Project Runway All-Stars S4 E4: Wear Your Heart On Your Sleeve

This important scene is missing from the episode.

I've been praising the first three episodes for feeling like classic Project Runway. The judges have been on point, Alyssa Milano has been warm and witty, Zanna Roberts Rassi has been intelligent and quick. The episode before a break is usually some sort of amazing episode that expands the universe or is somehow enough to power the audience over the week.

Project Runway All-Stars believes this too. This is the final episode for a week, because next week is Thanksgiving. As a result, the producers decide to pull out all the stops. The designers are taken to the Hearst building to meet up with Nina Garcia (classic!). They are shown a bunch of jewelry from a famous nationwide jewel manufacturer (pretty!). They are given a challenge that involves their personal life (drama!). There is a guest judge from last season's winner (history!). Yet, all this obvious manipulation adds up to the worst episode of the season. 

Right out of the gate, something is off. The opening scenes pull a Project Runway and combine way too many elements at once. We're in the Hearst building to meet Nina Garcia. OK, so it's the Nina challenge. But, she's standing next to a bunch of jewelry. So, it's also the Jewelry challenge? No, the jewelry man is there just to show off the jewelry and announce that they are giving a decent amount of money to the winner ($10k). 

But, this is neither the typical Nina challenge nor the jewelry challenge. Instead, it is the personal challenge. In a naked bid to get the designers to do something other than be pleasant to each other, this week's challenge is to make an outfit based on the designers' past, present, and future romantic relationships. Thus, everybody is sent into a whirlwind of emotion. High, if you're engaged. Low if you're married recently single. 

On top of that, it's also a mandated party dress challenge, which apparently is code for no all black or all white dresses. Obviously they were eyeing the already eliminated Alexandria, and Kate "bridal dress" Pankoke when they made this limitation. Ultimately, though, its just yet another twist in an episode fraught with twists.

The requirement of basing the design on your romantic life was engineered for maximum emotions. You can practically hear the producers off screen saying, "No, tell us your whole story, and this time with feeling. They may or may not be holding a gun to the designers' heads. If they do, that threat is only slightly off screen.

In fact, when Zanna comes around, she, not so nakedly, implores the designers to pour their hearts out on screen. With Helen, she starts out, "Someone's in love." "Well...was." "TELL ME." By the time she gets to Portland, all politeness is done. "TELL ME YOUR STORY," she commands. And, when we get to Fabio, we have discussions on open relationships, whose details she announces to all the nobody that is listening to her.

The best part of this episode was the Kubrickian/military camerawork that happens when she gives her final speech. As she finishes up her speech, she is standing in the center of the screen between two tables. Deathrage is to her right (our left), and to the right of the screen is a shoe and a bunch of fabric. Red is in the foreground, and blue is in the background, with the carpet and walls, starting immediately behind her. This creates both a Workers vs Leader story, and a Passion vs Judge story. Simultaneously, the iconography of the framing is stolen from so many motivational speeches in films, especially sports and military ones. 

When the camera finally flips, the camera is behind Zanna's head, where there was no camera before. 9 of the 11 remaining designers - not shown: Jay and Sonjia - are all carefully placed, so none of their faces are hidden from view. Deathrage has been repositioned farther right, so that the mannequin is on display, while Fabio is now moved to create a straight line with Dimitry and Benjamin. They're posing, and almost everybody is looking at Zanna...except Justin and Portland who are blankly looking off screen. Even without their participation, this is a really solid example of Triumph of the Will cinematography that places Zanna as the central power focus.

The final sequence is a bunch of closeups of the designers facing forward, mostly staring at Zanna, and nodding silently. If this isn't inspired by Triumph of the Will, I don't know what is. This is one of my favorite all time sequences in Project Runway's history, and should be hailed as a masterpiece of editing and filmmaking. However, it also noted the artifice of the sequence, and one wonders how long the designers had to participate in this bullshit. This sequence was only 22 seconds long, but in those 22 seconds, it brought down the final wall of Project Runway and announced it as a constructed game show instead of a reality show.

