows. See, I saw some photos of things like warm-up suits, and the captions said the design of the opening ceremony outfits was being kept a secret. This would explain that. Jennifer and Jerell both are going retro. Daniel is confused since he is into high end glamour.

30 minutes to shop and $150. Korto trash talks about how she has some leather, and people are looking at her funny, but they should worry about their plaid. Stella is buying black, and Tim is starting his comments. Keith asks for a yard of a red and white print, and Terri gets on his ass about “stealing her fabric” which she had the worker put on the table and then she left it there to go do something else. Keith hems and haws so he looks kind of guilty, even if he’s not. Terri says “oh no you di’int!” and if this was another situation I’d make a comment about cheaters named Keith, but who cares? They’re all going to have red, white, and blue anyway so they’re going to kind of look the same to begin with. It’s not like that’s never happened before, or that he snatched it out of your hands. Now Terri is watching him, or whatever. This is a stupid argument.

Back at Parson’s Tim gives them 9 hours, with the promise of immunity for the winner. OOooooo. If the winner was going to have their outfit mass produced to be worn in the actual Olympics, they probably wouldn’t offer immunity. Everyone shares their sports experiences. Joe is making a skort. Those are so unflattering. Ugh. Daniel is not into sports, unsurprisingly. He’s making a cocktail dress. Huh? He says uniforms make everyone look generic. Blayne talks about tanning again, and he says it’s a sport but they only go to bronze medals. OK, that was amusing. He says he’s getting paler and weaker and he’s dying. Jerell interviews Blayne’s becoming tanorexic and it’s only his bleached hair that is keeping him alive luckily. Heh. Terri has a corset? I guess? She’s keeping it simple, but she’s got 4 pieces which is a lot. She seems to be working quickly though. Jennifer is making a skirt, camisole, and sweater jacket. It looks precious and retro, but very girly and not athletic at all. She is staying “true to [her] style” which may backfire. Stella is making black clothes because it’s “space-age” and “modern” but not soft looking because athletes are not soft. Apparently they are also immune to the consequences of wearing black stretch satin jumpsuits in the summer time. She insists that lots of bikers watch the Olympics so that’s her argument. Leanne (or possibly Jennifer) makes fun of her. Keith used to be a gymnast (Kmanpat: “…gymnasts…*drool*) and is using silk and fleece. Joe bitches about Kenley and Daniel always giggling and having fun and not being considerate of him. Korto and Jerell complain too, so it seems to be that Kenley has a very annoying laugh, rather than no one wants her to have fun. Actually both Korto and Jerell do hilarious chicken squawking impressions of Kenley’s laugh. Korto says she always notices when people wear white. Then we get some of her background in Liberia, and having to go into exile. When she thinks of something like this uniform that is patriotic and American, it means something different to her than to us.

Tim time! Tim agrees with Joe that “skort” equals “athletic” I guess. He’s bought zippers in both red and blue, which could be cool. Blayne talks about dresses and he’s got a white jacket with red stripes. Tim calls it Sgt. Pepper and Blayne’s like, I don’t know what that is. Tim rolls his eyes and says “youth” in disgust. I agree. Smack. Tim has to explain it to him, and once Tim tells him it’s the Beatles, then Blayne starts talking about how that’s the right era and then mentions cardigans, which is not what is on his dress form and is wrong anyways, says Tim. In confessional he babbles something about cover bands, and at least manages to remember that one of them was named Ringo. Daniel thinks his colors look like a superhero. Agreed, but he’s kind of freaking out like he always does. Tim tells him to chill and superheroes are OK. Jerell has a pencil skirt with horizontal stripes. Tim reminds him the women are “muscley” and stripes might be bad. Up top he’s got lots of print scarves and Tim warns him against “Lucy Ricardo”. Jennifer has a navy cardigan and a white and gold vertically striped skirt. She wants to make the Olympic emblem in jewelry, but it’s matronly. Then Tim calls it “junior” which is an odd combination. It’s not that great, though.

Back to working. Kenley tells Daniel his bolero jacket sucks and makes it look like Wonder Woman. Joe comes into the sewing room and complains that Daniel rethreaded his machine with different thread. He says that he’s used that particular machine for the past 3 weeks, but Daniel tells him that Kenley was working on it the last time he looked, and there are a lot more machines anyway. Seriously, there are like, 3 people in the sewing room. Joe bitches that Daniel should pay attention to who’s been working on what machines. Aren’t they all the same? Joe goes back to the workroom and Daniel is like, seriously? Did that just happen? Suede is glad to miss the drama and calls other people “wack-a-doodle” and is the normal one for once. Joe says there’s too much drama because there are too many queens. As I recall, you were the one causing drama, Mr. I-have-kids-and-am-the-straight-one. Walking in the sewing room and announcing “Daniel rethreaded my machine with red.” Korto tells Joe to whine and I can’t tell if she agrees with him or is mocking his whining and he doesn’t understand he’s being mocked.
Jerell starts talking about taking everyone down, the next morning. Stella views immunity as the chance to screw up royally and not be eliminated for it. Kenley thinks Daniel’s blue will look purple on the runway. I think she has the same fabric. Tim appears and gives them 3 hours, which is a ton of time. Joe is cocky because he has a background in sportswear. Jerell has a hat. It’s like if there was a musical about Olympians, where the guy and girl are both athletes and fall in love but only after they are rivals somehow, and one of them is almost kicked out for some scandal. And the girl is feisty. (Kmanpat: “Ooo! It would be called ‘Going for the Gold’ and that would be the name of the show stopping number during the opening ceremonies, where the whole ensemble sings about winning and glory and America” *starts dancing*) Right…anyways, Jerell’s outfit is what the costumes would look like. Jennifer doesn’t have any red. Stella has a lot of black. Korto thinks everyone else went too retro.

