Project Runway All Stars 1/3/19--"All Stars Goes Global" summary

Previously on “Project Runway All Stars”: So this is the “all winners” season. Everyone is a winner of regular Project Runway. To make things interesting (or because not enough people wanted to return) we have winners from international editions of the show. I'm not that upset about that, for all my snide comments, because it means people we've never seen before, but who are familiar with the show and the work demands. I also saw a couple of ads for Heidi and Tim's new show, or casting for their new show anyway. So that's really happening. Anyway! Thanks for your patience and for returning to my blog and let's get started! (click for more)

Freaking Anya. I think she's a nice enough person but I do not think she should have won. But fine. Anthony Ryan, I...have been doing this too long because I don't really remember him? Maybe he was low drama so that's why? Irina, I remember her trying to plagiarize designs. Michelle has new glasses and a new haircut. Seth Aaron, who has won All-Stars also so maybe calm down. And Dmitry, who also has won All-Stars but I like him more than Seth Aaron? I mean sure, this group is fine.

Alyssa greets these six people, and she's dressed pretty well for her. She then says they've invited international winners to join them, six of them. Christina, from Australia. Sunny, Canada, who has gone the way of many alums of this show to dress celebrities for the red carpet. Django, who won Project Runway Netherlands, a thing I didn't know existed. Cynthia, from Brazil. Jasper, from the UK. Evan (who maybe goes by his last name Biddell), also from Canada. Evan looked around at the other international winners and somehow decided the Americans wouldn't also be first place finishers? Come on. Basically everyone has a short clip where they say they're here to kick ass. The show is still with JC Penny, who has taken over the accessory wall and will produce a “limited edition version” of the winning design each week. Also the winner each week gets $5000. OK that's a good prize. Isaac and Georgina are back. So anyway, they're all standing on Governor's Island, next to the Statue of Liberty. “A symbol which has proudly welcomed immigrants to the United States.” Oh so that's where we are with this. Don't get me wrong, I fully support this. I just didn't expect this show to declare itself quite so loudly. Anyway, the challenge is to show where you're from. Design a “high fashion look inspired by the culture of your country of origin”. She did kind of imply that the Americans (and I'm assuming everyone?) could use their ethnic origins, and not just where they're currently from. Although watching someone like Anya have to make American sportswear would be entertaining. $200 and one day. Anne Fulenwider is back to be the mentor.

Sketching time. Biddell quickly endears himself to me by getting flustered by Dmitry talking to him and making innuendos about “the view”. Hee. Dmitry is from Belarus, where traditional dress is loose and embroidered, which as far as I can remember is not Dmitry's style. Biddell is making a Mountie-inspired costume. At first I was like, that's dumb and literal, but you know what? Do it. I love looking at the Miss Universe “national” costumes and the United States wasn't draggy enough so I was mad. Be super literal and ridiculous, I am all for it. Irina is from Georgia (the country) and she seems to be designing a red coat with petals all over it.

Mood is Mood, and honestly I was in New York in June and I seriously considered going to Mood just to say I went, but what am I going to buy there? So I didn't go. 30 minutes to shop. The Americans have an advantage because they've been in there before. Anthony Ryan says he's native American, or at least his grandmother says, so he wants a bunch of color. Anya, you'll be shocked to know, appears to be making an Anya dress, so long and flowing with a V-neck. Cynthia needs a particular kind of lace for her Brazilian dress. I can't quite catch what she calls it.

The All-Stars act like they're impressed with the workroom they've all seen before. Well I guess if they were on early enough they never had a nice lounge. 10 hours left. Anya admits to Anthony Ryan that she hasn't done this in a while, and Anthony Ryan responds with “Girl, you ain't learned how to sew yet?!” Ha! I love you, Anthony Ryan. And then she admits she hasn't sewn since her season! Like, she develops businesses that don't require her sewing! Oh no baby what is you doing! Cynthia needs to fuse fabrics, and do things she's never done before. She talks a little bit about how much the show has helped her brand. Anthony Ryan says in confessional that three days before the show started his grandmother passed, and she's the person who taught him about working hard in life. Aww. He admits in the workroom his mind isn't 100% there. Irina starts cutting petals because that's basically her design. She's going to finally open a shop when she wins. Dmitry is quiet, because I remember him just quietly working. Biddell started sewing because he wanted to make his own clothes, being plus-sized.

