Project Runway 8/27/10--"There IS an I in Team" summary

Previously on Project Runway: Ivy was fine. Everyone had to make outfits to go with awesome hats. Mike D. made a cool top that mimicked his hat, but somehow Mike C. made a goddess-type dress with a handkerchief hem and everyone loved it and he won. Chris had a great coat, that Tim loved but the judges thought it was horrid. April made hot pants, only in white so they looked like a diaper. Imagine her shorts but all in black. So much better, right? But Kristin made a weird black dress with red swoops, to go with an orchid hat, so she was out. (click for more)

Everyone is still pissed Mike C. won. Andy and AJ can continue to say whatever they want if they will wander the apartment in their underwear. (Kmanpat: “Yes please!”) April is confused that no one understood her “diaper”. She said it, not me. She says all she can do is to just keep doing what she’s doing. Peach says that if April has a target on her back, then so does she. April looks incredulous.

Heidi’s dress is so short it might as well be hot pants. First off, they will be working in two teams of six. Then she CLAIMS there will not be team leaders. That just means Heidi won’t be assigning them. There will still be team leaders. Someone from the losing team will go home. Mike C. gets to pick his first teammate. Plus he has immunity which is nice. He picks Gretchen. April says he’s a dumbass and asks “Do you WANT to hire Hitler?” OK I think that’s going a little far, but I do agree that Gretchen is going to run that team. There’s not much question about it. Heidi draws names for the second team, and she picks April. Valerie is irritated because she does not want to be on a team with Mike C. OR April. They go back and forth. Gretchen gets to pick, then Mondo (that’s who April picked), and so forth. The teams shake down like this: Mike C., Gretchen, Chris, Andy, Ivy, and AJ. The other team is April, Mondo, Mike D., Valerie, Casanova, and Peach. Hmm, one team has strong players and one seems to be misfits. I’m sure the strong team wouldn’t choke and lose because that never happens. Peach is chosen last and makes a big deal about looking around and waving her hand in the air. Hee. Peach tells us that everyone who has won a challenge is on the other team. The producers help us out with a chyron and sound effects. Hee. Mike C. is pretty confident, while April labels his team “a clusterfuck”. Too many egos. I like April.

Tim greets them in the workroom with some random new guy who is now the consultant for Garnier. They have to make a 6 piece collection for fall 2010. BORING. I get that this is relevant and the people who show at Fashion Week (whoops, almost wrote “Bryant Park”) probably should be aware of these things, but it’s basically a “make pretty clothes” challenge. There are concepts and textiles. One from column A and one from column B. So here’s what’s on trend for fall, I guess: minimalist, 50’s retro ladylike shapes, menswear for women, military, gold, camel, leopard and cheetah prints, plaid, and lace. Blah. Someone should make plaid military clothes though. The Garnier guy talks about hairstyles on trend. They have an hour to sketch, and then $1000 PER TEAM at Mood. And ONE DAY. Seriously? One day?

Mike D. asks that everyone respect each other. The other team is hollering, I guess, and Gretchen is sharing her opinion that they should do menswear for women. With leopard and cheetah. Valerie volunteers menswear also but Peach thinks it can go flat too easily. It appears April talks them into military. Mike C.’s team decides on camel menswear for women. April’s team votes for military, overruling Valerie who says she’s OK with it. Lace military. Interesting. They’re all making their own looks, but sharing them with each other. For example Valerie says what she’s planning on, and Mondo says he can play off of that with his blouse. Like that. They seem to agree pretty well.

Mike C.’s team is delegating somehow. Like, if someone does tailoring really well they’ll do all the tailored pieces. So no one person is responsible for an entire look. I can’t tell if that’s a good idea or not. It plays to everyone’s strengths, but what if two pieces end up not going together? Gretchen tells everyone that the other team has “cuckoo drama” so they need to do tailored and clean. AJ insists he can clean up his shredded thing because that is a thing he likes to do for himself but “this is about us”. His strategy is to make something cohesive. Oh, AJ. That is not a good sign for you. Mike C. is sketching something he thinks is an idea but no one seems to care. Everyone’s totally agreeing any time Gretchen says something, though, so he’s kind of bitter. Oh, like you didn’t see that coming from a mile away. Ivy thinks their only problem is if Mike C. throws them all under the bus because he has immunity. Then she says that to his face. Gretchen is so proud of them! Barf.