Anyways, only one interesting thing happens between Zanna and the runway, and that's Sonjia somehow magically finding a cobalt blue fabric. Now, I say magically, but Sonjia said "Yesterday, I saw this beautiful cobalt blue fabric..." This blue fabric almost comes out of nowhere, or may have been gifted by a designer that didn't use it. The fabric pops up periodically throughout the episode. The first time is at Mood, where it is crumpled on the cut table. Somebody chose it, and I suspect that Egg was the one who saw it. Later, the fabric is seen on Egg's work table. It's in their row along the windows, and on a table with black shoes on it. Later, during her Zanna critique, the blue fabric is at the bottom of the screen on the table while they're fawning over her ugly green dress. It shares a space with some Orange fabric and more green fabric. As the models leave, the big ball of blue fabric is still in front of Egg in the background. 

But, in the next cut, Sonjia is already cutting the cobalt blue fabric, and the cobalt blue fabric is no longer in Egg's pile.  This is most noticeable in the "next day" workroom pan, where the fabric is no longer on Egg's table, either having been covered up, or having been given to Sonjia. 

In a season where everybody is so focused on helping each other, this is not surprising, nor even offensive. Except, Sonjia made that statement "Yesterday I saw this fabric." Why they didn't spend time on the negotiation, or how Sonjia got her hands on it is beyond me. But, the way they tell the story, the blue fabric came magically out of her ass. But, it's there.

So, I spent wayyyyyy too much time poring over this element, and it's time for runway (in which we'll get into the relationships).

Runway

Georgina Chapman is still absent, this time being replaced by her prime counterpart, Nina Garcia. We're also treated to a guest judge from Project Runway All Stars, Seth-Aaron Henderson. And, some fashion blogger.

• Dimitry - So, I had a coworker who was obsessed with Italian style fashion. He was heterosexual, but he loved Ferraris, and eurotrash aesthetics. He also loved techno music. He would have loved this dress,w which is a great raver dress. But, it says nothing to me. It's very editorial, and thus very Nina. But, both the shape and the skirt are off-the-rack dullsville. Plus, the stiff bounce at the bottom looks cheap. Dimitry is single, not looking for love, not in love, nor wants to be. And, this dress shows it. It has no emotion in it, just cold hard flash.
• Sonjia - This dress is so Sonjia. She took this gorgeous cutout lace fabric and crafted it into a one-piece hanging shirt. But, she cuts it very raw and jagged to match the overwrought, almost Gothic, patterning. Then she puts the afore-mentioned cobalt blue underneath it in a tight two piece which clashes so beautifully with the shirt that the shirt's shapelessness is ths given shape. It looks so easy and comfortable and free, yet it tells a story of intricacy and complication, and the layering of the blue gives a strong present to the intricate past. It's a gorgeous piece.
• Benjamin - This dress is so fucking boring. It's a pretty dress in an ugly color with a crappy Handkerchief hemline...but a gorgeous back. What is with the season and having beautiful backs but ugly fronts? Anyways, Benjamin is single, and his breakup was bad, but that's all in the past now. Though, he hasn't put much interest into the present or future of his love life. Similarly, the shape and the front of the dress are boring, but the back is very precious and beautiful. 
• Jay - I don't know if I love or hate this dress. Or, both. Jay uses a raspberry striped pattern to create chevrons and stripes in every imaginable angle, including horizontal and vertical. He outlines his pieces with a pink frosting ribbon. Nothing is symmetrical or centered. The outlines are also in such a way that the breast panel looks like it is popping out. Yet, it's really gorgeous and strange. It's complicated and chaotic, like his love life.
• Fabio - He's in an open relationship. He sees life and love with a techno tribal fantasia. And, he found a fabric to make an OK dress out of it. But, then he layers it with light pink fabric vest panels that shouldn't go together, yet it does. And, in the back the panels are part of the dress. From the front it's two disparate pieces, but the back shows them all coming together as one. 
• Kate - Married to her first love. Ready to settle down. So, she creates a Golden Girls outfit for Blanche. My grandmother would have loved this outfit, because she loved bing. But, the color is so old-fashioned and the slicked back blond hair and over done makeup makes the woman look like Jamie Lee Curtis from True Lies raided her grandma's closet. The slouchy back makes it look like it was made for a woman who was heftier than the model, and I don't even know what was going on with the single piece of fabric that was dangling. No. Just...no.
• Justin - He found the love of his life who learned ASL for him. So, he made a dress inspired by Alyssa's ladybug maternity dress from the beginning of the episode. It feels like a younger counterpart. He paints I Love You in sign forms, but he's safe so he doesn't get to explain that. Because, otherwise, it is just a very pretty party dress.
• Portland - It's a very strange dress. She was married while on the show previously. Has gotten divorced. And is engaged now. Meanwhile, this dress is a raspberry lace in a usual silhouette. But, then she adds on poofs at the wrists and extra long sleeves, as well as copper strapping around the waist. Oh, right, she's a Steampunk girl. This is a steampunk inspired modern take on the old west. It's Portland.
• Deathrage - He was just in a trainwreck breakup. And, his dress is a trainwreck. I could spend pages ripping it apart How nothing looks intentional, how the aymmetry does nothing for the silhouette or the body, how the slit up the dress is awful, how the weird way he did the waist is also asymmetrical and is counter to the bodice's asymmetry. But, knowing that he was in a trainwreck of a breakup and wanted to get that in dress form, then this dress is fucking perfect. It's an awful look, but it's solid for its intention.
• Egg - It's a dress from the 1960s. 
• Helen - She was put in the backburner. And, so, she made a dress that looks like it put the model in a bondage. The bust turned into a frown, and the arms looked strapped in at the side. It was emotionally sad and distraught. It was overworked.

