PR8EP1: Sew What?

It's back, and, fingers crossed, better than ever.
Of course, we have Heidi and Tim....I love Tim....and Michael Kors, but really, for me, it's all about Nina. I want a Nina and Tim Show, and I want it now. Failing that, I just wanna have lunch with Nina and Tim.
But not now because we have Runway to discuss. With it's usual array of bitches and queens, smalltown boys and big city divas. Let's talk trash.
Casanova. Really? You want to call yourself Casanova? I think a rethink is in order, but, still, the language barrier will be fun, given that Casanova announces that he will "eat New Jork....[and]....take New Jork from the balls."
Even Carlos laughed at that one, but then Sarah showed up on screen with her platinum hair and Carlos said, "Who is she? The Devil Does Prada?"
Yeah, we laugh at the language barrier around here.
We meet AJ, the country mouse, from somewhere in one of the square states where he creates punk wear...in a square state. And Peach Cobbler, er, Carr, the old lady of the group, although she has the fabulous sense of humor....I keep thinking I'll meet a nine-year-old who will be my roommate. Kristen who admits she makes mistakes, but then she makes them work; we'll see how far a crooked zipper goes with Nina. Uh huh.
Jason, he of the Clockwork Orange bowler, who is the obligatory straight guy and will be reminding us that he is a straight guy. Gretchen is the easygoing gal from the Northwest who talks to Jason for about a nanosecond before moving on. Smart girl.
Mondo. Odd Mondo. Mondo of the I-Think-I'll-Change-My-Hair-Style-Every-Five-Seconds-So-I-Can-Fly-Under-The-Radar Mondo. Good luck with that. And Ivy, who wants it to be The Ivy Show which will be about bitches who think because they got on a reality show they are truly something special. Ivy? You're not. You are simply This Year's Bitch.
April, the newbie, fresh from design school and ready to do Goth Tea Party dresses. I sense one-note design....one.....flat.....note. And then, of course, we have Cute Nice Gay Guy, Chris. Even Carlos', um, er, ears, pricked up when he saw Cutie Chris. And, if we have Cute Nice Gay Guy, we must have Funny Gay Guy, Michael C, from Palm Springs, where he says he does "hot" couture. Get it? Hot? Palm Springs? Desert? Yeah, maybe he isn't so funny.
Michael D is the designer who doesn't really sew because he's a knitter. So, to that end, Project Runway producers have provided him with a rocking chair, a housecoat, and a wicker basket full of yarn. Valerie gets the invisible edit during the open, but she does get the First Cry Of The Season edit, so she has earned a place in PR history.
McKell is the cute girl with dreads from Utah. I know, but somehow it does work. Andy will be this years Asian, or Gaysian, who does the Asian-inspired design. He also features the standard Christian-Siriano-hair, though he refrains from the fabulous and the fierce......for now.
THE CHALLENGE
The designtestants are told that, while they have been flown to New Jork, er, York, and shuttled around the city and filmed and studied, they are not actually on the show just yet. Episode One will be The Final Audition, and One....or more....cue the ominous music....designers will be Auf'd before the show is even On. They are told to retrieve one piece of their own clothing from their bag, and that the piece of clothing must be Incorporated into their design.
Monkey Wrench
They must first pass the article of clothing they took from their bag to the designer to their right. Casanova weeps, because he pulled a pair of Dolce & Gabbana pants out of his bag that he bought for one-thousand-seventy.
Seriously. That whole language thing may prove troublesome.
The designtestants are then given five hours to design, create, fit, style, and parade their outfits before the judges.

Let the games begin.

Christopher used Sarah's dress and turned it into a cuter, well, dress. Not so innovative,and Chris wasn't given much airtime, but I think he's cute, and more importantly Heidi thinks he's cute.
He'll stick around, but he's gotta get bigger, bitchier, and better.

Kristin used Mondo's kilt--and he was gonna wear it on Day Two!--and made a collar out of it for her dress. Kristen bets on making mistakes, but I'm not seeing a lot of mistakes here. I did, however, see a lot of Kristen eye-rolls as other designers work came down the runway, so maybe Little Miss Crooked Zipper is also an In-Ivy's-League diva bitch.

And two bitches are always better than one.

Michael C, of the Palm Springs Hot Couture, turned Kristin's skirt into a really chic top, with a bare back. It said hot sultry nights, but it didn't say it loud enough, because the judges placed him mid-pack.

Get hotter, Mike.

Michael D, who knits, and we will be reminded of this weekly, I think, actually created a really Bohemian-Ethnocentric dress out of one of Bohemian-Ethnocentric McKell's dresses. Still, it was a POV and a slightly different one than he was given.

I will be waiting for my Brother Sewing Machine Breakdown moment with Michael.

Mondo, who tells us he's strange, because we would have never figured it out by the fact that he changed clothes and hair styles constantly throughout the episode--I swear, there were more costume changes than a Cher show--piece-mealed a pretty [read:boring] dress from Valerie's sweater. Perhaps this is why Valerie cried?

Peach Cobbler, the old lady of the group, although she is no Laura Bennett, took one of Michael D's knitwear tube-skirts....Yes. I said tube skirt.....and used pieces of it as trim on another dress she made completely from a new fabric. I hoped she'd have been called out for using so little of the fabric but she got a passing grade.

