Project Runway 9/11/14--"The Rainway" summary

Previously on Project Runway: Char came back, which was nice because I like Char. Everyone had to make outfits to showcase some super expensive jewelry. In general it was pretty blah, as it was the last time they had this challenge. Amanda made the ugliest black jumpsuit and white sheer shirt and was praised, but luckily she did not win. Korina made a coat out of upholstery fabric and she won. To be fair the coat was really dramatic. Alexander got harassed for not using fabric properly, except it seemed like Amanda and Kini got a pass for their fabric. Whatever. Samantha lost because her dress was too “boring”/the producers decided to get rid of her, because there were more boring outfits up there. (click for more)

Sandhya is now sad Samantha is gone. She missed Char too which is nice. She’s making friends, counter to everything reality show contestants should feel. Korina is all smiles from winning. Kini wants to push his boundaries.

There are two TVs on the runway, and Heidi and Tim. Tim starts talking about innovation and technology, I guess because the TVs are those new curved TVs. Woo. What kind of stupid product placement can we have today? Somehow curved TVs allow everyone to have a perfect view from anywhere. Whatever, I’m still watching TV on my giant box of a TV from 15 years ago. So their looks must be innovative and blah blah, AVANT-GARDE which is so dumb. They never have proper avant-garde on this damn show. AND. A twist. They’ll have to send the models down in the rain. Big flat runway with fake rain. It’s “the rainway”, ha ha. Kini speaks for everyone when he says “What the FUCK”. They have to use waterproof textiles. Also magically they’ll get two days. They NEVER give them two days. They might, but it’s far more likely they’ll roll in tomorrow and make them all do a ready-to-wear look so they’ll have two looks and I will be up all night talking about 18 garments. Let’s hope I’m wrong. The workroom will have heavy construction materials to make shapes and stuff.

Amanda babbles about Cleopatra and the Nile. Kini has an upside-down umbrella skirt. Like if you made big gathers and loops at the waist. I think. Sean wants to have color-changing fabric. Fade is going to wing it. Because he has two days and he’s going to experiment. Sandhya is…inspired by the TV test screen, the one with the vertical bars of colors. Emily really wants to win with her “raincoat catsuit”.

Kini really wants to win. Korina claims you need a strong concept to make it through. Fade is uninspired and has had more screen time in the past 10 minutes than he’s had all season. So that’s some editing right there. I think Amanda is putting eyeballs. Sure.

Tim Time! He loves Kini’s skirt, but not the metallic spine for the handle he wants to put on there. Tim warns him to make it perfect and don’t do anything else to it. So Kini took maybe yard lengths of fabric, then took each end and sewed that to the skirt. So the middle loops outward. It looks like if you had a closed umbrella and just undid the strap. Sean has a white dress but he wants it to be ombre. Well actually he wants to put powdered dye in the dress somehow so when it rains on the dress it runs and dyes the dress. Tim loves it so much but wonders how it will work. It sounds so cool. Emily’s dress looks like armor, and she found a cool patterned black vinyl. Amanda’s dress is terrible and shoddy. Also she has a red pupil that she put right at the crotch. Good job, Amanda. Tim points it out and then says “this is nothing if not the season of the vagina.” Hee. Alexander has clear plastic and some kind of purple that looks like a flower. Char…I’m not sure what Char is doing. Spiky. Fade has a PLAY button. The dress is just a shift dress right now. Tim makes every iteration of his “I’m concerned” face. It’s too simple right now. Fade doesn’t think avant-garde has to be super crazy. Sandhya…I like Sandhya but that jumpsuit is vertically striped neon with a fat white belt. Also she’s babbling about textures and making the water drip in different ways. Tim actually says he’s concerned, which is how you know it’s bad. Somehow Sandhya thinks the coat she’s making will improve this taste level. Sure. Korina says she’s a thunderbird. And wings. But not literal wings with bone structure. But she has immunity so whatever.

Fade describes his outfit to Amanda, who loves it. I mean, OK, but her clothes are fugly so I wouldn’t put a ton of stock in her opinion. They all go home and start drinking. Well the girls bust out some wine and go over to collect the rest of the people. Then they all drink and get maudlin about how many people are gone. Most depressing party ever.

Day 2. Korina decides her outfit looks like a bobsledder and she hates all of it. Tim enters and tells everyone they have until 7pm to work. And no twist extra look! Yay! Sandhya’s coat looks like clear plastic with pinwheels on it. It would be great if it was an unconventional challenge. Fade is really struggling. Sandhya gets a phone call to her husband. Emily talks to her daughter. Fade calls his husband and breaks down. Aww. He interviews that he promised his friends he wouldn’t cry and scoffed at them because he doesn’t cry. “That’s what Project Runway does to people.” Oh for sure. Makes me cry too.

Model fitting. Sean discovers the flaw in his plan: the dye is so fine that the powder is falling through the mesh and getting on the white dress already. Kini suggests he put some paper to temporarily shield things. With half an hour left they have to shove everything in boxes for transport.

