Project Runway Recap: Frock this Runway

First, I need to say... it's beautiful outside. I love the fall. It's starting to get cooler, and as soon as I publish this recap, I'm out of here!

Second, the episode was called Rock the Runway, but I watch PR Australia, too, and they say frock instead of dress. It's fun to say. Go ahead. Try it. Awesome, right?

Third, on with the recap...

Project Runway Recap: The Doom of Spoilers

Episode Five: Project Runway

The Klum of Doom

In my various, random clicking around the interwebs, I stumbled across Heidi Klum in a blue, swirly dress. Well, at first it didn't look like her, so I clicked it and accidentally subjected myself to a spoiler! I was truly annoyed.

Project Runway Season 13: The Red Robin V-Twist

Via Fair Use Project Runway

A little about how I'll be doing these recaps. I'm going to talk about the important and/or crazy quirky moments from each episode. These will be my initial thoughts on the episode too, as well as my personal opinions. It's not always going to be sweetness and light, people! Some of these designers make some ugly items, or they are excessively weepy about absolutely everything. The main weepy person is gone already though, so we may not have any tears at all the rest of the season.

Another warning: I don't know a ton about fashion. I'm coming at this as a lover of creativity. The creative process these people go through is fascinating to me. I like to see how their personalities impact their clothing too.

When I watch Project Runway, I don't always know their names until they hit the top 7 or 8 unless they are extra dramatic, or the clothes blow me away. I think that's enough warning and explanation.

On to the episode...!

A Suitable Twist

The person who wins this season gets a ton of prizes. I swear Heidi spends the first twenty minutes of each episode listing all the prizes including the chance to design a part of the Red Robin uniform. It's a strangely bizarre prize. The others make sense; money, makeup for runway shows, accessories for their shows. Things that will benefit their careers. I'm not sure how Red Robin fits except they must have ponied up some of that cash prize.

That's where they end up going this week; Red Robin. The shameless Red Robin plug has nothing to do with the challenge except they get to eat in the restaurant while designing. "We have burgers with a twist. Now here's your challenge. Fresh take on a hamburger! You're about to become a chef instead! Welcome to Hell's Kitchen!" Okay, he didn't say that but it was close. Men in suits come out holding trays of burgers. Hideous suits by the way. Every ugly suit your dad ever wore in the 60s and 70s. Pink prom tux, purple velour suit, tan corduroy, blue leisure suit.

As a viewer, it made me laugh a little. These were terrible, and I couldn't blame the designers for their initial nausea. Sandhya as the winner of the last challenge gets to pick her suit first, but as an extra stab in the back to the others, she gets to choose theirs, too. Surprise Hernan. Shouldn't have been so mean to Sandhya two weeks ago!

She claims to have given everyone suits that she thought they could work with, that fit their aesthetic. I'm not sure. I can't get a read on Sandhya. Two weeks before, she went weeping to Tim about how the other designers were mean and were picking on her, but I like her out-of-the-norm design choices. They aren't always things I love or would want to wear, but they are original.

It's interesting to watch the designers and their reactions to the suit choices. In my opinion, the ones with the most talent took the challenge, absorbed it and moved on. They focused on how to work with the fabric they were given. The least talented whined and fussed about how they couldn't create with the ugly fabrics. They did get to go to Mood and choose other fabrics, too, so they had some choices.

Unless Red Robin is responsible for every horrible prom suit in the last 50 years, I'm not sure what the point was. But they go inside, eat fries and design. They did have cool-looking drinks and glasses!

Mitchell and Hernan did the most complaining about how Sandhya hates them. Hernan made the worst decisions or didn't understand the challenge. He tried to match the brown and beige suit with more brown and beige so he chooses a brown vinyl at Mood. At this point, I'm thinking "wow, you didn't find it challenging enough even though you've whined for 30 minutes about it so far?" Brown vinyl. That's all I have to say about that.

Moving on.

Everyone else is thinking about their design, solving the problem of the ugly suit with fuzzy design decisions and a slightly vague directions, but they've mostly moved on from the initial shock. Except Mitchell and Hernan.

