Project Runway All Stars: Si, Mi Chiamano Sweet P

Oh, Sweet P, c’mon.
What the hell was that dress, girl?
And where is “Mean P”?

Guys, I just can’t with an intro today.

Here’s the thing: after a nice respite from half a lifetime of insomnia, it seems to have come back with the vengeance. I have not had a good night’s sleep so far in 2012. I am full on Richard III Act IV, Scene i Lady Anne style wigged out right now:

“For never yet one hour in his bed
Have I enjoy’d the golden dew of sleep…”

… but without the awesome double entendre of it all. Because what’s keeping me awake is not my hunchbacked, horrifying, possibly sexually voracious husband, but my goddamned cat and my goddamned subconscious.

Anyway, the end result of this, combined with the fact that I had a crap day yesterday, and the fact that some of my friends were late getting to dinner last night and we wanted to watch 30 Rock so we didn’t really start watching Project Runway until 9:45 or so and I was half asleep by the time the show started and had to be nudged repeatedly to stay awake while it was on, is that I honestly don’t have much to say about the episode.

They made opera dresses. There were – or at least I saw – a lot of ‘90s clothing references. And Sweet P, predictably, is gone – she and Elisa were the two who had the most people questioning their “All Star” status to begin with, and they’re the first two axed.

Let’s see what else I remember:

We open the show at Parsons, where Angela – who, really, I’m just going to refer to as “The UnHeidi” from now until she does something to distinguish herself. You can make your own call about whether I intend that as a reference to the old UnCola commercials of my youth, or to Freud’s concept of the unheimliche – greets the designers. She tells them that this week’s challenge is all about high end glamour, and welcomes Mark Badgley and James Mishka to the runway.

They tell the designers that their challenge for the week is to design a gown for an evening at the opera. They’re looking for true couture touches. Michael Costello* tells us he’s ready for this challenge, because he grew up listening to a lot of opera. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Michael Costello told us he’d grown up in an opera. Didn’t we establish during his season that he’s from a family of Irish travelers or something?

*(And yes, I’ll probably keep referring to him as Michael Costello or Michael C. even though there’s no longer a Michael D. around from whom I need to distinguish him. It’s sheer force of habit, the same way friends from high school still call me Jordan Baker, even though we haven’t seen Jordan Butcher, Jordan Candlestick-Maker, or Jordan Almond since 1995)

The designers will have a budget of $350…and only one day to work.

They head over to their workroom, where they have 30 minutes to sketch. Michael C. is planning to make a red dress…as is April. Uh-oh. Now we get to continue their mophead drama from last week. Austin reminds us that they called him the “King of Couture” during the first season (did they? I don’t recall that), so he’s feeling a lot of pressure.

They head off to the first MOOD trip of the season. Swatch hears that Tim Gunn won’t be with them, so he hides. He only knows these people through Tim – it would be awkward to run into them without Tim around to broker their acquaintance. Kenley picks up a pink fabric with black dots that’s fun in a ‘50s kind of way, but not something I’d ever wear to the opera. Michael C. and April learn that they’re both using the same fabric again. Michael goes through all the things they both have – leading to the line “I have feathers, she has feathers” – which for some reason I find kind of priceless. Anyway, April could care less that they’re both using the same color, but Michael C. decides to switch and do a black Jersey.

And it’s back to the workroom. April starts dying her fabric to give her gown a “corpse bride” effect. Everyone else thinks this is a mistake, since the dying process will take so long, and worries that she’s sabotaging herself. Commercial.

We come back, and it’s work work work work work. Joanna Coles enters for her Joanna –thru. She begins with Rami. Can we just discuss how HUGE Rami is this season? I mean, he was fit in Season 4, but now he’s just straight up jacked. Look at those arms! Anyway, he’s playing with the idea of triangles toward the bodice. He thinks Austin is perfect for the challenge. So Joanna sidles up to Austin and just reminds them that they all have HUGE expectations for him. HUGE. EPIC. One might even say OPERATICLY EXAGGERATED. Then she slithers away, having said nothing about his dress. Because why discuss clothes when you can just give someone a complex instead?