The judging is so strange, but not incorrect. The judges go after Deathrage's chaos, but Deathrage doesn't sell his devastating relationship story to go with the dress. They correctly criticize everything, but the dress has an emotional story about a great relationship gone wrong. Nina criticizes Kate's dress comparing it to Dimitry's ultra-modern dress. Nina was so done with Kate. And, Kate's design really was boring.

The main story, however, is Nina gets her way no matter what. Much like we've been suspecting on the main Project Runway, Queen Nina is so forceful that her way is the primary way. Helen's tragic dress, which was a tragic masterpiece, was seconded to Sonjia's modern Gothic edginess. Which is sad, because Sonjia's was clearly the most innovative and the most radical.

In a season of Bravo-level Project Runway, the invasion of Lifetime Project Runway feels tragic. Suddenly, we have way too many elements, not enough time, producer manipulation, Queen Nina craziness, and terrible judging. Not to mention it had confusing product placement, and a weird story line that didn't make sense. Lame

Random Observations

• Nina has the best sour but stern poker face. And, her flip of the hair is perfect.
• Scott Davies, the jewelry dude, is amazingly stiff. Remember the gun being held off screen? I think this was also aimed at Mr. Davies. I expect these flat deliveries from the designers, but from the SVP of Marketing? Gorgeous.
• Swatch is always sleeping. We need more active Swatch.
• Interestingly, nobody gets free marketing at Project Runway. When Sonjia is joshing Kate about being married, she's drinking a Red Bull, whose logo has been covered by a post-it note.
• Did I just compare Project Runway to a Nazi propagandist documentary? Yes, I did.
• I know we haven't spent much time on sartorial choices, but what is with Deathrage's neckbeard? It's getting distracting again.
• Alyssa looks like a disco ball in her runway outfit.
• When Justin's model turns, you can see panties...
• If you watched Project Runway: Threads, the winning kid also created the same neckline that Helen was so celebrated for.
• "Whatever those relationship experiences were, at least you got a good dress out of it."