Anne arrives to talk to everyone. Anya has at least four different prints happening. It's very long and the different fabrics have different weights so Anne is worried about movement on the runway. That's an excellent comment. She's scrapping the skirt. Cynthia has fused organza and lace, and that's basically all she has done. Seth Aaron is “school marm” and Jasper is “Disney princess”. I love that she's no-nonsense but without that sense you get from Tim sometimes that he's playing to the camera. Django is channeling “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, and when he says it's subtle and Anne says subtle doesn't work, he insists that European subtle is not the same as American subtle. Yeah, but I would think that American subtle is not actually subtle? Like the reverse of what he wants to imply. Irina has most of her coat done already. Dmitry has some cutouts and he's going to put some in the skirt. Sunny needs more time. Christina has asymmetry, which Anne loves. Michelle's dress is too plain. Biddell has literally made a Mountie jacket which I find hilarious but Anne says it's too literal. Anthony Ryan has also combined multiple prints and hilariously I find myself reminded of Patricia—who was also Native American. It's red, white, and blue! It's loud and so is Anya's so whatever. Anne leaves but says she's sending in a friend to give some “perspective”.

The “friend” is someone associated with 23 and Me. Unless you're making everyone take a DNA test, get out of here with that. There's no reason someone from that company would know about cultural fashion. Oh. They ARE going to take the test. Never mind. So then they magically have their results right now, which of course means they had them do it before the show even started. Anyway, of course there is the usual shock at people who have ethnic backgrounds they weren't expecting. Permit me to use my biology degree for a second. The test looks for genetic markers, sequences of DNA. Then they match them up by saying “this marker is found in 80% of this ethnic group so they've probably got some of that background”. As far as I know it's not perfect, but you can say “you share 50% of your markers with a typical Eastern European so you're probably 50% Eastern European.” Someone correct me if I am misrepresenting how this test works. So for example for me, my mother's family is from Japan. East Asian peoples and Native American peoples share a higher degree of similarity, probably because of the Bering Strait land bridge that brought people from Asia into North America. So if I were to take one of these tests, it might give me a weird high percentage of Native American, even if I'm not Native American at all, because of many markers being found in both Native American and East Asian groups. Does that make sense? Sorry to get on a tangent but this is the kind of thing that I tried to prepare students for when I was teaching in a regular school: to have enough basic knowledge to take something like this and understand how the test works and how to interpret results.

Anyway, sorry. Back to the show. So Dmitry's test is telling him he's .6% East Asian/Native American, which really doesn't mean a whole lot. Michelle is Ashkenazi Jew, which actually is a very small population with very distinctive markers. That one is probably accurate.

Back to two hours remaining. Jasper is trying on his design. Model fitting. No plus size models today! Listen, as a plus-size person, I had absolutely no problem with having them in the show last season. My problem was how I felt the show was manipulated into both making Liris the most difficult even if she wasn't the biggest, and how she and Jazzmyne (sp?) ended up making it to the end, which I always felt was producer interference. If everyone whined about dressing the big girls, then how were they never eliminated during model selection? You know? Also does anyone know if Jazzmine is the same girl that's a part of Buzzfeed? OK so in the actual show Biddell can't close his jacket because it's too small. Cynthia's dress is kind of beige. Anya made an Anya dress. Anthony Ryan is screwed because the fabrics don't lay right. One hour left. The same frantic working you are used to. Irina is going to hand tack in the morning. Anthony Ryan asked himself if he could be here again, and he apparently told himself he could.

Runway Day. They have three hours. Three hours!? That is forever. Anthony Ryan's top is terrible so he's making an overlay to go over it. Michelle makes a weird critique of Cynthia, that her proportions are maybe off but it's thoughtful and lovely and virginal. Pressure's high. There's a shot of Michelle with her glasses where she looks like Skrillix. HOT MAKEUP GUY SCOTT!! And it's not Mary Kay! Butter London. I missed you, hot makeup guy Scott. And Umberto hair, with the same guy but I don't care about him because he doesn't flirt with contestants. Cynthia's zipper gets stuck and she kind of freaks out. But Jasper and Biddell help her out! Aww.