Next she heads over to April, who realizes dying is risky, but she’s comfortable with the risk since she does it a lot. April tells the camera that she didn’t even think of a plan B, she just needs Plan A to work out.

Joanna Coles tells Kara that she worries that her dress – which, seriously, is made of a floral pattern that looks pretty much exactly like a Jessica McClintock dress I had in 1991, a pattern that was only ever appropriate for making slightly overwrought floral dresses for 14 year old girly girls in the very early ‘90s – is going to look like “bridesmaid wear” rather than evening. Similarly, she asks Anthony how the judges will know his white dress isn’t a bride’s dress. Anthony points out that it’s plunging and forward thinking in a way brides’ dresses aren’t known to be.

Joanna Coles heads back out. Work work work work work. Sweet P is concentrating on the bodice of her dress and praying it works. Mondo thinks Kara is the weakest designer in the room. Austin thinks Michael Costello’s dress is “too celebrity and not enough socialite.”

At the end of the day, they head back to the Flatotel where they sit around talking about how a day isn’t enough time to do couture. Anthony says that they’re making “really, really, really pumped up prom dresses” rather than couture gowns. Kara is worried. Commercial.

Back. Day of show. Everyone is rushing to get done. The models arrive for their fittings, and then get rushed off to the usual Hair and Makeup product placement routine. The designers stand around the Neiman Marcus accessory wall, oohing and aaaahing to do their part to keep the sponsorship …ship…. afloat.

We hit the runway. The UnHeidi welcomes them, and introduces the judges – Georgiana Chapman, Isaac Mizrahi, and guest judges Badgley and Mischka (I never quite sorted which was Badgley and which was Mischka, by the way, so be prepared for me to attribute their remarks to both of them jointly). Let’s start the show.

We open with Kenley, who has made a dress (right) that I swear to God, my sister had for a Barbie Doll circa 1990 – Costume Ball Barbie, I believe. I had the accompanying Costume Ball Ken, despite being technically “too old” for Barbies in 1993. One of my friends points out that it’s kind of another “Puerto Rican Prom dress,” continuing the theme Kenley’s work seems to be taking so far this season.

Gordanna has made a purple formalwear gown for her usual Eastern European Hooker client (left). The top is interesting, but something about the way the top and bottom work together is just trashy. “It’s not opera, it’s Grammys,” one of my friends says. “It’s not even Grammy’s, it’s Latin Grammy’s,” I add caustically.

Rami has made a bright pink dress that looks like it belongs to another Barbie. Not one my sister or I ever had – Southern Whore Barbie or something, maybe. Mila has made an asymmetrical black dress. Sweet P has made what looks like a maxi dress version of the Sunday dresses I used to sell for children at the Tucson Mall Dillard’s in the late ‘90s: solid color top; Empire waist; floral skirt. There is nothing sophisticated about it.

Mondo’s gown (right) is…I can’t decide if I love it or hate it. It’s interesting and beautiful, but at its core it looks like a cocktail dress from the ‘90s (god, either I am or they are on such a “from the ‘90s” kick today. I hope it’s just what I’m seeing and not what they’re actually doing. I am not ready for a ‘90s revival. Say no to overalls and high waisted jeans, America) with a sheer cape attached to it. Actually, come to think of it, that makes it like a shorter version of the dress I bought for senior prom (1995), which was also a white dress with a sheer cape attached. And also Jessica McClintock. Anyway, looking at it this morning, I like it, and will refer to it as having a “space vixen meets Audrey Hepburn” aesthetic.

