Project Runway 8/12/10--"It's a Party" summary

Previously on Project Runway: everyone has to make an outfit to go on a Marie Claire billboard. There are still too many people, because two designers didn’t even get any air time for their photo shoot, so it was obvious they were safe. Gretchen made a jumpsuit, and I don’t like jumpsuits, but it made a fantastic billboard and she won. Jason failed to finish his garment, again, and pretended that his safety pinned dress was on purpose. The judges didn’t buy it, though, and he was sent home. Then they decided Nicolas’s cape thing was too annoying to let slide so they sent him home too. Also three people were carted off in ambulances, including Tim. He said in his vlog that he passed out while they were doing the runway stuff, then Jason also needed an ambulance, plus someone else he couldn’t remember. So when Tim came back and was like “Jason didn’t even wait for me!” that was because he was in the hospital. Tim didn’t seem sorry to see him go anyway. (click for more)

Ivy congratulates Gretchen on her win. She says the group is “loving” as we cut to Mike D. saying “I hate that bitch Gretchen!” But he’s saying it in the same tone that my sister uses when she calls me bitches so…it’s funny. (PPombo: “That’s because YOU’RE PLURAL bitches.”) Gretchen says that everyone was rooting for her. Cut to Sarah saying how annoying it is that Gretchen won. And she’s serious. Peach says her attitude changed a lot. Gretchen interviews that her two wins will push everyone to get better. Andy says he’s done his best, but he hasn’t been in the top, so he’s confused. Someone makes a joke about the short bus. Hee.

Only the winning designer gets to switch models if she wants. But next week, who knows what they’ll do. Gretchen stays with her model. Now that that’s out of the way, Heidi starts talking about celebrating and how Tim’s going to throw a little party for them. Andy is like, um…duh, I know we aren’t really having a party. That’s why I like Andy.

Tim greats them in front of Party Glitters. Oh man, the store front is like, sheet metal with neon multicolored letters. It is super sketchy looking. Also “Party Glitters” sounds like a boutique for drag queens. I love it. It’s the unconventional materials challenge! Which is hopefully awesome. Tim also tells them that the judges don’t like it when they get lazy and use tablecloths and wrapping paper. Well, I think you can do a good job with wrapping paper but it’s harder. I mean…trash bags. They have $100 and 30 minutes. Tim tells AJ that this is his challenge. He’s thrilled. He asks if there are plastic tiaras. Gretchen complains that this is cheese ball and shiny crap and that is not her. Tim reiterates to everyone that they can have muslin but it must be covered. Ivy says the phrase “party vomit”. Casanova says he can’t make a dress with bullshit. He’s finding stuffed animals and tablecloths. He says something about how that is almost fabric, and we flash back to “Two Minutes Ago” (according to the chyron) and Tim telling everyone that the judges hate that. Andy seems at a loss. Sarah says Gretchen is on top of her game. Valerie buys a large amount of crap.

Mike C. is excited. Peach has a plan. People are grabbing shoes…I guess they are really concerned about styling. Gretchen says she needs to stay true to her aesthetic no matter what the challenge, which is a good thing because randomly the judges will complain about that when they get bored. AJ goes to Mondo and says he was going to do “birthday” but Mondo looks like he might be doing “birthday” so they should talk. Mondo says he’s doing a quincenera, which is different enough from a birthday that AJ is fine. Tim appears to give them until midnight tonight to finish. He also tells them that the winner will have immunity.

