Project Runway: Gitchy, Gitchy, Ya-ya, Da-da.

Poor Persian Princess
X-ed out by Ms. X-tina
For witchy poo dress.

(If you're looking for baseball, go here)

Ok, kids. Normally I'd be all full spitty anger about Shirin going home, because in all honesty, she and Carol Hannah have been my favorites for awhile now.

And I'm sure I am somewhere on the inside. But here's the thing: my sleep cycles, while fucked up normally, have been more fucked up than usual lately. On Monday, I slept twelve hours. The last two nights, I think I've slept probably a patched together maximum of four hours each.

If I don't take a decongestant, my nose is runny, and I can't breathe, and I don't sleep. If I do take a decongestant, I feel like I've been smacked upside the head with one of those carnival "Show Your Strength" hammers for about twelve hours afterward.

So last night, I eked out about an hour of non-drugged sleep, until one, then woke up and tried to get back to sleep for about an hour after that, but couldn't because Beyonce's "Halo" --which I HATE -- was racing through my head, and my nose was running.

So I took a decongestant at two twenty, and spent about an hour writing my notes up while it kicked in before returning to bed at 3:15 for about 3 hours of drugged sleep prior to waking up to the hammer-smacked feeling.

And if this post rockets back and forth between sheer tired rage and stoned vagueness, now you understand why.

And Shirin, I'm sorry that this happened when you were AUWT-ed, and I can't coherently say how much I'll miss you. Because I will miss you. You're adorable, and I liked your clothes a lot.

Anyway. Let's just do this thing.

Morning! Los Angeles! Christopher makes his bed and worries about being in the

In the girls’ apartment, Shirin feels like she’s proved herself. Carol Hannah feels like just because she hasn’t won doesn’t mean she’s in the bottom.

There’s some more equally meaningless chitchat, and then they cut to the Runway. Heidi, in some truly awful pants, waits to tell them about their next challenge. In her enigmatic German fashion, she says that if they “really want to shine, your look must upstage the rest.”

They all ooh and ah over what this could possibly mean. Oh, Heidi Klum. You are a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in some terrible, terrible pants. And then wrapped in schnitzel.

The designers go to meet with Tim, who is waiting for them with Bob Mackie. Since they’re seeing this in real life, and so don’t have helpful captions to read across the bottom of the TV, Tim lets them know that “Mr. Mackie is frequently referred to as the Sultan of Sequins.”

Boy, it’s too bad Charlie the divorcee isn’t here to have her “'Half-Breed' moment” this week.

Their challenge is to create an extravagant stage look. Bob Mackie tells them that designing for the stage “is not fashion; it’s a whole other place.”

Tim says their stage look must be in the style of Bob Mackie, and that they’re designing it for. . . .Christina Aguilera.

Is she still spelling it Xtina? Should I even care? Anyway, Nicolas declares that this is “the best Project Runway moment ever.” I’m sure Nicolas could find people who would disagree with him on that. Like I bet that the five people who’ve won would call the moment of their winning the best Project Runway moment ever. Personally, I still vote for Michael Kors saying “that crotch is just insane to me.”

They’ll have 30 minutes to sketch in the wonderous and not at all thrown together on a $6 budget just for this challenge museum of 7 Bob Mackie dresses that they’re standing in, and then $300 to spend at Mood. It’s a two day challenge, which is nice. So many of the challenges have been one day-ers so far that I was starting to believe that they’d produced the entire season in a little over a week. It was probably the only time they could find in the last decade where Heidi wasn’t pregnant.

Christopher says that this challenge is “frightening and exciting and exhilarating,” while Carol Hannah says she’s under more pressure for this one than she has been for the other challenges.

Mood! They all buy a lot of shiny shit and feathers. Carol Hannah says that her strategy is to “buy as many different things as I possibly can and figure it out later.”

Thank you, Mood!

Workroom! Everyone unpacks their fabrics. Althea says she feels like she’s just had Christmas. In Althea’s family, it’s apparently the tradition to exchange giant bags of cheap sequined fabric rather than actual gifts. In another corner of the room, Irina shit talks Shirin. Irina shit talking other girls is becoming a major theme of this season. I’m guessing it’s been a major theme of Irina’s life to date.

Nicolas reminds Christopher that there are four challenges left after this one. Christopher freaks out a little. He is making an “’80’s punk prom kind of look” with a beaded corset. This can only be a tremendous failure.

Carol Hannah is hesitating on what to make because of the pressure of the challenge and how much of a stretch it is for her from what she normally does. Logan tells us “I don’t follow Christina as close as some of the other designers.” This is Logan’s way of reminding us that he doesn’t have The Gay or The Vagina.

