It might just be recap fatigue, but it seems the more the producers of "Project Runway" try to ramp up the drama — more catfighting! two guest judges! first-class flights to unknown destinations! — the less I care.Well, that is, until I log onto the media site and see this photo, which just cements Laura’s awesomeness in my consciousness: She’s 42, pregnant with her sixth kid, wearing four-inch heels and a dress she designed herself, and she still managed to fill two hardcase Louis Vuitton trunks and a briefcase and get to the airport in less than an hour. For this alone, she should win. (And when she does, she should give me those suitcases.)Meanwhile, deciding to call her stupid signature rosettes "fleurchons" finally catches up with Angela: The French are all "don’t try to saddle us with the blame for that crap" and on behalf of her fellow countrymen, designer Catherine Malandrino (who designs in New York but was raised in France) gets to be the one to tell Angela she’s out. Instead of "auf wiedersehen," she gets "au revoir," which should be little comfort on the 12-hour flight home alone. (I wonder if she gets to fly first-class home, or if as added punishment she has to sit in coach.)Can I just say that I really don’t like seeing any of our designers topless? I realize Kayne’s lost 110 pounds and all, but still, the sight of his man-boobies right at the top of the show really makes me wonder what other tortures the editors have in store for us this hour. I hardly hear him talking about how he misses Robert, or Jeffrey complaining about Angela for the billionth time since the season started. Dude, give it up: You know you want her. It’s just like grade school, where the one you can’t stop making fun of is the secret crush.Or not. Speaking of distractions, Heidi shows up on the runway with horrible bangs that draw my attention away from the whole "dropping two models" bit. Vincent picks first, and then here comes that damn Black Velvet Bag of Chance for the order of the other designers. Pretty much everyone sticks with their usual models — the only interesting moment is when Kayne selects "she will not shut up" Amanda over the two other models. "She may be chatty, but when she’s onstage, she sells it," he interviews (although with his drawl it sounds like "SAILS it"). Goodbye, Zaftig Model Who Got Alison Kicked Off and Pop-Eyed Model.The designers will create a look for a "hip international jetsetter," Heidi tells them. … and then leaves it up to Tim Gunn to tell them the rest back at the workroom. Kayne, revealing his idiocy, says that he thinks of Tara Reid as a jetsetter, which makes me laugh, because when I hear "Tara Reid," I think "drunk, untalented red carpet mess." (In fact, "I feel like pulling a Tara tonight" means "I’m going to make an intoxicated fool of myself" among some of my friends.)It turns out that the hip, international jetsetter is … the designers. (I wonder what "pulling an Angela" would be, because she’s certainly not what springs to mind when I think "jetsetter," either. There would be lots of squealing and rosettes.) They’ll be modeling their own clothing on the runway.Uli gets a variety of print fabrics — she calls it an "explosion" in that accent that makes her sound like Dieter from "Sprockets," or possibly Bjork. She says her outfit will look good "even if you get wasted." I’m not sure if that meant when you’re wearing it or when you’re looking at it.Kayne finds a Versace fabric — again with the label whoredom! — and decides to embellish a shirt with it. Tim Gunn looks stunned at the mere suggestion of it.Another thing I didn’t need to see tonight: Vincent in his boxers, trying to copy the pattern of his pants. Especially since the pants looked like Dockers anyway — not exactly jetsetting design. I think he just wanted to take his pants off, and sure enough, as soon as I write that down, he interviews that he’d like to work in his boxers every day. If he starts talking about how it "gets him off" and how the design term for what he’s doing is "rubbing it" (which is true), I swear I’ll stop recapping right here and now.No, we switch to Jeffrey vs. Angela. In case you didn’t read last week’s recap, Jeffrey was a jerk to Angela’s mom, who was his model. This week he still won’t stop gloating about it, and indeed is taking pleasure in needling Angela about it ("The madder she gets, the better I feel," he says right in front of her).Angela being Angela, she won’t just walk up and stab him with her scissors and say "This is for being a jerk to my mom, you bloviated, overinked idiot. Now shut up about how happy you are before I castrate you with some pinking shears and replace your testicles with my signature fleurchons." No, she has to be all weirdly passive-aggressive and settle for sentences like, "If you’re going to talk to me, look at me." Which does nothing, because it lets Jeffrey just bother her even more. Oh, Jeffrey, enjoy it while you can, because you’ve got about 40 minutes left before you lose your whipping-girl, and nobody else is going to let you turn them into your bee-yotch after this. Not even Kayne.Speaking of: During Tim Time, he tells Kayne that his shirt is "looking very Elvis to me." When Michael says he’s thinking about wearing only a T-shirt underneath his getup, Tim’s