In the other room, Peach wants them to all agree on colors, so they don’t all show up with random stuff. Valerie thinks Peach should just do whatever she wants to, but Peach insists that isn’t how a collection works. Valerie blames this on Peach’s being on the bottom and being insecure. I think Peach has a good point. Peach thinks that everyone in her group has already decided they’re losing, so they aren’t even trying. Valerie thinks the solution to this is for Peach to tell them what she wants to do, but Peach wants to have agreement. She’s not really bitchy, but Valerie thinks she’s being snapped at and claims they’re trying to work together. Telling Peach to do whatever she wants is not working together.

“Team Luxe”, Gretchen’s team. Gretchen claims they mutually agreed on rich tailored pieces. Really what I hear is Gretchen saying things and then Ivy gushing over how awesome that idea is.

Shopping is the usual, except that Gretchen is like “Meet me at the stairs, Michael. Don’t go anywhere but the stairs, Michael!” like he’s 5 years old. Mike C. ditches Gretchen, who worries along with AJ that he’s going to screw them. Gretchen claims that if he screws it up she will kill him. Yeah. Later Gretchen and AJ dance like white people.

Team April is going to drape and then make sure everyone has enough fabric before they cut anything. Gretchen is telling Team Luxe what to do. Ivy is the only one making an entire look head to toe. Valerie says she found out how the other team is doing pieces and somehow this is similar to vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time. April doesn’t trust Valerie. Gretchen is worried about AJ because she thinks his craftsmanship sucks. Valerie tells Casanova to not to underdo it. I see that Casanova has fantastic shoes with curly toes. Kick ass. He says that in the past he’s’ gotten in trouble for having too much stuff so he wants to be careful of that. Be “softener”. Ivy tells Mike C. how to make a cowl neck when he asks her about it and then rolls her eyes in confessional about how he doesn’t know how to do it and she doesn’t have time to teach him. He says he can do it, and she shoots back that he said that last time but he didn’t. Mike C. threatens to go off on her. Gretchen wants to go micromanage but Chris talks her out of it. Instead, Gretchen, Chris, and Andy fiddle with his top while he’s out of the room. She claims his sucking is making her worried.

Hair consults. April and Valerie ask for French braids but messy. And fauxhawks. He gives them a much better suggestion. That’s cool; usually the Garnier person just agrees with whatever is going on. Gretchen and Andy want something modern, and so they’re doing “modern old Hollywood glam”. It’s actually like, long waves. Eh. Gretchen declares them the winners. The judges never really care about the styling that much.

Tim time! April’s team goes first. Tim warns them not to let their clothes look old. He loves Mondo’s look. Tim tells Peach to put her color under the lace, and Valerie pipes up to agree with Tim. Then she starts to tell him about her zippers and chains, which makes Tim concerned. April is cleaning up her look. Casanova is worried because Tim never has anything good to say to him. This time is no different because the look is too old. Tim tells them to keep helping each other.
Team Luxe. Gretchen thinks this is “an authentic collaboration”. They explain to him about how they’re not doing looks, but pieces. Everyone is doing “roughly” three pieces, except Gretchen, who is doing two, and who feels like she’s in every piece even if she’s not sewing it. Because she is telling everyone what to do. Tim thinks they’re ambitious, and also he feels he needs to say their collection is boring. Hahaha.

Casanova needs to take a break, because he’s upset about what Tim said. Valerie thinks he’s just having a diva moment. She and Mike D. try to get him back in the workroom to finish. They tell him his clothes are breathtaking. Valerie is really nice to him in person, but in confessional she’s offended he is upset. You can’t do that. Tell him to cry and cut. He I guess is napping on the couch. Valerie blows into the workroom but no one is there to hear her announcement. She’s super pissed that they might lose and someone would go home, as if they wouldn’t all throw Casanova under the bus for not finishing. I mean, I would. Casanova would probably admit he didn’t feel like finishing.

Model fitting. Casanova’s model has to go looking for him. He’s on the phone to his aunt. His model tells him he has to not let other people get him down and do what he thinks is best. This works much better than Valerie and Mike’s ass-kissing (or he’s ready to get back to work because he‘s feeling better) and he returns to the workroom. AJ has restarted the back of his dress so there is nothing for his model to try on. Mike C. knows that his blouse doesn’t fit, and all of a sudden Gretchen and Chris are telling him what to do with it. Gretchen is “disappointed” in AJ and Mike. See, this is why people are so irritated with Gretchen. Valerie doesn’t think Casanova can finish, but she’s mad. Gretchen is disappointed like she’s their teacher or mom or something. She tells Mike that if he can’t do it someone else will.

