Project Runway All Stars 1/16/19--"Buckle Up!" summary

Previously on “Project Runway All Stars”: there were too many people on this show. Everyone had to make graduation outfits, based on tassels with two colors. Just as if you were an extra high school student and decided that under your cap and gown you would dress in your school colors. Anthony Ryan won, with royal blue lace pants and orange hot pants and crop top. Whatever. Sunny was eliminated for not using both colors. So just to make sure everyone knows, the judges declared with that elimination that following the challenge is more important that making a good outfit. (click for more)

Everyone heads to Long Island to the airport so they can get on a Southwest plane and pretend like they're actually going to go somewhere. You know they're not going anywhere. Alyssa gets whoever to let her talk on the intercom. She tells the designers about some program Southwest has where they “upcycle” their old leather seats into accessories. It's time for the unconventional materials challenge. Is someone going to make another seatbelt coat? Anyway, they can't tear up this plane, they have to go to baggage claim to rummage through things. They will need to make a “glamorous” look for “modern day air travel”, plus a leather accessory. The winner will get $5000 and some free tickets, and supposedly get the accessory created for sale. But we know what happened with JC Penny. Then Alyssa gives them two days, so twist alert in effect.

Everyone descends on the baggage claim to tear shit up and make a mess. Juli is horrified that no one is following rules? Or maybe that it's just chaos? Jasper grabs cups and barf bags. Sean takes peanuts. Michelle takes cocktail stirrers so I'm not sure how that's going to work. Someone appears to drop kick a suitcase for some reason.

10 hours to work today. Christina says that fashion gave her direction. Django interviews that his mom encouraged him to be a fashion designer. Seth Aaron is going to make a dress out of seat belts, because I told you. Michelle pounds plastic with a hammer. She says in confessional that there are two ways to approach this challenge. You can either just use your material as it is, or you can deconstruct it. And she has chosen to destroy things. Jasper is cutting up cups and making fringe, and it is going to take forever. Irina also has cups but I think she's trying to use the circular bottoms. Sean has reflectors. Juli worries that she won't have enough color, as she's just gotten barf bags. I think she's going to use a neon vest? Django wants to make a black outfit, but the material isn't draping right. He appears to give up. Like actually give up and say things like “I have to quit.”

Day two. Not everyone had an unconventional materials challenge on their original season. Can you truly have a season of Project Runway without an unconventional materials challenge? Anyway, Jasper has never done this before.

Anne comes in to judge them. Michelle is covering muslin with broken reflectors. I thought she got cocktail stirrers? Whatever. Her leather bag doesn't go with her jumpsuit at all, so that might be a problem. Anthony Ryan has mostly nothing, but Anne just says she'll just leave him to it. Django has most of a skirt, even though he had to start over. Anne tells him that he has a lot of work to do. OK but Anthony Ryan had nothing on his dress form. Did you also tell him to get his shit together and we just didn't see it? Because otherwise this is blatant favoritism for no reason. Dmitry gets “horse bridle”. Jasper is told he has to do more than cut up paper, and he says that he's going to color it. Anya has layered the ticket jackets to make a pattern, and I have to admit it does look cool. It's an interesting origami effect. Cynthia has made pockets. Irina spent a bunch of time making a hat out of plastic rings? Seth Aaron says that it's seatbelts, but it isn't. Anne deadpans that it looks like seatbelts to her. Ha! Biddell is emptying peanut packets to use the wrappers but it's taking a very long time. Sean has aviator sunglass lenses. Juli has a nice looking dress, but Anne says it's too boring.

Anne leaves without adding another assignment! Hooray! Model fittings. Seth Aaron is very confident. Irina has painted her top but it's not quite dry. Jasper is also waiting for paint to dry and he's freaking out about it. He's in the running around panic mode.