Casanova is skinning and gutting his stuffed animals. I hope for a Lady Gaga Kermit coat. Kristin and Mike D. comment on him but it boils down to head-shaking. There is a lot of random stuff around. Chris has a big flower piñata, I believe. For a hat. Hee. Mondo is feeling comfortable, as he cuts up paper plates. Andy is braiding ribbon. AJ admits that he does things like this but not under this time constraint. His audition had some dresses with random toys and stuff, but he’s hoping he can pull it off with one day. If he uses random things, he wants everyone to see what it is so he won’t hide it. He thinks this challenge he’s supposed to disguise everything. Mike C. just wishes AJ would stop talking. (Kmanpat: “He can come over and talk to me, I wouldn’t mind.“) Valerie has black and white napkins, and streamers. Gretchen loves it. Sarah originally had a tablecloth, but decided the judges would hate it and is taking some cardboard palm trees and painting the pieces or something. Casanova also has a tablecloth, and someone tries to warn him about it, but he totally doesn’t care. They’ll all enjoy that because they are into “circus stuff” and he is not. He knows they are not making piñatas. Dude, someone should make a piñata dress. Paper mache and candy! Andy is now weaving ribbons. He doesn’t have a lot of time to finish. Mike D. has silver streamers. Gretchen makes fun of him and he interviews that she always has to say something. Peach agrees that Gretchen’s side of the room is “chattery”. April is irritated that Gretchen always has her two cents to put in. They certainly are editing her to look bossy and full of herself.

Tim time! He tells AJ, again, that this is his challenge, but AJ thinks that isn’t so when everyone else is doing the same thing. I guess…he would rather stand out by using party supplies when everyone else is making real clothes. Mike C. complains in confessional that it’s all AJ talks about so of course they expect something awesome. I guess it’s like Kayne and the Miss America challenge. AJ is kind of at a loss. Tim worries that his pieces won’t go together. Valerie is planning a teal belt but Tim wonders if it’s an afterthought. They make a “My Fair Lady” reference but I did not like that musical at all so…fleh. She’s scrapping the teal. Andy doesn’t have enough ribbon to make a dress out of it, but possibly a skirt? Gretchen interviews that his work is student work, and so he’s not a threat like she thought. I notice it looks like Andy’s hands are black from the ribbon. He needs to stop experimenting and start constructing. Kristin has a brightly colored skirt and some little rubber animal finger puppets or something. Ivy snobs that Kristin doesn’t deserve to be here. Tim giggles at the finger puppets. Sorry, “animal wooly balls”. When he regains his composure he says it’s so ridiculous no one could disapprove. But she has real balls if that doesn’t work! Tim would prefer the wooly balls. Hee.

Back from commercial and it’s more Tim, which is nice. Ivy has Mylar balloons and some corseting. Tim loves it but she has a serious time issue. Chris is a little concerned about…some ribbon? I don’t know what that is on his skirt but Tim says it’s fabulous. Peach wanted to be subtle, but it’s party supplies. Tim tells her she’s so uptight it’s like she has a piece of coal up her ass. Well, he doesn’t say “ass” but you get the point. “Make it into a diamond and pull it out!” Mike C. has a one-shouldered red dress which Tim loves. Sarah’s cut up the leaves from the palm tree in colors and it looks playful. Gretchen has made a pencil skirt out of shiny streamers (that stuff that hangs in curtains). Mike says his is better. Gretchen, meanwhile, is making a faux leather jacket out of paper bags. Time for Casanova. Oh, Casanova. He says the other designers told him he couldn’t use “tableclothes” but he didn’t buy anything else. I mean, you can still use them, I guess. Tim shakes his head and asks why he didn’t listen outside the party store, and Casanova is like, I don’t know what is the point. Tim explains that he is welcome to use tablecloths but the judges don’t like it. No mention is made of the stuffed animals. Tim loves the potential in the room, and the concepts behind the garments. He also says the models will have a little surprise.

Mike C. goes over to Sarah and whispers that he had such an awesome review! Yay! But she can’t figure out what to do with her cut up painted palm tree. It totally could work, I like her colors. Gretchen tells her to focus on the teal but scrap the pink. Oh, use the pink too. But she paints over it with teal.

The models enter with gift bags. Valerie knows it’s not good, and Andy is like, take it away. They have to use the materials in the gift bags to make an accessory. I can’t tell if they all have the same things, but it appears to be ribbons and sequins and stuff. Everyone has stuff for their model to try on except Andy. Valerie’s skirt is so heavy she’s afraid it will come apart from the top. I think several people are in trouble, time-wise.