C is passing, you know. But C ain't gonna get you to the tents.

Sarah took Michael C's shirt and turned it into this hideously designed, far too short, one-piece-jumper-esque thing. Like the other designers she was allowed the use of the Mood Annex for extra fabric, but I think she was off coloring her hair and missed her chance.

This outfit missed the mark, but it landed her square in the middle with no place to go but down.

Valerie, the crier, turned Casanova's $1070 D&G pants into a dress she could sell on a street corner in the Village for a $1.70, and still be asked to lower the price. Raggedy tattered hem and quilted looking pieces scream Send Me Home, but the judges weren't listening.

This time.

AJ turned Jason's, the straight guy, sweater into this fabulous frock. It was fun and flirty and far different from the hodgepodge of blah that came before and after it on the runway. AJ is a little too giddy schoolgirl right now, as evidenced by his hurling himself onto the couch when he was told he was safe, but I like his style.

Girl just needs to tone down the histrionics. I mean, it's not like you've been voted head cheerleader.

Andy's look--from Gretchen's skirt--was F-A-B-ulous. From the cape to the shirt to the pants to the boots to the hat to the fact that his model wooooooooooorked it. I thought his was, by far, the best design of the night. Unfortunately, for Andy, I don't get to cast the Smallville vote.

Still, watch out for this diva. She's amazing.

Gretchen won the first challenge, by a rare PR unanimous vote. She turned some mother-effin' looking disco blouse into a very chic dress, and scored points for her spot-on styling.

On the down side, Gretchen seems nice, and that doesn't always bode well on the PR. She'll need to toughen up. I suggest a punch at Ivy.

I mean, cuz, that's what I'd do.

AND NOW FOR THE BOTTOM SIX.......YES.......SIX!!!

Jason, the straight guy, lest you forget, was given Andy's kimono to rip apart and rebuild and restructure and redesign. So, what did he do? Put it on the model backwards and cinched the waist with pins and staples. he blamed it on time constraints, but take a gander back at what Andy and AJ made in the same time period.

I know! And on a personal note: I was doing the kimono backwards years ago when I took one of my mother's robes and cinched it at the waist and pretended to be Diana Ross in concert. Just sayin'.

Nina--GOD I LOVE NINA--said, Did you think you could just put it on backwards and we wouldn't notice?

We did.

But, for some reason, the judges believe Jason has something, like, oh, I don't know, heterosexuality? We'll see. But I just hope someone always has a staple gun handy because I think Jason's gonna need it.

Nicholas used Chris's polyester......gasp!.....jacket and topped off his evening gown with the trim from the jacket, saying he wanted to combine sportswear with evening wear. Heidi dubbed it boring, and Nina, a bit nicer, liked it but thought it too quiet.

Nicholas was a quivering mass of homo jelly on that stage. Shaking and trembling and sweating. Even though Valerie got the First Cry Edit, Nicholas will be our Go-To-Boy for waterworks.

April deconstructed Nicholas' blazer, and by that I mean, she cut off the sleeves and turned it inside out. She and Jason apparently graduated form the same design school, although she did pass the sewing test while he got stuck in Pins and Staples.

Kors and Heidi like deconstructed, but wonder if deconstructed is just another word for unfinished.

Casanova. Dear Jesus. What to say? He took Ivy The Bitch's blouse and turned it into a skirt...and then slapped on two strap for a top, but left the back of the dress in the sewing room. Kors called it "mother of the bride belly dancer" and "pole dancer in Dubai."

Nina, more simply, called it "facsinatingly awful."

Heidi asked Casanova why he should stay and he went all Ricky Ricardo on her. Luckily, Nina was there to translate for him, and he said he should stay, but think "more out of the box, but conservatively."

I think PR producers should think more in the box, and put Casanova in one and send him back to that other PR....Puerto Rico....until he learns a little something about design.

And where to shop for pants that don't cost a thousand bucks.

Ivy The Bitch, who, we're told, by her, is a fast sewer and the Energizer Bunny, and should have her own show, took Peach Cobbler's pants and made them into, er, pants?

To be fair, she made them into capri pants, but isn't that the same thing as taking a shirt and turning it into a shortsleeved shirt? And then, mother of god, of all the nerve, she has the balls of steel to, not only interrupt Nina, but to disagree with Nina.

But my Nina wouldn't be swayed. She set her sites on Ivy and said, "Never mind that you turned the pant into a cahpri, the blouse is mumsy and the styling is a disaster."

Note to Ivy: there's one bitch on PR and her name is Nina Garcia.

And she is my god now. So suck it Jesus!

Which brings us to McKell, who took AJ's shirt and cut off the sleeves and the sides and the back, and added some fabric and made a flouncy.....too flouncy......pretty dress. Heidi called it, and pardon my German, butt ugly. Kors liked the play of fabric, but the side cleavage scared him. I think he was picturing himself in that dress and thought his side cleavage might look like a couple of loaves of bread under his arms.

Nina hated the styling. From the hair to the flowery pink bag, it was just awful

So, who went home?

The pole dancer?

The pants into pants designer?

The guy from Staples?

No, it was McKell. And, I'll admit, I was shocked. The styling was bad, but the dress, well, except for that whole cleavage thing, was well-made, and nice. But I guess nice doesn't work, and Staples and capri pants and deconstruction and Whore of Babylon do.

We'll see..................