There seems to be some sort of general good natured horseplay, during the course of which Christopher swoops Carol Hannah up in his arms and carries her around. It’s cute.

Gordanna says that having immunity is “nice.” Then the beads start falling off her dress in huge rows. She says she’s too frazzled.

End of day one! Commercial!

Back! Next Day! As the sun rises over the block like buildings of the Los Angeles skyline, Gordanna melts out of a chair in the girls' apartment. Carol Hannah, who is sitting on the floor doing her eye makeup, reassures her that she’s not starting from square one, but Gordanna says she is. She vows to be “Speedy Konsalez.”



Andale, Andale! Macht Schnell! Macht Schnell!

Remind me to tell you my dirty joke about Speedy Gonzales sometime.

Workroom! Fashion Flurry! Tim comes in to do his Tim Thru. Starting with Christopher, he says he’s feeling a “general disappointment” with the look, and that there’s “an overall primness to it” and that it’s “1999 in the costume department.” He calls Gordanna’s dress “matronly,” and tells Nicolas “I thought you moved your winning look over here for inspiration.”

There is then much rejoicing in the living room, as we’ve all spent the last twenty minutes yapping about how Nicolas seems to be using the same three white sequined fabrics that he used to make his White Witch in a High School Production of Narnia costume from the movie challenge.

He then goes over to Carol Hannah and tells her that he can see her look “being very Christina.” However, Shirin’s “looks like Guinevere meets Vampira” for “a 16 year old’s really bad prom.”

Irina interviews that she just doesn’t know why Shirin is still here. Increasingly in this episode, it feels like the only reason Irina is still here is to talk shit about the other female designers.

Fashion flurry! Shirin is scrapping her look and starting over. She has a sudden inspiration, and then the models come in and do their thing where they pretend to like their designers’ looks.

We then get a random sequence of Carol Hannah saying random things about pineapple and how when she’s fifty, she’ll look like her mom. Then there’s something about Logan “distracting” her, while slow jam porno guitar music plays in the background.

Oh, Lifetime editors. You make the Bravo editors look like masters of subtlety and nuance.

Two and a half hours. Althea wears some awful Kanye glasses. Nicolas freaks out. Irina interviews that “everyone seems to be going nuts.” Irina seems to be giving a lot of fucking interviews in this episode. She’s like the nasty voice of the episode’s conscience. Gordanna drapes a sheet of fabric over her head and has a giggle fit. Commercial!

Back! Fashion flurry! Tim sends in the models for their two hours of product placement and fitting.

Nicolas talks about how he can’t choke on this challenge because Christina is his idol, and he worries that his dress is too simple.

Irina audibly shit talks Carol Hannah to her model, Celine. Alright, look—it’s one thing to shit talk each other in interviews. If you’re on a reality show, everyone is going to do that at some point, and if they don’t they’re going to get edited down to pretty much nothing. It’s another thing to shit talk to other contestants, but again, it’s pretty much inevitable.

It’s a third thing altogether to shit talk another designer to your model. That’s like complaining about your husband to the hired help. It is just. Not. Done.

Anyway, Nicolas endears himself to me slightly by interviewing that “Irina is a really good designer. The only problem is that she’s a bitch.”

Then there’s the make up flurry and the final fashion flurry, and Tim ushering them to the runway and worrying that no one is listening to him. Commercial!

Back! On the runway, Heidi reminds them of what the challenge they just spent two days working on was. Then she introduces them to Bob Mackie, the THANKFULLY returned Nina Garcia, and, walking out from behind the scrim looking like she’s borrowed one of Lady Gaga’s spare wigs (except this was filmed in 2008 when for all intents and purposes THERE WAS NO LADY GAGA). . . Christina Aguilera. Or Xtina. One of those.

Fashion time! Althea’s look is a cheap looking silver dress with a giant feather cape thing. It looks like something Lena Lamont would wear in a touring production of Singing in the Rain. Logaan’s is a short, sparkly zebra looking thing with a fur shrug. Shirin’s is a black thing with flares.

Christopher’s is an ugly dress that breaks away to reveal mediocre looking lingerie. Nicolas has made a white feathered mini dress. It’s really probably the best thing there, but it’s also something I’ve seen six million times before. Not that anything this week is groundbreaking.

Gordanna’s is an awful looking ivory thing. Irina’s is a coat over a sequined slip. Carol Hannah’s is a long black dress with lots of different textures. It’s very figure flattering.