Guest judge is Debra Messing. Whatever. Also Alyssa promises them they could get their shit sold at JC Penny, but JC Penny just tweeted that their partnership with the show ended after season 7 (?) and they're not making any designs from this show. This was literally half an hour ago. So fuck this show, I guess. Anya: it's a maxi dress with a V-neck and no sleeves, in a black print with white feathers, and an insert of red print at one hip and a high slit. I mean you guys know what an Anya dress looks like. The back of the bodice is a yellow print but it's an Anya dress. Biddell: slim black jodhpurs pants and a big red jacket with gold buttons. The jacket is shiny and cropped but is not as literal of a Mountie jacket as it could be. But there are poofy sleeves and a high collar so you can tell what it is. The jacket isn't buttoned up. Jasper: a 50's style dress in a blue-green mottled print. It's got the slightly off-the-shoulder neckline, fitted bodice, and full midi skirt of a 50's dress. I really like it but this is the silhouette that looks best on me. It's not super fashion-forward. Seth Aaron: first of all his model has a horizontal line of black across her eyes. The dress is long sleeved and black, with an asymmetrical short skirt and a squarish neckline. And knee-high white vinyl boots. I can't tell any details due to the usual garbage runway shots.

Django: black pencil skirt, but with a high slit and lined with brown along the slit and the bottom hem. Then a white wrap? I think it's all attached but the image is a tight black sleeveless top with a V-neck, and then a white wrap with sleeves that starts under her shoulders. I don't like the brown strip and hem. If it had been white to match the other part I think that would have been better. Anthony Ryan: blue dress with a boatneck, cap sleeves, and a knee length pencil skirt. Then he tied some fabric with a red and white print around her waist. It really looks like he just took a rectangle of fabric and tied it. When they get a close up it's even worse. It's an asymmetrical skirt, with one side just with a tab to make it longer, instead of a diagonal. Then the top is a crop top, with the red fabric sewn to the top so it drapes down. And the red is longer than the blue. I don't know about this. Christina: black and gray long dress, with a blazer-style top. The top has a mostly black bodice, with long gray sleeves, and then gray from just under her boobs to just under her hips, and a black skirt to the floor. It's visually interesting, and appears well-constructed, and the bodice has swoops and curves to the black. Michelle: short dress in a white or maybe a very pale blue. The neck is so high it looks like she's got a shirtdress on backwards. Actually the back of it is a V so maybe that's what is happening. The sleeves are long, one is cut open but gathered at the wrist and one is just hanging down. Over the light color is a very cropped green/blue sequined top. Like she put a big sports bra over the dress, that's how cropped it is. Actually the sequins maybe end above her boobs. It's very Fashion.

Sunny: tight black dress, to the knee with a short slit and long sleeves. The shoulders are gold leather strips, with a high neck. And the shoulders are slightly pointed. This looks amazing. The strips aren't backed by anything, so you can see the model's skin, and then the black is just a straight neckline with a little V in the center. The model is African American and the gold just pops. Irina: very short coat, in bright red with petals all over and a big hood, also with petals. She looks like a chicken. Like a stylized chicken mascot. She went for it, anyway. Cynthia: long off white dress, slim with a high neck and ending just below the knee. Down one side and along the front under her boobs are ruffles of lace that are slightly darker than the dress, but not by much. The ruffles start at her left shoulder, then go under her other arm and cover most of her stomach. It's such a boring non-color, though. In the back the lace makes an inverted V. Dmitry: off-the-shoulder black dress, with long bell sleeves, that ends mid-calf. Along the top of the bodice are V-shaped cutouts, that are repeated halfway down her thighs. The ends of the sleeves and the skirt from the cutouts to the hem are a blue-green embroidery in chevrons to mimic the cutouts. This looks really great. Wearable, but also fashionable and eye-catching.