Project Runway S12 E11: "Next Generation..."

Alexander looking lost.

Phwoah.  I just...just...I'm speechless...almost.  I'll hint at the results with Tim's words of dismissal, "I have to tell you. I am quite shocked by this outcome."  And, I think that many of us here commenting on Project Runaways agree.  But, first...

Next Generation... is the dreaded-to-me, HP pattern making challenge.  This is the episode I always think is the most risky of all the episodes.  The first, and most obvious, hurdle is that making a good textile pattern is really hard.  Even as a graphic designer, one of the things I hate most is creating patterns that look good. It can be difficult, scale is hard to determine in larger formats, and what looks good on screen can look godawful in large.  There are a lot of graphic designers that agree with me (and there are others who completely excel at patterns). Scale is difficult. But, so is creating something that repeats nicely without looking cheap or student-y.

The other, less obvious, hurdle of this episode is the fabric.  It always looks like Project Runway uses one of the cheapest fabrics you can print on.  In the show, the print house that PR says they use is Dyenamix, a relatively high end custom print shop in New York.  One would suspect Dyenamix has a wide array of fabrics they could actually print on.  Silk, cotton, polyester, etc.  Nowadays, you can print with dye sublimation on a few different styles of fabric.  But, the fabric they use on Project Runway always looks like it has roughly the same texture as wet cardboard.

These two hurdles always perplex some of the designers on Project Runway.  Designers who hate patterns struggle, while some designers love patterns.  Even more than that, designers who haven't ever worked with stiff fabric struggle with the challenge, while those who know how to use a wider variety of fabrics survive.  One would think that, at this point, designers who have watched Project Runway would realize these two things and practice on textile creation, or with stiff as hell fabrics.  Alas, the same patterns repeat themselves.

As per usual, this is the HP challenge, and we're introduced to HP's new gigantic keyboardless computer.  It's kind of fug with a kickstand.  It's supposed to be a desktop separated from the desk, but that this looks far too gigantic to carry around the house.

We're also introduced to the inspiration - not clients or models, Tim says - for this challenge: innovators, the next generation.  These innovators range from a young female computer scientist (Kate's muse) to a BMX biker/mentor (Bradon's muse) to Miss USA (Justin's muse). Most of them are doing semi-altruistic projects, and then there's the cake maker (Alexander) and the artist (Helen).  Upon meeting the cake maker, Alexander foreshadows that he is worried about taking inspiration from a cake maker. "Especially coming from a costume designer, I could turn that and make it reeeaalllllyyy scary."  It should be noted that Alexander was not last to choose his inspiration (he was number 5).  Maybe he thought Thiago was hot.  I dunno.

I want to take a step out and highlight my favorite two entrepreneurs for various reasons.  Feel free to skip the next two non-vital paragraphs.  Feel free to comment on whatever in the comments.

The first entrepreneur I can't help but love is the 17-year-old girl coder.  As a former engineer (not computer science though), female geeks are close to my heart because they're rare (or, they were in the early '00s).  Female programmers have uphill battles from the surrounding geeks, many of whom are under-socialized and oversexualized.  There are whole hashtag movements in the tech world to inspire women to get into the tech industries despite the challenges.

The second is Miss USA.  Now, I'm sure she was a beauty pageant queen before she won in 2012, but I really like that she started a non-profit in African communities in 2006, a full 6 years before she won Miss USA.  That's really challenging the notions that Miss USA is just a beauty pageant where the looks is the best part of the queen.  Awesome.

Anyways, they go back and we have the usual challenges with the pattern making.  As a note on the following links: the Project Runway full dress site shows the fabric patterns in full size next to the dress.  So, I'm linking to the dresses both here at the fabric first looks and, again, at the dress analysis. They are the same links, so go for it.