Mondo has a fake mustache and he asks his roommates if he should wear it to the runway show. I don’t know but I‘m glad to see him joking around with people as opposed to last week. Everyone talks about if Gretchen will win again but all I can notice is that AJ has glasses and he totally looks like Artie and if you don’t know who I’m talking about you need to start watching “Glee”. In the workroom, someone hollers that they have two hours, and Gretchen tells everyone to make sure to leave time to clean their workspace. Seriously? Model fitting and accessory flailing. They’re showing a lot of the hair and makeup stuff, more than they used to, but it’s still not super exciting to me. Although, Ivy is like, I want her like me but more professional, so the head makeup guy tells Ivy to close her eyes and stand still so the artist can look at her. Andy is still flailing. Peach and April offer to help him out. Gretchen interviews that he has a time management issue. Well…yeah. Are you complaining he has extra help? Or that he has a time management issue? I don’t understand. Ivy is also flailing. Chris worries she might tear the dress. Sarah is hot gluing her dress together. I think everyone manages to finish.

Guest judge is Betsey Johnson. Love it. Chris: gold short dress with a full skirt and sleeveless top with a boat neck. It’s in gold with little ribbons of color. It looks like he made it out of fabric, but it’s napkins sewn together. The back is a little longer than the front. It’s super cute. Mike D.: A-line skirt in blue with a white panel in front, and a silver one-shouldered top made from garland. The skirt is made from paper, I think, because it’s very stiff and it isn’t tight enough around the waist. They no longer put what the stuff is made out of on screen like they used to. Maybe it’s plastic? I think the skirt might be too shiny for paper. Andy: short black dress with one shoulder strap. It’s pretty short, but the ribbon is all spiky and he styled it punk so it looks very very good. He even managed to make a design of silver down the front. AJ: the top is strapless with a sweetheart neckline, pink with a purse print. Maybe it’s a tablecloth. The skirt is tiers of black and pink, very full ruffles, and some beads too. It’s cute. And short. Ivy: gray one shouldered dress with a fuller skirt. The whole dress is covered in pewter gray folder napkins, or balloons or whatever it is, so looks ruffly, at one hip there is a little purple. But it doesn’t fit right? I don’t know, something about it doesn’t look right. She doesn’t look thick, you can see her waist. Maybe it just looks heavy. Mike C. long red dress with one shoulder (OMG why does everyone have one shoulder?!?!) and a mermaid skirt. It looks like a real dress. I’m not sure what it’s made out of, but it’s got a lot of ruffles. Peach: white tank top and a zebra print skirt, short and full with pink sticking out of the bottom like a petticoat. It’s very young, like, 13 year old young. It does fit though. Gretchen: slim skirt made out of gold and silver garland, a tank top with an interesting cut-out design in the center, and the cropped “leather” jacket with elbow-length sleeves made out of paper bags which actually does look like leather. But that skirt is so weird, and she put her model in knee high beige suede boots.

Mondo: strapless bodice made from the rims of paper plates (I saw him cutting them up) and a short full skirt made of plastic leis. All in hot pink. It looks fantastic. He put black leggings and a tiara, but I don’t care, it’s awesome. Casanova: strapless gown with a mermaid skirt. It’s all in charcoal and black. The top has sparkles in it, but I can’t get a close enough look. The skirt is black, but the gray is ruffles that cover the whole back of the skirt. How would she sit down? Kristin: simple short dress with a V neckline. The top has a tropical sort of print, although it doesn’t fit her chest right, and the skirt is gold with plastic green strips over it. It’s kind of a baby doll but it also looks like the dollar store. April: short black dress, one shouldered (argh!) with silver spikes over her chest and up the shoulder. I’m not sure what they are but it looks cool. The whole dress is folded and kind of spiky. It doesn’t fit quite right but that’s not unusual today. Sarah: short silver dress with blue leaves sewn on like another skirt and across the top of the bodice. Eh. Valerie: black and white dress with a deep V neckline and a ton of folded napkins in the skirt. She’s done so well it looks like an accordion of paper. The top is just plain smooth black. I really like it.