Biddell, Anya, Dmitry, Irina, Cynthia, and Anthony Ryan are the highs and lows. Everyone else is safe. I really liked Sunny's but fine. Biddell is up first. He explains about Mounties, and they luckily like it. Isaac almost makes a dirty joke about mounted police. Well...maybe they don't hate it as much as they could. Isaac doesn't like the gold buttons, because they're too far. Also the two sides of the jacket aren't even in the front. The jodhpurs and the puffy sleeves and volume in the jacket are perfectly proportioned, so even though it's kind of costumey I don't think anyone really hates it. Anya immediately gets nailed for not having enough patterns and/or drama. There is no design in it, and the draping has to be perfect because everyone else has such a high skill level. Oh thank God they're not letting her slide like in her season. Dmitry talks about embroidery and his velvet dress. Georgina loves the cutouts because they lighten the dress. Isaac says “fabulous” and Debra didn't even think it was velvet. It's not Dmitry's usual structured hard lines, which is great.

Irina says that Georgia is known for wine production. Sure. Somehow this chicken coat is “owning [your] femininity”. Debra says it's her favorite. It's a little heavy in the front, and then Isaac says he doesn't like it. It's too overworked and she ruined the cashmere. But overall it's a positive reaction because of course. It's eye-catching and Fashion so they love it. To be fair, like I said she went for it so points for that. Cynthia talks about lace. Isaac says the ruffles are kind of avant garde but they need to be lighter. It's a little muddy, and the placement of the ruffles look like she's trying to hide a pregnancy. Anthony Ryan talks about Cherokee, but it's so confusing. There's a tiny bit of exposed midriff, and then the skirt just having like one long panel along one leg and it's too busy. Alyssa gets what he was going for but says he should have done all leather. Isaac talks about frayed edges and how they don't look purposeful, and then “guesses” that he's not really here. I put that in quotes because come on. Y'all have watched enough of this show to know that's a producer prompted question so that Anthony Ryan could talk about his dead grandmother. That's bitchier than I feel about it but we all know the producers manipulated this moment to get the best TV out of his very real loss. Fuck you guys for making him deal with this on camera when he just got negative feedback.

In the Scrap Bin there is commiseration about the runway pressures, and then everyone comforts Anthony Ryan. Isaac is loving that they don't all agree, because Isaac loves the drama. Biddell had great proportions, and he was “brave”. It was impactful, which is perfect for the first runway. Dmitry made a beautiful velvet dress, that had the cutouts and embroidery to make it fresh and not boring. Irina was impactful, but Isaac hated the whole thing because it was too costumey. I think they do agree that it was well-made. Anya was a disappointment, except Isaac “wants to see where she's going.” Where do you think she's going, she's going right to the same damn place where she was for the entirety of her whole season. Shut up, Isaac. Everyone else thinks it's too boring. Anthony Ryan is going through a hard time, and Alyssa and Isaac can almost see where he was going with it but Georgina doesn't. Isaac says that when he goes wrong, he GOES WRONG, and he can respect that. You know what, I can see what he's saying. Anthony Ryan went all out, and if he's going to go out, then at least it isn't boring. Unlike Cynthia's dress, which was kind of boring. Georgina argues that you don't need a defined waist, and then Alyssa says at least Anthony Ryan and Cynthia have a design perspective, unlike Anya, and Georgina can't disagree. Isaac says at least Anya has taste, which I would argue you don't need on this show. I don't watch this show for tasteful clothing. I watch it for amazing clothing. Taste is important but it's not enough for the regular version of this show, let alone a season of All-Stars made up of previous winners.

The winner is Dmitry. Aww, I would have liked to see a version of his dress. Irina and Biddell are both in also. Dmitry is very happy to have won. Cynthia is in. Anthony Ryan didn't show himself in his work. Anya was too simple. Alyssa says they respect that they both won their season, so there is no elimination. That is horseshit. Eliminate someone. That is the whole point of this show. OK so who do we think was saved by that? Did they want to keep Anthony Ryan or Anya? I guess they'll get rid of one of them next week and we'll find out. Alyssa then tells everyone that two new designers are joining All-Stars right now! Julie, from Australia, and Sean from the US. Whatever, to Sean. But seriously, how long is this fucking season going to be?

This season: some kind of Willy Wonka shit, planes, a boa constrictor, various guest judges but I only care about Nina, some supermodels, obviously drama.