Alexander creates the beginnings of a warm chocolatey print, but can't figure out the reflect tool, and so the curves and the chocolatey-ness spirals gets broken up by these hard lines in the repetition.  This is exactly what I fear with patterns.  It becomes less fluid, and more obvious...and it really doesn't work.

Helen creates a weird starry pattern that looks very disparate as a pure fabric pattern.  It's this weirdly hipstery twee starry pattern.  She bitches and cries and struggles when she sees the print, and has no idea on how to work it.

Dom creates this bold print of white, navy and pure magenta.  It is a cross between thick zebra and Keith Haring.  It's impossible to imagine, and it's kind of amazing yet awful.  I both love and hate it on the roll.

Bradon creates a plaid pattern that feels like the plaid that Eyebrows used in the modern southern challenge had sex with a deconstructed version of Mondrian.  It's city and dancy and...its gorgeous.

Kate makes...shit.  Baby blue shit.  I don't even know.

Justin makes a cool print that is like a demonic Rorschach test  I see devil horns where it is supposed to be I Love You.  Alexander sees aliens.  Justin sees x-rays.  I really really love the fabric, but you can go so wrong with it.  It's brooding and goth.  And, if you fight that darkness rather than embrace it, you're in trouble.

Alexandria makes the most boring print of this grey off-grey pattern that is like it got dirty.  This embodies Alexandria struggles as a designer.  She had this brown ugly pattern when she was meeting with her inspiration (some woman who rehabilitates places after disasters, or something).  Then it went into a faded grey dirty print.

By the time we get to Tim's critique, Helen is having a full-on breakdown.  But, the two worst are Alexander's chocolate-cake-inspired nunnery outfit and Kate's baby-blue what-the-fuck-I-don't-even. Alexander's look is already looking tortured in the fabric, like he's fighting the stiffness and losing, plus he chooses to use the white edges of the printed fabric to create this cross right in the middle of the chest. Kate is making some sort of blue southern retro thing with a shirt where she has inverted the hidden pleats and put them on the outside.  Tim reacts in horror to both.  Neither of them listen.

The designers continue with their work and the designers who listen to Tim actually manage to transform their outfits into something that works.  And the ones who ignore Tim suffer.  Then, before we know it, it's runway time.  The inspiration muses are going to sit with the designers, but then they get shuffled off before the judges hear whether they like the outfits.  They're not designers, clients or models...be gone, peasants!!!  The guest judge this week is Peter Som, who is actually one of the most insightful and witty guest judges I think I've seen this season.

The looks:

Bradon: He has an edgy as hell fabric.  Once he figured out that the fabric doesn't flow, he created a chic bomber jacket (which are supposed to be rather stiff) out of this modern print with a cyan lining.  Mind you, this fabric, used like this, also looks like it would make a high end carpet pattern, but I love it anyways.  The dress he makes below the bomber jacket is streetwise, simple, and chic as well.

Justin: Sooooo close, but so far.  I love LOVE the top of this dress.  LOVE.  I cannot express how much I love the corset of this dress.  But, then he didn't know what to do with the bottom.  He went with this pagenty-two layered grey-on-the-outside softly-draped dress that he basically glues to this hard-edge modern corset.  Then, he glues it on the outside, with a transparent fabric that only adheres to the bottom of the corset.  This bottom turns a lovely corset into a trainwreck.

Kate: What. The. Fuck. Kate.  Your first problem is your baby-blue wallpaper fabric that might be good in a hotel therapist office.  It has roses and some sort of hard lined busyness and then there is this dot pattern in the middle, and then there is a white line at every repetition, but the line does't meet, so there is a break right in the center.  Ugh.  And then, the dress comes out, and it's like this woman has air filters attached to her dress.  The top half of Kate's look was this baby blue top that is covered with dust that comes up to her neck.  In the end, this is a dress that has so many damned elements, none of which have anything to do with anything else.  It's schizo.  It's awful.

