Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Since last week's recap, we've been immersed in real life Project Runway experiences. We covered the Fashion Week final collections and decoys show, the HP Project Runway Reunio party and sat next to Austin Scarlett at the Nanette Lepore show. We even ran into Bryce on the subway—and ended up giving him and his family directions. So going back to actually just watching the show again, seemed like it might be anti-climactic. Fortunately for all of us, this is a really fun episode.
It's now week eight of Project Runway and Heidi kicks things off by bringing a group of men onto the runway and telling the designers that these are their new clients. The designers start to panic at the thought of designing clothing for men, let alone some "fat" men. We, however, notice that Heidi describes the men as "clients," not "models." This has less to do with our astute powers of observation than with the fact that last week's preview already told us the designers would be designing for these men's wives and girlfriends. Eventually the designers learn this information too, and the news is met with sighs of relief.
Their relief is short-lived, however, once the designers learn that they're going to get guidance on what to make from the men themselves. The men's input ranges from confusion over what their women would wear, to non-stop bragging about their wives' large breasts. The later traumatizes the cast's gay male designers, well, actually just Olivier, who it turns out has never met a breast he didn't hate. Bert handles his own client's pervy comments and his motorboating of Bert's mannequin with way more grace than we would have. If only Bert would schmooze his fellow designers as well.
The clients, and later their wives and girlfriends, are more involved with this challenge than ever before. The men join the designers when they go shopping at Mood and then they and their significant others spend a lot of time in the work rooms giving notes. Bryce's model is obsessed with the color pink. Bert's model and her husband are obsessed with showing off her cleavage. Olivier's client and his wife are mega hands on, which is difficult because Olivier would prefer, "Working with a non-speaking person just doing their job." And Joshua gets a client whose wife likes to dress "tame and simple." Telling that to the Bedazzling King, is like asking Bob Mackie to design an outfit for a Quaker.
Our regular judges, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, are joined by yet another actress guest judge. This week it's Malin Akerman, whom we know best from, well whom we only know from her appearance as one of Ted's many love interests on How I Met Your Mother—This certainly qualifies her to judge fashion. Malin's comments are adequate, but they get a lot more screentime than those of most of our previous judges. This doesn't speak highly of what must have been said off-screen by most of our previous judges.
Our top three designers this week are include Anya, whose dress looks to us like a variation on every other dress she's done, despite the judges describing it as "interesting" and "different"; Viktor, who does a very hip shear blue top and pleated mustard skirt combo; and Joshua, whom much to his, the judges and our surprise, makes a simple, yet elegant black dress with a fabulous lace trimmed cutaway back. Our winner for the week is Joshua, who seems recharged after his mean meltdown last episode.
Our bottom three for the week include Bryce, whose Pepto Bismol pink dress looks like it was tailored to fit someone else's model; Anthony Ryan, who is accused of making a cheerleading outfit; and Bert, who makes a revealing dress which is criticized for looking like something one could "buy from the mall." After getting a close up look at last week's winning designs at the Project Runway Reunion party, we suspect the quality level of "from the mall" would probably be a huge step up.
Amazingly, after all the Sturm and Drang, Olivier isn't even in the bottom three. Perhaps it's because the judges already loved the design of his outfit, back when Kimberly won with it a few weeks ago on the Nina challenge. In the end, Heidi bids "auf Wiedersehen," to Bryce. We'd say that this has been a long time coming, but he was so nice at the subway station, that we'll just wish him good luck instead.
And now for the return of the Top Ten Moments of Project Runway Greatness...
10. Olivier asks Tim Gunn what "Double D" means. Asking Tim Gunn about bras is like—well, asking Tim Gunn about bras.
9. Michael Kors describes the giant pockets on Bryce's dress as, "You're going to the buffet table and putting a lamb chop in one pocket and a beer bottle in the other."
8. Anya says, "Thank God I have immunity. I've never done menswear." It seems that the only thing Anya has done is long flowing garments lacking at least one arm.
7. Oliver looks really nervous when his opportunity to pick his client comes late. "All I'm left with is all these fat people, and that is fine, but not when I'm making clothes." He forgets to add, "Some of my best friends are fat."
6. Tim is impressed at how Josh has edited himself and tells his clients, "You will see what Josh is capable of and it's just shy of a float in a parade."
5. Olivier wants to work with a client with no breasts and no voice. Perhaps he should design for Hello Kitty.
4. Michael Kors says, "Everyone has that idea of what they want to show off, and as you can see Heidi wears no skirt, but I love her." We'd hate to hear what he'd say about Heidi—on national television—if he hated her.
3. Laura says, "I dress a lot of Barbie-type women, they're the women with the money to pay for the clothes." Or more likely, they're the women with the husbands with the money to pay for the clothes.
2. Josh says, "It's hard for me to do simple." It's also hard for him to do civil.
1. Olivier says," I have never really worked with a client before." After people see this episode, he probably never really will again.
· All Project Runway Posts [Racked]