Apolo Ohno is back to guest judge. Korto: vest, cami and wide legged pants. Everything is white except the vest which is white with red shoulders. The pants have some kind of detail running from the waist down the front; I think it’s a fold in the fabric or something. It’s very smart. Suede: full skirt in blue with red and white stripes, and a white high necked sleeveless top. Not bad but it does remind me of a cheerleading outfit. Kelli: really retro 50’s blue skirt with white details, and sleeveless red shirt with a big bow and white plackets. I think the shirt has white polka dots. Maybe 40’s, I can’t always tell the difference. Joe: white jacket and skort with USA on the side. That’s kind of cheesy. There are stripes of red and blue along the sleeves and the front of the skort, and red piping on the jacket. It’s really sporty. Leanne: white top with a high red white and blue collar and shorts. Nice. The top is sleeveless but flares out at the hip. Daniel: a cocktail sheath dress with a red belt and red buttons on a narrow panel in the front. His fabric does look purple. Jerell: pencil skirt (he at least turned the fabric so it’s vertical stripes), pink blouse with puffy sleeves, giant scarf in navy and red with white polka dots, hat with polka dots. Total musical costume. Oh, and dark leggings that are capri length. Stella: black, with metallic trim in silver, red, and blue. The pants are cropped and the jacket is zipped up strangely, so it has a keyhole opening and then there’s a notch cut in the bottom so you can see her navel. Fleh. Keith: at least it reminds me of all his other dresses. Poofy skirt in blue and white, a white vest with a high collar, and a long blue and red scarf. Terri: white pants with dark blue tuxedo stripes, a red white and blue strapless top, scarf in that fabric she said Keith stole (which he didn’t use, by the way), navy jacket with a pinstripe. It’s not bad and it’s similar enough to what they’ve worn in the past that it’s not too far of a stretch. Jennifer: gold and white striped skirt, camisole, navy cardigan. Cute but not sporty. Blayne: one shoulder fitted jumpsuit with some stripe detail. Very fashionable and not Sgt. Pepper. Kenley: purple plaid high waisted skirt with short sleeved white top. Interesting but it looks purple too.

Suede, Kelli, Leanne, Stella, Keith, Blayne, and Kenley are safe. Stella is going to get away with her rocker shtick again? Seriously? Blah. Terri says she saw a lot of blazers in the past, so she wanted to put a spin on it. Apolo says it looks American, and it would read well. Kors likes the 70’s spin. Nina thinks it’s smart and sharp and versatile. Jennifer took some inspiration from the 20’s, but it doesn’t look confident and it doesn’t look American. Nina says that she didn’t follow the challenge at all, she kept to her design aesthetic and her model looks silly. Joe wanted to go modern, and he wanted it to read USA, which is why the skirt says USA. The zipper on her jacket is half red and half blue, which is a neat detail. Apolo loves that it will show off an athlete’s body. Nina likes to see sportswear, and Kors says the length of the skirt (in the front it’s much longer than the shorts) has an issue but the idea of a skort is wonderful. Daniel wanted some glamour. Nina complains about relevance and she’s like, there’s no America in this. Daniel insists that the girl is wearing blue and red to make it American, but no one agrees, and Kors finally is like, the color is the least of your problems because it’s stupid. Korto likes the white fabric, and wanted it modern. The red in the vest is leather. Nina proclaims it chic, and it’s made of linen so Apolo thinks it will be comfortable. Jerell wanted to make sportswear but from the 20s. He himself is wearing a Peter Pan hat or something. We start right out with Apolo comparing it to a movie costume. Everyone is confused, and they’ll admit it’s unique but it’s pretty wack. It’s not athletic. Kors points out that a modern, strong woman would not wear that hat.

Good: Korto (sophisticated but still athletic, modern), Terri (simple but stylish, you could do something with it, it’s actually sportswear), Joe (literal, very athletic). Bad: these 3 people heard the challenge in another language. Jerell (costume, not athletic but at least had good fabrics), Jennifer (boring and prim, she can’t separate her own taste from her designs), Daniel (cocktail dress, “Well if her sport is drinking it’s a good dress” says Kors, he should have used the jacket and made her look like a super hero).

Joe is in. Korto wins. Cool, I liked her outfit. They do not say anything about her outfit actually being in the Olympics, so we’ll have to see. She says it’s about time. Terri is in. Jerell is in. Daniel completely missed the point of the challenge, and Jennifer is stuck in the past as a designer. Jennifer is out. She doesn’t think her garment is stuck in the past, and she thought she brought another point of view and she talks about her surrealism again, which I’ve never seen.

Next week: the contestants have to design for Brooke Shields, people freak, Kors says something is slutty, Kenley laughs at Daniel. I think there may be teams.