Alexander: In a race for the bottom with Kate, Alexander's dress looks like he fought with the fabric, and the fabric won.  It's tortured, and stiff.  It's crinkles and wrinkles.  He has this hideous cross that is going up to her neck.  And, the neck line is all the way past her shoulders, with long sleeves, looking like the dress is on backwards. But the back of the dress is wide open from the small strap going across the shoulder blades to the small of her back. And, really, the whole outfit was one big tortured look.  Did I say it was tortured?

Dom: In a fit of juxtaposition, we go from tortured to astounding.  It is completely reminiscent of Mondo's showstopper in his first runway (that Heidi would wear to the Black Swan premiere).  Only more street, urban, and cruder in the print (due to Dom not being a textile designer).  It looks like it was made from a stretch fabric, and the fit is impeccable rather than tortured. The fabric is stunning and the whole dress is edgy and young.

Alexandria: You guys, I think I've figured out Alexandria's aesthetic. It's like a bored cyberpunk aesthetic. The drop pants she was hooked on for a while were once popular in cyberpunk. The torn and ratty jacket with the bunchy asymmetrical neckline was once cyberpunky.  The black on black on grey monochrome is cyberpunky.  But, Alexandria always does it in a very boring and dull and depressive manner that.  This bland ripped outfit is no exception.

Helen: Dear readers, I hate this look.  I can see why people might like it.  It is a bit of old retro patriotic almost-costumey.  So help me, it's boring, and I hate the starry pattern.  The dress in ivory and white seem a little too classic.  The top is nice in its halter proportions, though.  But, the combination just don't work for me.  Feel free to argue.

Tonight, Heidi says "one...or more of you will be out."  Uh oh.  That's not good.  Dom wins the challenge.  I'm kind of surprised that Bradon didn't win it, because his look was amazing as well.  But, he gets an "amazing job" on his dismissal.  Since, this challenge didn't come with rewards, I'm fine with it.

Alexander is the first to go.  Goodbye Eyebrows.  I thought you might have had a chance, but this was a severe stumble.  And, really, your work hasn't been stunning enough to bring you back. All Heidi sees is tape and the cross.  And, its terrible.

But, then we get the surprise that Kate, who I think all of us had put in the front running, is eliminated.  Not unfairly, because that dress is fucking hideous.  Nina's first response, "Oh god..."  And then, "there are too many elements and none of them are working well."  Zac Posen, "There is so much wrong with this dress..."  Heidi: "It's ugly."  Peter Som: "It looks like she fell in a box of Kleenex."  Really, you can't say enough bad about this dress.  It's not boring, though.  But, it is a significant WTF moment and not in a good way.

So, now there are 5.  We're down to Justin (?!), Alexandria (?!), Dom, Bradon, and Helen.  It's not like Justin has been overlooked.  He was rescued and hasn't stepped up his game.  Alexandria is also just...ugh.  So, our final three are Dom, Bradon or Helen?  Or will one of them also fuck up hard enough to drop out?  Kate failing so hard was a surprise this week, so...that's where we're at readers.  I'm still mildly in shock.  Much like Tim.

Stray Observations
- "Just because your last name is Pope doesn't mean you have to make Priest costumes.  Just because my name is McDonald, I don't make dresses out of french fries." - Bradon on Alexander

- "You're stronger than this." = Stop crying, shut the fuck up, and do your damn work.

- "It's Courtney Love.  In a good way.  Not a cocaine way." Eh, Dom...Courtney Love = Heroin and probably Oxys.

- Ironic statement of the week: "It's bold. But then I like bold." - Alexandria

- Unfair statement of the week: "And, I really wish the print had continued on the dress  Because, there's nothing more fun than seeing a print dance on chiffon or georgette." - Zac Posen, as if the designers had that option.  Asshole.

- "Cake... When I think about cake...and the possibilities about cake..." - Heidi, who is obviously fantasizing, probably inappropriately, about eating cake.

- I just noticed that my DVR has been saying this is season 14.  All Stars messed up that numbering system...