Two of the designers are making a motorcycle jacket. Neither one of the designers would give up their design, but one of them was slightly bitchy about it, but not bitchy enough for me to remember her name. She's been vaguely bitchy before, too. I wish she'd own it. Around Project Runway, that could keep her in the competition long after she's messed things up.

More Hernan whining. They had a bit of a confrontation in the sewing room. She basically said I gave you what I thought you could handle, but maybe you should have realized I'm not easy prey. Ha! He was a bit of a bully on the challenge they had together.

Tim's critiques are entertaining. One of my favorite parts of each week's challenge. I can't always see what they envision. I see sketches and flaps of fabric on dummies. They almost always look horrible. Amanda's description sounds like a flapper dress. Kini's dress is almost done. It looks fantastic. The two designers and their motorcycle jackets. An off the shoulder piece from some designer that was on the bottom last week. They destroyed him. Nina called his dress a planet of the apes dress. Ouch. The designer with the corduroy suit took strips of it and strips of other things and sewed them together. I thought it had the potential to be amazing. Mitchell put clear plastic over his dress.

Tim snuck up on Hernan who was trying to mold his vinyl. Tim's face was thoroughly confused. He didn't understand why Hernan was using the vinyl like fabric when it's not. It's crumply and messy. At this point, Tim can inspire a designer who is heading in the wrong direction. They scrap old garments and start fresh, or take the current one in a different direction. Hernan has the chance to fix things. I would if Tim ever gave me that face.

They skimmed over the blue haired woman and the young girl with the lip piercing as well as Fade and another (which usually means they are safe) before stopping at Sandhya who said I was blown away by the moustache on the wall of Red Robin. Tim just seemed confused, but he's been confused by her before, and she's won challenges. All the interview segments show designers confused by Sandhya.

Model fittings are model fittings. They only showed bits and pieces so it was tough to see what was happening with the finishes!

With so much focus on Hernan, it wasn't looking good for him unless he pulled something out of his nether regions at the last minute. Tim announced things the designers knew already like send your models to the makeup room, and use the accessory wall thoughtfully.

Boring, boring then runway time!

I'm not going to give a rundown on each look until it hits the top six designers or so. There are just too many of them right now. At the beginning of the season, I was happy about the new accessory wall. The one last season was super ugly, especially the shoes. I was so happy to see the wall this year except everyone seemed to pick short boots with their dresses this week.

During the runway, Hernan laughingly called Sandhya a bitch. She gave him the finger and told him not to ever talk to her like that again. It made me question her tears of two weeks ago to Tim. Clearly, she can stick up for herself, which makes her move seem calculated. Or perhaps I'm being too harsh, and she has just realized that she needs to be strong to win!

The judges didn't love one of the motorcycle jackets, the shredded dress and Hernan's super V girl costume. He had a V directly over the model's crotch.

They loved Amanda's hippy girl outfit, Kini's dress, and the guy who was on the bottom last week. Amanda won.

Via Fair Use Project Runway

I wasn't unhappy about the win, but out of the three they liked, I'd have chosen Kini's.

Via Fair Use Project Runway

Hernan tried to defend his dress by saying the material disintegrated, which the judges saw was a lie because they get to see the material and the dress up close.

Via Fair Use Project Runway

He lost.  

My favorite was this dress by the girl with the lip ring. I am drawn to sporty-chic-sexy clothes. 

Bringing Back the Quirk

No, that's not a new dance move. Well, it might be? Wait. That's twerk. I won't be twerking. You can all rest easy about that. I've missed chatting with you guys. I've been spreading my wings and spreading my quirk all over the place, but I'm not as free in those other spaces to really be myself. Since this place has my name on it, I'll be coming back here to bring the quirk. Nobody can stop me here!

For the past two or three weeks, I've been posting recaps on another site. Unfortunately, they have very strict rules about sharing photos. I believe that the pictures are included under the fair use copyright since I'm using them to critique, but they are erring on the side of caution. I completely understand, but that means I had to take down my recaps! I was slightly irked by that since it took nearly an entire day to write those suckers.

I'd like to continue writing them, and it took me days to come up with the brilliant solution of using my own blog!