Runway Day. Jasper is still in panic mode. Sean is finally making his accessory. Juli is worried she's too safe. Michelle pretends the JC Penny accessories are amazing. Jasper tells his model to do a bunch of poses or whatever, and if you have to have your model do a thing then your design is not good. Hot makeup guy Scott. Irina is gluing things on her model. Michelle has basically a shift dress, which is also a boring silhouette, so I'd like to see someone nail her for that. If we're going to hassle Juli for being boring.

Someone put Alyssa in a vest with no shirt, that just attaches between her boobs and leaves her stomach exposed, and a long full midi skirt that ends like an inch above her ankles. She looks very short. Guest judges are journalist Tamron Hall and model Martha Hunt. Alyssa also reminds us that these designs are technically supposed to be for air travel. I'm pretty sure I saw some designs that you can't sit in. OK and then the runway show starts and there are two airport employees in high visibility wear with the red flashlights on either side of the runway. Seriously. I hate this show.

Anya: short skirt and a loose top, made of ticket jackets. Everything is layered in such a way that she's made prints out of the pattern on the paper. The top is basically a rectangle, so it looks like a baggy top with loose sleeves. The skirt is really short and I don't like the proportions of the outfit, but it does look good. The back of the top is open, and she has a square bag as an accessory. You know everyone is going to make handbags as accessories. I'll admit, I'm probably going to forget about them. Cynthia: knee-length dress with short sleeves and pockets, in blue and green. The green makes a diamond pattern. It's not a tight dress, but it does have some shape to it. I think it's luggage straps? It looks like real clothes. The bag has stupidly long fringe. Django: short black and white ruffled dress. The ruffles start on her skirt, then wrap around her side and up around her neck. It looks interesting, and is supposedly all barf bags. I'm not sure how comfortable it is to sit on those ruffles but whatever. The ruffles also cover her chest, but unfortunately it looks a little bit like a pirate shirt.

Biddell: miniskirt made of gold peanut bags, and a tight bodice made of seatbelts. The bodice has a deep V and bows or something on her shoulders. I'm sad because he made full pants, and I guess they didn't fit properly or something. They looked so interesting. The skirt just looks kind of fluffy (he crumpled the bags up before gluing, looks like). Michelle: short sleeveless shift dress with a boatneck, covered in broken red reflectors. It looks cool, because of the light, but there's not even a defined waist so it is a very simple dress. The back of the dress has a V and a notch in the skirt. Seth Aaron: seatbelt dress. So he took the belts and laid them out next to each other without overlapping. Then he sewed them together at the shoulders, and then at the bottom of the miniskirt he put all the buckles, glued together. So as she walks, the belts move and open up, and underneath is an orange garment that is not explained. But banding everything together at the hem is not as flattering as he must think it is. Plus he didn't flatten the belts, so they've all got creases in random places.

Juli: paper skirt (barf bags) that is knee-length with layers of ruffles. The ruffles are flat, and make a scallop pattern with a little fringe. The top is a very tight blue top with a V-neck and wide straps at the shoulders, almost cap sleeves. It fits very well and looks like real clothes, but I guess this is “too boring”. Give me this over Seth Aaron's whatever that was any day. How are you supposed to sit on a plane with the entire bottom of your dress is seat belt buckles? Exactly. Christina: hoodie made out of “vinyl billboard”. It's mostly black, with green sleeves and hood and the bottom hem is white with colored stripes. Underneath this is a woven blue halter top and black hot pants. Actually they're not hot pants because I think they're too baggy, but you can't see them when the hoodie is zipped up because they're that short. Jasper: midi skirt, very slender, with what looks like fringe all over it. Short fringe, that lies flat instead of swinging around, in a blue ombre. The top is black and white, with a shirt collar and elbow length sleeves. His leather accessory is a wide belt, but then his model also has two big handbags and sunglasses.