Peach, Mike C. Ivy, Kristin, Mike D., Mondo, Chris, and April are safe. Aww, I hoped Mondo would be in the top. We get to see those designers backstage gossiping about who is top and who is bottom. Heidi tells the models that if their designer is eliminated, they’re automatically out. Valerie made a cuff as her accessory, and she also says she listened to what the judges said last time about her styling. Kors thinks it’s a “360” which IT IS NOT because 360 degrees is back to your starting point. He wants to say 180. Kors loves how she looks but knows she blew off the accessory. Everyone loves the dress, they love the sexiness and the sophistication. Betsey says she loves it especially because you have napkins near you at all times. AJ used cupcake foils for a necklace, which is cool. Heidi thinks he threw everything at the dress that he found. Nina agrees and says “hot mess”. AJ says “thanks” for some reason and Heidi is all, it’s not a compliment. Calm down. Kors starts talking about the shape and for some reason this prompts AJ to tell everyone his model’s bra size. What Kors meant was that it’s not far enough to look like he didn’t fit her on purpose, but it’s not perfect enough to look like he made it that way for a reason. I think. Sometimes Kors doesn’t make sense. But when he says he’s not sure about a fringe crotch that makes sense. The beads and stuff are in the front right on her crotch. Betsey wishes he’d taken it so much farther it exploded. Andy only used ribbons, except making a fingerless glove out of a balloon. Kors can see Heidi and Rihanna fighting over it. Ooo, they would. Rihanna should win. Nina likes it but Betsey wishes for more “fun”. Casanova talks about how the skirt is posters and tablecloths, and the scarf is the plush animals…I’m not sure about all of that. Kors starts us off with “transvestite flamenco dancer at a funeral”. Awesome. If Casanova had been trying to be funny it would have been better, but at least it’s well made. The front of the dress doesn’t match the back at all. Too many things going on. Sarah had a table liner and the palm tree. Nina says it’s simple, and Kors tells her it doesn’t look like a fully realized idea. The palm tree thing didn’t work and she should have rejected it. She should have gone with her gut and scrapped them instead of taking Gretchen‘s advice. Gretchen hand-cut her skirt into chevrons so it wasn’t all one length. Her accessory is a cuff too. No one had super exciting accessories except AJ. Nina thinks it’s fabulous, even if the skirt is a little long. Betsey declares it “Tina Turner and Dreamgirls on the bottom and Mad Max on the top”. But no one likes the boots.

Backstage. OK. We need a name for this room. We’ve got the Stew Room for Top Chef. Suggestions? I guess we could call this the Stew Room too but it’s not about food. Everyone talks to the designers who just got back. Someone asks Andy how he did, and he says they all liked it, and then Gretchen says his piece was really beautiful and I think is going to continue talking, and someone (a couple of people) tell her that she should let him talk. He does, but then she pipes up again to tell him how good he is, or something. AJ talks over her, and she gets her bitchpants on to be like, can I talk? And AJ is like, sure, you talk ALL THE TIME. The editors really want us to hate Gretchen. I am suspicious. Then AJ is like, oh, I know I started that, but I don’t want to argue with you tonight, which is fairly obnoxious, but Gretchen loses all her points by telling AJ he’s just “sensitive” because he’s on the bottom.

Bad: Casanova has no taste and everyone pretty much laughs at him. Sarah did nothing and they were bored. Untrue, all she did was worry about the palm trees. She did know it was bad though. AJ’s dress just didn’t work. Good: Valerie’s model was sexy, it was styled well, and was good all around. Andy’s look was beautifully made and well put together. Gretchen made several pieces that they liked, and they praise her styling even though they all hated the boots.

Valerie is in. Andy wins! Good for him. Gretchen looks irritated. She’s in though. AJ is in. Casanova is in. Oh, you know it’s because he’s entertaining. He does a cartwheel behind the scrim. Sarah doesn’t want to say goodbye. Mike C. cries. She knows she should have done the dress she wanted to do in the first place.

Now we cut to an ambulance at Atlas, where Ivy has passed out in the hallway. I’m not sure when this is, because Gretchen seems to imply that they were leaving the apartments. I mean, they’re at Atlas and not at Parsons. Maybe she fainted on the way home. Ivy says she’s just tired. They actually take her to the hospital, and that’s the end of the show.

Next week: Philip Tracey and a large number of kick ass hats. Nina rolls her eyes a lot. And hopefully we find out if Ivy dies or what.