On the runway, Heidi tells Irina to step forward. Her scores have qualified her to move on to the next round. Then she calls Gordanna forward, and tells her that she should be grateful she has immunity, because otherwise there’s a good chance she would be AUWT.

Moving to the remaining designers, they start with Carol Hannah. She says that the challenge was a stretch for her, so she focused on making one high glam piece. Christina says she did a great job, and Nina agrees that it’s very glamorous with the promise of turning into something revealing. Bob Mackie loves the different textures of blacks.

Shirin admits that she wasn’t terribly confident about the challenge, and that she took on a lot. Heidi says her dress looks like an “upscale witch Halloween dress,” and Christina says she’d totally trip in it if she wore it on stage. Nina likes the top half, but says the bottom half is a “Carmen Miranda moment.”

What is it with Shirin and her “moments” these last two weeks.

We move to Althea, and one of the guys in the living room says that the cape on her dress looks like a wet puppy dog. It’s the most accurate and least tongue bathing comment Snaggletooth Old Face will get, so I feel obligated to include it. Bob Mackie likes the way she uses the reverse of the fabric, and Heidi says the back looks great “on the bottom.” Nina grudgingly says that it’s nicely made, but that the train might be cumbersome.

God, it’s so good to have Nina back.

On to Christopher, Heidi is not loving the pantelettes, and Nina says it’s a “revisit of ‘Lady Marmalade;’ everything seen here has been done and seen before.” I know that’s cut into her critique of Christopher’s outfit, but I feel like it could apply to everything on the stage. Bob Mackie says he wouldn’t put it on a chorus girl, but Christina gives him an “E for effort.”

As an aside, at my alma mater (the Harvard of the Southwest), we had E’s instead of F’s. I feel like that grading scale could apply to Christopher’s outfit as well.

Nicolas says he wanted his look to have a Deco feel, and Heidi tells him it’s beautiful. Christina says it’s a fun outfit that she could move in, and Bob Mackie loves the feathers and the way it works.

Finally, Logan says he wanted to be a bit more edgy. Christina says she gets a bit of a cave woman vibe from it, but that she likes the touches of color. Nina tells him that at least he took a chance. I then have “(unlike the rest)” in parentheses in my notes. I’m not sure if she said that or if I said that or if she didn’t say it but I felt it was implied in her tone.

Heidi dismisses them and they start their critique with Nicolas. Christina liked the movement below the waist. Nina gives him credit for having thought about the fact that it was for the stage.

On Carol Hannah’s Bob Mackie says it was put together interestingly, and Heidi adds that it was very chic. And on Althea’s Christina loved the construction of shapes, and Nina says it was beautiful.

Moving to the bottom group, Nina says that Shirin’s was “unfortunate,” while Heidi calls it “dowdy,” and Christina says that “not a lot of thought” seems to have gone

Nina then calls Christopher’s “tasteless,” and Bob Mackie says that it belongs in a “road company of the Pussycat Dolls.” Ouch. Nina then adds that he did something that’s been done before, and he did it badly. And on Logan’s Nina recalls the cave woman remarks, while Heidi says that at least it’s a little bit youthful.

Commercial!

Back! Althea is in. And then Christina gets to announce the winner, and it’s . . . Carol Hannah! Yay! Everyone in the living room screams with excitement, because she seems to be one of the few people left in this clusterfuck who’s both nice AND talented. Sadly, in doing so we drown out her interview, and all I get is “she’s excited.”

Nicolas is in. Logan is in.

To the bottom two, Heidi tells Christopher that all he’s made is an inexpensive repeat of the “Lady Marmalade” look. And Shirin lost herself in the challenge, and made a dress that was both unflattering and boring.

So Shirin is out. And then everyone in the living room screams in frustration, because it seems unfair that Logan and Christopher have both been in the bottom SO MANY TIMES, but are being kept around to fill some minimum penis quotient or something, and because Shirin seems genuinely sweet, and personally, I really liked a lot of her clothes.

Anyway, Shirin hugs everyone but Irina, who sits in a corner and rolls her eyes as this display of inferior human emotion is taking place. Because in case you didn’t get the message of this episode, it’s that Irina is a bitch.

My final note reads “Shirin – not going to” and then something that is either “yare” or “gave” or “yaue” or “jaie” or something. If anyone has any clues, I’d appreciate it.

Next time! Rodeo Drive! Amish! Irina’s not here to make friends! A little mental breakdown! Kors AND Nina! Halle freakin llujah, it’s about time we got the whole gang back together.