Runway day. Hot makeup guy Scott. Lots of weird makeup. And hair. Sandhya is super excited about her jacket. Emily likes her armor. Fade’s excited too but the judges always think avant-garde is fancy. Korina’s outfit is falling apart a little. Amanda is also worried the rain will make her outfit fall apart. Sean’s dress looks like it has stripes already, and he is really worried.

Guest judge is Caitlin Fitzgerald, star of “Masters of Sex”. Char: long purple jumpsuit, with a big sash made of purple and black loops. It looks spiky. The dress has a turtleneck and the model has a little hat which is cute. The sash is impressive, I guess. Sandhya: this is a vertically striped neon jumpsuit with cropped pants. All different colors. Over that is a clear plastic coat with silver pinwheels and spikes and whatnot. The pinwheels are not moving or doing anything. Emily: silver leggings and long gloves, and then black vinyl short dress. It looks like armor. There are shoulder pads and the dress has loops to stand out from her body. It’s cool and kind of badass. The model has a hood and a sleek ponytail. Alexander: big clear plastic coat covered in purple flowers. I think he took circles of vinyl, painted the edges purple, and then put them on the coat. Black jumpsuit underneath. Fade: simple shift dress, with a mullet hem and long sleeves. The skirt is black and kind of sparkly, and then a light gray stripe and a darker gray on her shoulders. There is a yellow PLAY button on her chest, and thin yellow stripes running down the front and around like a circuit board. And goggles?

Korina: short black dress and then silver all over. Like she made a cage of silver material and it goes over her chest and down her arms and then maybe gold pieces hanging around her legs. Whatever, she’s safe. Amanda: long column dress with tiers. Each tier is supposed to be an eye, in red, yellow, and green. It looks better than some of her previous work, I’ll give her that. As the model walks away one of the eyes falls off. Ha. Kini: black umbrella-skirt thing. The top is just black vinyl, long sleeved and high necked. There’s a conical hat. I really like the skirt’s shape. Sean: so the dress is just a plain white dress with spaghetti straps and a long skirt. The minute she walks out the colors start to run and she spins around and it is really cool. There’s a small peplum ruffle and that has really turned orange. By the time she gets back to leave the runway the dress is several colors. I’m so glad that worked, that was really cool.

Amanda, Char, and Alexander are safe. Kini talks about umbrellas. They really like it. Nina calls it sublime. They see other designers in his look but I guess today he’s not getting in trouble for copying. Korina talks about the thunderbird and whatever. Heidi and everyone agree the silver needed to be real metal. The fabric or whatever it is, is not sturdy enough and is unfinished. The bottom is just two tails. Sandhya’s outfit is definitely her. That’s true. They like it, which I think is weird but I don’t know what the judges are thinking ever. Nina tells her it’s on the border of too childlike. Fade talks about the TV and PLAY buttons and the curve of the TV. Now it’s gimmicky, which is so ridiculous to say while they’re standing on a damn “rainway”. He tried to please your stupid sponsor. Fade argues that avant-garde doesn’t have to have shit stuck all over it but his button didn’t do anything either. Sean’s dress did work, thankfully, and of course they love it. Nina gushes about how her petticoat is vinyl. Zac tells us when your gimmick is “effective” then that’s OK. No one wants to tell Emily her outfit is terrible. He says McQueen, which is stupid. You said Kini’s looked like McQueen, so why is his inspiration fine and hers isn’t? Emily’s elements don’t all go together. Nina finds it dated and cliché.

Back in the Scrap Bin they mention that both Emily and Kini were compared to McQueen. Instead of asking why one was fine and one was a terrible copier, Sandhya say she would never want to be compared to any designer and so far she’s managed that. Amanda interviews about what a horrible person Sandhya is (to be fair, they edit it like she stopped the conversation). Well, then Sandhya keeps talking and says your look shouldn’t reference any designer. Yeah…maybe it’s time to stop talking. That was unnecessary.

They gush about Sean’s look, which was cool to watch although it didn’t work perfectly. It was a risk, that’s fair. Emily’s look gets everyone to complain about how they’ve seen it before. Sandhya…I don’t get Sandhya. I do admit she’s very unique and she’s her own designer. But…clear plastic jacket with silver pinwheels. Fade is too boring. I just realized that Kini’s skirt is the same skirt we saw from Leanne. She made that skirt for her finale show, I think. The judges argue about who should win and who should lose. They can’t seem to agree on who should win but I can’t bring myself to care. I will remind everyone that if you think all the way back to season 1, the swimsuit challenge, Alexandria (?) said she was inspired by a couple of people for her look. She was quickly eliminated. How much has changed.

Sandhya is in. Sean is the winner. Oh and Kini wins too! Stupid. Your job is to LITERALLY pick one winner! Korina is in. Fade is out. Oh, I knew it when he had so much screen time. Stupid. He was doing really great stuff which was ignored, and then he does one not-great thing and he’s out. Pff. Tim claims this was the best runway presentation in the history of the show, which is clearly bullshit even if I can’t think of specifically what was better. You just know something was better. Fade says this will help him on his path to superstardom.

Next week: creepy American Girl dolls. So I guess it’s the Barbie challenge? But Barbie won’t have anything to do with this show anymore? Sandhya has worn out her welcome, I guess, because she’s sad.