Casanova says he is maybe too old fashioned for this show. “I just can’t work with sluts” Hee. He makes something happen, although he doesn’t know how he managed. Gretchen is suddenly making pieces for every look, even though when Tim was there she only could come up with two pieces.

In the morning, April feels confident because while their group is all creative, the other group is all Gretchen. Who, by the way, woke up at 4am freaking out and made a to-do list. April’s team is much calmer. Gretchen says “I need it” whatever. Their team is running around. Ivy mostly. Andy’s model is hemming pants. Seriously, all their models are sewing. Chris is making the grandpa sweater that Gretchen I thought was making? Everyone thinks they’re awesome.
Guest judge is Georgina Chapman, cofounder of Marchesa. April’s team is up first. Mondo: orange leggings, with black walking shorts over the top. Her blouse is a sleeveless v-neck, with a halter that has some gold fittings. Over one shoulder there is some rope, like on a military dress uniform. I don’t know about the leggings. There is no back. Peach: high waisted pencil skirt in royal blue, with gold chains and buttons over her belly button. Then the top is a camisole made of raspberry with a black lace overlay. These two pieces do not go together; however I wish I had that top. April: black pants, a sleeveless black top with vinyl lapels. The top of the top is striped. If that makes sense. Also there is a large exposed zipper over her ass. Valerie: white skirt and cropped jacket, with gold fittings, and a blue tank. There are buttons on the skirt and gold rope on the jacket. Also there are matching blue leggings. Gretchen whispers that this is not related to the last one and they’ve won. Shush. Casanova: tight white pants with gold buttons up the side. The top is all black lace, with an opaque placket down the front, and the same backless shape as Mondo. There is a high neck and little cap sleeves. It doesn’t look too matronly to me but what do I know? Mike D: black skirt and a black lace top. The top is one-shouldered with loops along the other shoulder. We don’t get a good look at it, just as we haven’t seen him work on it for the entire show.

Team Luxe. Since they all worked on everything, probably I’ll just describe the outfits. First up: red pants and a long white tunic with a belt. The tunic just looks like an oversized linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up. There’s a little more of the red as a scarf or cravat or something. The leggings aren’t solid red, they have a panel of camel on the inside of her legs. Look 2: high waisted palazzo pants, and a gray blouse with a halter neckline. There is also a grandpa sweater cardigan. And no back to the blouse. Exposed zipper GAH. Look 3: short skirt, white blazer with a belt and a red top. The blazer is really wide and has a band at the bottom hem. It looks like maybe it was too big. Look 4: red leggings, gray shorts, and a long sleeved gray top. Then there is a very long camel vest. I thought they were supposed to do camel in everything? But some of these looks only have a belt. I think this is Ivy’s look. Look 5: gray leggings or tight pants, and a sheer white blouse. And I mean sheer. There’s a cowl neckline and also a cropped camel jacket with a keyhole in the back. The pants have zippers at the bottom. Look 6: red dress and camel jacket. The dress is short and has a keyhole. The jacket is nice.

April’s team wins! Hahahahaha. If only because it pisses off Gretchen. But you knew it was coming. The misfit team always wins. Losers get sent to the Scrap Bin (love it Duabe!) where they promptly express their shock. Valerie says they wanted to make a cohesive collection that was balanced between hard and soft. Heidi thinks it is young and fun. Georgina likes that each design is obviously from a different person, but they all fit together. Gretchen complains that their collection wasn’t cohesive. I never am able to figure that out. Like, the clothes have to look like they go together, but they can’t all look the same...so I can’t judge on cohesiveness. Gretchen thinks that their collection doesn’t look like any of them “and I think that’s a Project Runway first”. Well, whoop-dee-doo. Back to the runway. The clothes are versatile, with excellent styling, not costumey, excellent hair. And they LOVE Casanova’s look. And it’s well made. They also love Peach’s top. People think Casanova should win. He thinks Peach should win.

