Project Runway All Stars 1/16/14--"Reunion" summary

Previously on Project Runway: Seth Aaron won the whole thing. So yay? I guess? I find that I’m kind of sad that Korto didn’t win but on the other hand, I really don’t care that much. Guess it’s a good thing we’ve got a break coming. (click for more)

Alyssa gets to host, although it occurs to me that they don’t really have anyone else to do it. We have a montage of the finale collections and then Korto has to watch herself lose again which kind of sucks. Seth Aaron thinks there was more pressure on him because he had won before. Jeffrey, who has long hair and a beard like a homeless person, talks about helping him and whatever. Korto is glad to have shown herself and she’s happy with what she did. Mychael and Ari liked her clothes, and Korto talks about home and bringing hope to little kids. Aww. She’s getting choked up but I would say winning is not super important for her. Also she’s pregnant again, yay!

Elena was the “dark horse”. She hadn’t noticed she was always making the same outfit over and over again. Interesting. Viktor thinks that on her first season no one got her avant garde looks. Jeffrey says they’re all friends because they’ve all been through it. That’s a good point.

Alyssa says she wants to know what happened with Chris and Viktor. Wow, I can’t even remember what she is talking about. Oh good, a clip. So when they were partners for Bonnie and Clyde Viktor told him how to do his dress, and then Chris took all the credit? And then Viktor stopped talking to him. Oh yes, I remember now. Viktor likes Chris, but he thought helping Chris made his own garment suffer so that’s that. Chris is like, you can win with a good garment, which doesn’t really address anything. Viktor tries to explain and Chris cuts him off to say no, but that’s it, you can just make a garment and you don’t have to be rude. Then they have an argument about whether Viktor was rude or not. I guess Chris tried to talk to him and Viktor didn’t answer? The fight devolves into who avoided whom after they were eliminated. And then it turns out they all apologized to each other so why is Chris still pissy about it and why is Viktor arguing that Chris is the rude one? They hug it out so I guess it’s all fine now.

Let’s talk about the first challenge! When you had to work in Mood! It was crazy, the end. People talk about trying to rise to the challenges, which is nothing new. Also they talk about how Elena hadn’t won anything before and her model told her she wears clothes backwards and it was a revolution. Surprise, Debbie Harry is on the phone! That’s who was going to wear Elena’s jacket. So she talks about how great Elena’s design is, which is not terribly interesting. This reunion is kind of boring.

Seth Aaron talks about winning the last two challenges, of course the finale, but also the business challenge. Seth Aaron says something about how great it is to have his design sold and then we change the subject. So that’s productive. Next we see a montage of Jeffrey doing stuff in the Bonnie and Clyde challenge, that huge coat that was not super-exciting but was a nice coat. He’s going to be a costume designer for a Lifetime movie, and we get some stills of him working and the gown. It’s very shiny champagne satin, pretty though. Korto also won a challenge with an extra prize, to make a dress for QVC. That’s the time she scrapped her whole dress at the last minute and basically made a maxi dress. I really liked that dress. Not Fashion with a capital F, but in terms of making something that people will buy and actually wear it was great. Are we going to talk about every challenge and talk to each winner? Sigh. Viktor won the cocktail dress challenge and he actually presents Alyssa with the dress that she said she would wear. Heh. Nice.

Now it is time to talk to Ari. She says that people are really supportive, and then Alyssa asks if she feels different being a female designer which makes me cringe a little bit. I know she means well, but still. Ari says she is more aware of things like wearing bras, but mostly she’s balanced within herself and that comes through in her clothes. Seth Aaron told her that he’s met her a ton of times before, but now it’s like he’s really meeting her. Nice. Alyssa tells Daniel the fans love him. Do they? Anyway, he had a really bad car accident and he’s thankful for the fan and fellow contestant support.

Elena received the most high scores this season, but Jeffrey got the most low scores. That seems right. Montage of Jeffrey trying to sew and complaining about it. Judges arguing with him. He says he got further than he thought he would, so that’s something. Chris was most embarrassed to try to defend his terrible lace trench coat. Mostly because Nina ripped him a new one. Guest judge montage. It just highlights how dumb they are sometimes.

Viktor and Mychael both regret the menswear Bonnie and Clyde challenge. Daniel learned some leather techniques from spying on Melissa. Viktor learned how to copy Elena. Chris was most proud of winning the unconventional materials challenge, because that’s the one where he was like “I was bullied and had a shitty childhood” and there was supposed to be a rainbow but there wasn’t.

Montage of “having fun”. Mostly running around and acting up. Also Viktor and his fan. Then Zanna shows up to talk about being a mentor. Montage of Zanna giving suggestions. She’s pretty good at this, actually, but I still miss Joanna. Zanna’s pregnant too, with twins. They talk about the insect challenge, where Zanna told Mychael his dress was terrible and he ended up winning. Clearly Zanna helped then. Now we talk to Irina, as the other previous winner we haven’t talked to yet. Montage of her giant wedding dress that was supposed to be a red carpet look and it ripped a bunch of times. She appears to argue about how she put the most work into her dress that challenge.

Now we are talking about the Simpson’s challenge. I actually did like that challenge. I wanted it to be like the Miss Piggy challenge where people forgot she is a puppet. And it happened! Everyone acted like she was a real person. Hilarious. Alyssa shows everyone the clip we all saw at the end of the episode, where they actually animated ALL the dresses in short clips, I guess so they could avoid spoilers.

Oh, the stupid last-minute challenge that Korto and Chris had to do because of whatever stupid reason. Wasted clip, no one cares. Zanna stirs the pot and asks everyone who should have won. Oh they all think Korto should have won that, clearly. The audience thinks that too, I would wager. Zanna’s worst look of the season is Jeffrey’s avant garde look, which was the giant lampshade and the hood over the models’ face. Alyssa’s least favorite was Korto’s unconventional materials look. Zanna loved Elena’s cocktail dress and Alyssa wanted Seth Aaron’s red coat from his finale collection. Oh yes, that coat was fantastic. People talk about their favorite looks, and they all seem to have different ones and they like other peoples stuff.

Korto is ready to launch her brand, Elena is getting married and has costuming projects happening, Seth Aaron just finished his QVC line and Mary Kay wants him to make a line too. And that’s the end! That reunion was so choppy, and I don’t know if it was because they wrote it poorly or because no one would say anything incriminating. Now we’ll have a break for a decent amount of time maybe. Thanks for reading, everyone!