Sean: knee-length shift dress made out of orange rectangle reflectors and sunglasses. The reflectors lie flat and make a kind of latticework, which frames sunglass lenses, set in pairs in vertical stripes. It is nowhere near practical because you can't sit in that, but it does have a sense of whimsy and Fashion. His leather accessory looks like those paper balls you buy at the party store, that start out flat, but you open them up and unfold them and they have an accordion tissue paper structure. Dmitry: short black dress with red sleeves, made out of mesh bags and sleeping masks. It's cut and sewn together so you can see the individual masks, so it's made out of little pieces of fabric and has movement, but this is overall a boring silhouette too. Someone please explain to me how Juli had a boring dress but this one is not boring. There's a leather necklace/collar that looks cool but that's about it. I mean, her ass is practically hanging out in the back, it's so short. Irina: short dress made out of paper cups (I think) that are all colored orange. She used the bottoms of the cups, so the whole thing is made of circles. The top has a very wide collar that drapes over her shoulders and arms like short sleeves. It seems a little bulky, but it's very striking and I like the circles. She's also used mesh bags as the underlying fabric, so the back of the bodice has rows of mesh in between the circles. Anthony Ryan: blue jumpsuit with wide cropped legs, sleeveless with a high crew neck. When she turns around, the whole back is a red and gold brick kind of pattern. I think these are snack bags.

Alyssa pretends the runway was spectacular. Christina, Django, Cynthia, Anya, Anthony Ryan, Dmitry, and Biddell are safe. Oh so you're not going to bust Dmitry for being boring and Cynthia's hoodie is just safe. Fine. Michelle talks about breaking up reflectors. It feels like a real dress, and it looks like maybe embroidery. Isaac wishes maybe a little more volume. Irina did use the bottoms of the paper cups. Georgina loves the proportions. Isaac does that thing where he says “I don't like this dress...I ADORE this dress!”. Sigh. It is a really interesting dress and everyone loves it. Seth Aaron didn't want to modify any of his materials that much, so you could see what they were. Georgina wanted to like this more than she actually likes it. She also noticed the seat belts weren't pressed. Isaac feels the same; he applauds the attempt and the idea, but he didn't do enough. Guest judge Tamron says “reluctant dominatrix” which is such a Kors comment and I love it. The seat belts are shiny and as the light hits them it looks sloppy.

Sean has luggage tags in there somewhere with his sunglasses. Isaac feels it's unresolved. It doesn't reflect how good of a designer he is. Alyssa really loved it though. Juli used a luggage belt and a security vest in her bodice, which is impressive because the color matches so well I thought it was all the same thing. Alyssa likes this one too, especially the layering on the skirt. Georgina is bored and everyone else thinks she was too safe. Jasper painted everything. Georgina loves the top. Isaac tells him that she comes across as a rich bimbo and he really likes it. Tamron thought “Michelle Obama” which is both hilarious following Isaac's comment and weirdly true? Michelle Obama would wear a black and white paint splattered shirt with a wide belt and a long skirt with fringe. It's polished and then Alyssa says it's “classic” but done really well. I guess I can see that the other people who had simple silhouettes had other interesting things, reflectors or fringe or some thing. I just don't think Juli was as boring as they were complaining about.

Irina turned it around from last week, and had great proportions and a modern dress. Michelle's texture looked very expensive and interesting. Jasper had a very simple shape but they like the paint and pattern. Not everyone hates Sean's look, because it has humor at least and he took a risk. Seth Aaron went for something that didn't translate and one of the guest judges is all “this makes me wonder who he is as a designer” which is completely ridiculous coming from a guest judge. Of course you don't know who he is, because you're not here. Honestly this outfit fits him pretty well. Juli's bodice is suddenly ill-fitting. I mean, yeah, it's boring, but I don't recall them saying anything about fit earlier.

Michelle is in. Irina is the winner! Jasper is in. I did really like her dress. Sean is in. Seth Aaron is out. I was not expecting that at all. Juli is in. He doesn't think he had the worst look this week, but he's “a professional” so that's what they've decided.

Next week: corsets, Michelle hurts herself, basically an underwear challenge.