In the Scrap Bin AJ and Ivy think that they should all go down together as a team. Why can’t you own up to what you did? AJ is like, I hope no one decides when they get down there to change their minds! Shush. When Heidi asks them about the collection, Gretchen starts off by saying it was so important for them to truly collaborate and not just make their own designs. You already lost. You can stop trying to change their minds. They wanted to use their strengths and support weaknesses. So Heidi pounces on that and asks who the weakest designer is. To her credit Gretchen doesn’t say anyone’s name. Although now she’s crying and then everyone is crying and the judges are stone-faced. I love it. Ivy is all, “It’s like someone said your baby is ugly”. I am such an evil person. This is so entertaining to me. Heidi reminds them that Mike C. is safe from elimination, and Gretchen (dry-eyed now) says she just wants to say one more thing, that they should think of who they want to see more from because they think that’s the best way for the judges to pick who to eliminate. Did you just tell Kors and Nina how to eliminate someone? Really? Kors is like, um, fashion is tough, and good for you to be a team but you just ended up with boring. They tempered their styles and it just ended up lame. Nina points out that every outfit has a proportion problem. There’s no design, and the colors are “ghastly”. There is also no luxe. They think the worst look is the one Ivy did by herself. Nina and Kors can only shake their heads. Heidi asks about the sheer dress, which AJ made, but it’s not so much a shirtdress as it is a shirt. When they show a close-up it’s shiny. It’s not interesting. Gretchen admits that they had realized these clothes looked old, and they call her on changing her tune. Then she takes responsibility for the styling, saying “I’ll take responsibility for the styling, but I also feel like I had to style maybe a crappy collection, trying to save it.” Heidi and Nina point out that before she was telling them how awesome it was and she said she loved it. Kors wants to know if this is “her world” who had the hardest time dealing with it. Oh, that would be Mike C. Well, she lasted longer than I thought she would. Georgina likes the back of the blouse he made. Gretchen claims that she had to work with Mike so much that her own clothes suffered. Seriously, she has come around and changed her tune and no one is buying it. Heidi asks Ivy who was the weakest, and she says Mike C. but Heidi is having none of it. Out of the people up for elimination, who was the weakest? All of them throw Mike C. under the bus, as he has immunity and can take it, except AJ says he himself was weak. But no one will name someone who is up for elimination. Gretchen gets anxious and says she doesn’t want to be a martyr and volunteer herself, which is not what they asked her to do anyway. So she just pleads her own case. Ivy calls Mike lazy or possibly ignorant.

This is a waste of time! 5 people are up! Andy asks them to go by what they know of the designers, and Kors is like, that’s not what we do. Except it’s TOTALLY what you do. They ALWAYS add in past performance. Gretchen is like, fine, then I guess you want to know what we all made. The judges are like, damn, finally. I love this runway judging. So they go through what they made. AJ only made one thing. Sad.

Back in the Scrap Bin Gretchen doesn’t want to talk about it. Of course. They all admit to throwing Mike under the bus because he was the worst. He just sits there, and eventually says that he doesn’t agree but that’s what everyone else thinks so whatever.

April’s team! Everyone stepped it up! Everyone got to express themselves and Casanova especially did a great job. Peach too. Team Luxe was not luxe and also they were boring. Gretchen talked too much and changed her tune too quickly. She also spent all that time worrying about everyone else. Nina rolls her eyes. They all have a good laugh about how everyone named Mike as the weak link. It’s clear they don’t believe it for a minute. They hate Ivy’s look. AJ gave up his design style and also only made one thing. Heidi knows that Gretchen was the leader and she cowed everyone into doing what she said. But if she was the leader, but didn’t show her own style, did she just boss everyone around? Kors wishes they’d picked someone out to eliminate.

Casanova wins! Well, good for him, although I would hope he feels silly about all that drama. The whole team gets to leave. Mike C. gets to leave. He wishes all of the rest of his team good luck, which is more than I would have done. He’s upset that his team threw him under the bus. Chris is in. Ivy is in. Andy is in. Gretchen made all the decisions and they were bad. AJ spent all his time making one poor dress. Gretchen is in. Damn. AJ is upset to have gone out for something that wasn’t really him. Yeah. Tim appears to tell AJ to sit down and deliver a message to Team Luxe. He does not understand their behavior. “I don’t know why you allow Gretchen to manipulate, control, and bully you. I don’t. Understand. It. And AJ, you’ve taken the bullet, and now I have to send you to the workroom to clean up your space!” …did that just happen? Did Tim just call out a designer? OMG. Ivy knows Tim doesn’t just randomly say shit, so she thinks they all just figured it out. She certainly thinks he was right. Tim I love you. Gretchen says she’s not manipulative and her feelings are hurt because she just wanted to help and AJ said he wanted to make a shirtdress but it didn’t have to be a boring shirtdress. Wow. I don’t think you won any points with that. AJ, Kman and I are going to come visit you. Kman claims to know where you work. Not that we are stalking you, that is totally not it. We just think you are awesome and we’d love to give you some business.

Next week: new models. Tim has a surprise. I have no idea!