Jerell has made a tent dress that makes his model look huge, but it has a weird kind of elegant dress. Kara has made a grown-up version of the Jessica McClintock dress I had in 8^th grade (it doubled as my district honor choir dress and my 8^th grade graduation dress. I loved the crap out of that thing, but I was a 14 year old girl, and it was 1991).

I love the hell out of Anthony’s dress. I’m not even going to say anything about it; I’m just going to let you look.

Austin’s dress is also amazing – it’s gold with soft, wispy black touches and a beautiful back. April’s dye job on her red-to-black ombre dress looks gorgeous from a distance, but dirty up close, and the construction on the bodice isn’t good. Michael Costello’s dress is black and has a feathered vest-lette thing that makes it look very structured and closed off from the front, but the back is totally bare. It’s staggering.

The show finished, the designers line up on the runway. The UnHeidi calls Anthony, April, Sweet P, Austin, Kara, and Michael. They have the highest and the lowest scores. Everyone else is dismissed, and we go to commercial.

We come back to the world’s most confusing judging session. I don’t know if it was just because I was so fucking exhausted last night, or if these judges were just trying to be super evenhanded, but we kind of came out of the segment not being 100% whether some people were the best of the worst or the worst of the best.

Anyway, we begin with Anthony. Isaac loves that he’s created a “new context for white,” and calls his dress vampy and sexy. The Badgley Mischkas love that it’s body conscious on one side and bloussant on the other. But Georgina Chapman is concerned about his overuse of accessories.

Moving to April’s (right), Isaac doesn’t think that the opera is the time for ombre, and the Badgley Mischkas both hate black and red together. Now, clearly this is not good commentary, but it’s a bit gentle considering all the problems with execution – the dirty looking dye job; the awkward looking bodice – you can see on the dress.

Isaac says that Sweet P’s is more “prom dress” than opera. Personally, I don’t know what prom you’d wear that to – I can’t imagine that combination of color and patterns on anyone over 10, even though I’m seeing it right before my eyes. Badgley Mischka don’t like the dirndl skirt, and agree that it’s not for the opera.

Isaac loves Austin’s dress, and calls it fresh, classic and expensive. He loves the relative modesty of it. Everyone else loves it too.

Then we move to Kara, and Isaac says he loves the print. I fall over dead from confusion, and can’t keep going. Anyway, he adds that a dress that simple needs to be perfect, and this isn’t. Georgina thinks it’s very pretty – and I almost drop dead again – but she adds that it doesn’t fit Kara’s personality.

Finally, Isaac calls Michael C’s (left) “shockingly perfect,” and he can’t believe that he made it in one day. Georgina loves that he used matte jersey.

The designers are sent off and the judges deliberate. They begin with the bottom – which is convenient, because we actually needed that distinction to sort out who was in which group. Isaac didn’t go for April’s original idea, but at least it wasn’t boring. He likens Sweet P’s to a “granny bathing suit.” One of the Badgely Mischkas loves Kara’s dress, but no one else does.

On the top, Anthony’s was beautifully draped and impeccably made. They loved Austin’s, and thought it was tasteful but still exciting. And Michael’s was spectacular, but something you see a lot. Commercial.

We come back and learn that Anthony is safe. So it’s down to Michael or Austin for the winner, and it’s Austin. He says some things about winning, but seriously, I’m half asleep at this point and doing some sort of semi-conscious automatic writing shit. We’re lucky I managed to get down the designers names and not a message from “the other side” or something.

Michael is also in. Kara is safe.

So it’s either April or Sweet P. The judges appreciate April’s ambition, but she didn’t execute. Sweet P lost her way in the challenge.

Ultimately, April is in and Sweet P is out. Sweet P says something about how she respects all the other designers. One of my friends shakes me because I’ve totally passed out.

Next time! Flamboyant cocktail dress for Miss Piggy! Kara and Kenley are becoming quite codependent! You made a really pretty dress, and that’s the problem! And hopefully, I’ll have gotten my first full night’s sleep in 2012 by that point.