Project Runway S3Ep10

Color Drain

This week on Project Runway, we’re down to the Final 5: Laura, Uli, Michael, Kayne and Jeffrey. Two girls, 3 guys. Heidi informs the designers that their new challenge will be announced at a party that evening. The designers also learn that there will be special guests at the party who will also be involved in the next challenge. The designers head wearily to the Pink Elephant.

Just as the designers plan to party hardy, Heidi drops several bombs on them.

Bomb #1
Vincent is a special guest for this episode. The V-Man turns up like a bad penny. Kayne’s eyeroll says it all.

Bomb #2
Angela is also a special guest for this episode. Jeffrey appears to be very unhappy about her return, since she’s his special, secret ubercrush. Come on… his hate is extremely passionate. Too passionate. Isn't it a thin line between love and hate?

Bomb #3
Vincent and Angela are back in the competition, but they must win this challenge to move on to the next challenge. As such, a total of three designers will be out for the cocktail outfit challenge.

Bomb #4
The challenge: use $100 and 1 day to create a cocktail party outfit using only black and white fabrics.

Bomb #5
Both black AND white fabrics must be used in the outfit. The designers must use ALL of the fabric they purchase; every. single. scrap.

Onto the Dresses:
First let me start by noting that I don’t think half of the designers heard the challenge. The outfit is for a cocktail party. Maybe my understanding of a cocktail party is too old-school traditional.

Angela - Unique and inventive, and if she had more time, it could have been really well-made and very dramatic. Too bad she was overly-ambitious with the time she had.

Uli - Pirate hooker in an unflattering cut and a lumpy silhouette. Could also pass for pj’s.

Michael - Great. Gorgeous. Flattering fit. He’s back on-point.

Laura - A black and white doily dress that resembles a tablecloth on my grandmother’s formal dining room table. I like it. Nina says Laura has finally designed something for a woman besides herself. Wrong, Nina-girl... Laura’s black doily dress is one of her favorite outfits. Have you not seen it one of the several times she wore it on the runway?

Kayne - Very sleek and flattering, with a great fit, per usual. The back has a cutout with an interlacing of white, topped off with a bow. The back reminds me of a trampoline/spiderweb/Native American dreamcatcher. I want to paint the center of it or mark it with an "X".

Vincent - I think he confused this challenge with the 1st challenge; working with materials from the apartment. His dress looks like two bedsheets wrapped around his model. For a designer claiming to be innovative and one that likes to take chances, this is just so plain.

Jeffrey - Maybe if he hadn’t spent precious time trash-talking Angela, his dress would not look like it came from the Goodwill “please, please take it” rack. Did he understand the challenge? It’s for a cocktail party, not another 80s look gone bad.

The winner of the challenge is Laura. I appreciate Laura's effort in the detailed construction of her dress. That means Angela and Vincent are going home. Unlike some viewers, I really enjoyed the twist of bringing back Vincent and Angela.

Out is Kayne. Boo!! The color in this episode drains a little more.

I thought Uli and Jeffrey were more deserving to go home than Kayne. Kayne was knocked for not using enough white in his dress. But Uli didn’t work with two different fabrics of black and white herself, she just chose a print that had both black and white in it. Since she had the black and white in one material, all she had to do was figure out how to drape her printed fabric. How inventive is that? Darn you, Nina. Darn you to heck.

Kayne’s taste is also discredited, unfairly, once again, and still the judges are accepting of Jeffrey’s disaster. How can Jeffrey’s design taste be considered more appropriate than Kayne’s, particularly for this challenge? I don't know. Still, my hopes for the final 3 include Laura, Michael and Jeffrey.