response is: "That bereaves me." And he saves the best/worst for Angela, calling her still-unassembled capris "junior" and "Holly Hobbie." And really, if you look at the modernized Holly Hobbie, she totally does look like Angela: Same silly cap, similar haircut. All she needs is a bubble skirt, green cat’s eye glasses and some fleurchons and they’d be twins.Which is apparently what Angela thinks, because her response is: "Yeah, but that’s kinda good." Oh, when will the designers learn to listen to Tim Gunn’s biting criticism and take heed accordingly? Not Angela: She persists on putting her rosettes right on each butt cheek, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed the weird thing she does to the crotches of her pants, but there’s like a weird contrast panel that says: "Look at my taint! I demand that you look at my taint!" Her cargos have that this week, too, only it’s a wrinkly starburst effect.The next morning, we see some of the designers rise and shine: Angela’s wearing this nightgown apparently cobbled together from knitted potholders or doilies. It’s scary, and I’m glad I won’t have to see it again after tonight. And then it’s off to the workroom, where while they change we see Kayne shirtless and Vincent dropping his drawers AGAIN. Does this count as cruel and unusual punishment? Also, Laura seems to be wearing the mother of all support garments, which is interesting because she’s so dang skinny. Maybe she’s just squeezed in like a sausage casing.Time for judging: There’s Nina, Michael Kors and guest judge #1 is Francisco Costa, who’s in charge of womenswear for Calvin Klein.Vincent’s open-neck sweater really doesn’t camouflage his belly pooch, and his pants are too long. He’s wearing them with flip-flops, which I realize some people think lends a laissez-faire attitude to your outfit, but really you just look like you were too lazy to put on real shoes. Also, please don’t make me look at your nasty, probably hairy toes.Speaking of nasty, probably hairy things, Jeffrey’s rock-star outfit involves Versace sunglasses, a tight jacket with shiny purple lapels, a T-shirt studded with a skull and crossbones … and what appears to be leggings made of stretchy long-john material. There’s an incredible amount of hook-and-eye detail at the fly. Again: "Project Runway" designers, nobody wants to see your crotch. Stop trying to make us look there.Angela’s outfit is less "jetsetter," more "tourist." She’s wearing a variation of her Jubilee Jumbles top that this time thankfully covers the midriff (although her black bra peeps out the top), and those brown linen capris, which have a double-belt thing going on and rosettes at the front pockets, too. She looks nice with blown-out hair, though. …Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Laura without her low ponytail, and she looks cute with her hair down, too. She says her outfit is different and not classic, but it still looks pretty Laura-ish to me. The halter dress has an interesting wrap detail at the waist — the sash begins between the two pieces that make up the halter. The color’s kind of "meh," though.Michael’s outfit is awesome — I can’t believe this didn’t win. He’s ready for some islands action with white cargo seersucker pants with tie details, and a white motorcycle jacket-style short-sleeved shirt with no visible buttons. Is it held together with Velcro? He’s got a D&G belt on.Kayne’s belt … well, you can’t tell me that came from the Macy’s Accessory Wall since it has "KAYNE" spelled out on it. Thanks to the swirly-psychedelic shiny satin panels, his shirt looks like it was designed to be worn by a "rock star" character in a low-budget TV movie, or maybe one of the actors in "A Night at the Roxbury." Which is kind of a shame, because his pants were cut very well (if a little too flared at the bottom for my liking, but still) but that shirt steals all the attention.And Uli … I realize she loves prints — and usually she excels and combining them tastefully — but this week, what I noticed most was the fact there were a LOT of prints going on. The main bodice is a blue/green vaguely tropical scene, and you can just see the beginnings of the second tier, a psychedelic gold-and-orange combination. Then there are TWO MORE TIERS of repeating fabrics until the dress reaches the floor.Now, while Laura also designs variations on a taste level week after week, at least her outfits look different — coat with fur collar, blouse and tailored pant, halter dress, etc. But this week, Uli’s dress looks pretty interchangeable with stuff she already wears on a regular basis.The judges’ comments: Uli looks "over the top" and her outfit might work in Miami or L.A., but not many other places. Angela couldn’t have made a worse fabric choice for traveling; Michael tells her, "You’re a mess just standing still." They suggest Laura switch the knot in her wrap to the front while traveling so it doesn’t get uncomfortable jammed in her back while seated on a flight. They love Jeffrey’s outfit: Nina says it’s what’s now (I hope she’s referring to the skull, not the leggings). Vincent’s outfit gets kudos from the Calvin Klein guy, who of course likes understated things, but Nina points out that if it’s understated, the work must be impeccable, "and it doesn’t look so impeccable from here." Jeffrey can’t stand that the judges also like Michael’s look. Kayne’s outfit looks like a costume, like Elvis, and Michael Kors says, "If the paparazzi is chasing you, the only reason is because you’re going to be the big picture in ‘What Was He Thinking?’ "And then the (yawn) "bombshell": They’re not going to pick a winner/loser yet. They’re putting the designers on a plane to see how the outfit travels. They have one hour to pack and get to the airport, Heidi says, "I’ll see you when you return." I wonder if that means they don’t stay at their destination long?In a futile attempt to add suspense, the designers don’t even know where they’re going! Kayne hopes it’s Iceland or Australia. And he sits next to Tara Reid, I guess. Stupid. And at one point Jeffrey leans over to do something and I catch a flash of red what I hope aren’t thong underwear. I don’t hit "rewind" to figure it out.Hey, it’s Paris! Laura is less excited about the destination than she is that they’re traveling in first class. And here comes Tim Gunn! In a rare moment of lucidity, Jeffrey interviews that he doesn’t know what’s he’s going to do with the rest of his life if he can’t have Tim pop up every once in a while. Wouldn’t that be a great bonus? Tim shows up to give you advice on not just what to wear, but whom to date or be friends with, home decor, dinner choices … Anyway, they get to Paris and one of the guys — I’m going to think it’s Jeffrey — has to be annoying and refer to the Eiffel Tower as the "tour ee-FELL," as if their recent arrival has suddenly transformed them into Frenchmen and they’re incapable of referring to things in English any more. Here you go, Jeffrey, you tyran pompeux stupide.In the new workroom at Parsons Paris there are only six tables: Someone’s going home very soon. Tim introduces host judge Catherine Malandrino, who reminds me a bit of a dark-haired, Gallic Polly Walker. The designers walk again and Catherine adds her scores to the judges’ tally. …Jeffrey (shudder) wins. Michael’s a close second. Laura, Uli and Vincent are safe.Kayne: "You look ridiculous. You look like a fake pop star." Angela: "You look like you’re just coming from another world. You are not a jetsetter." As soon as she hears that, Angela grimaces in that "I’m gone" way. And sure enough, she is. Nobody even hugs her goodbye except for Tim. That’s kind of sad, as she schleps out to the car alone, with only her fleurchons to keep her company.This was a two-fer as far as Jeffrey’s concerned: He wins, and he’s "ecstatic" Angela’s gone. He says she was less of a designer than an artsy-craftsy macaroni gluer. I can’t wait until this man implodes under the crushing weight of his own ego.(As an aside, check out Tim Gunn’s podcast each week on iTunes. He discusses that episode’s events, talks about things that might not have made it onto the air [like the fact Angela got to stay overnight in Paris, and didn't have to hop right back on the plane to go home] and shares his opinion about who should have won — which often differs from the judges’. The podcasts make a lovely companion for the Thursday morning drive to work. It’s like you’ve got Tim Gunn in the car with you, even if he is monopolizing the conversation for half an hour.)

I recently got a package with a few products from SK-II, the skin care line with a cult following in the U.S. and the appropriately arcane creation story.According to legend, a Japanese monk who visited a sake brewery noticed that the workers all had smooth hands, thanks to the ingredients used in the fermentation process. (The idea of people sticking their hands all over in my sake makes the prospect of drinking it less than palatable. But anyway.) A variation of that potion, called Pitera, is at the base of the SK-II mythos.The line has a reputation for helping women get clear, younger-looking skin. And someone’s going to get a couple of the products to try for themselves. … Here’s what’s up for grabs: One jar of Advanced Signs Treatment, an anti-aging cream, and two Facial Treatment Masks, slightly scary-looking cloth masks imbued with goo to help boost hydration and moisture. (In stores, the cream costs $160 and each mask is $15.)To be entered to win, shoot an e-mail (with "SK-II" as the subject line) by clicking on this link by 11:59 p.m. Sunday. (Don’t leave a comment below — I’ll draw from entries that show up in my e-mail by Monday morning.)Include your name and mailing address — and I don’t think you want products that cost this much to be sitting outside in the heat all day waiting for you to get home, so be sure it’s a place where the package can be kept in cool comfort!If you don’t win but are interested in SK-II anyway, the line is sold at Saks Fifth Avenue at Biltmore Fashion Park, which also has a free skin care analysis machine that reveals epidermal pores, wrinkles, discoloration, below-the-skin sun damage and the like. (For when you have too high of an opinion about yourself.)

I love how Alfre Woodard looked — everything from her gown to her jewelry and her hairstyle was great. WINNER

I’m giving Alison Janney a bye with her raspberry-colored multitiered gown by Elie Saab, but she shouldn’t have paired it with metallic necklaces. They look too matchy-matchy with her purse. Maybe some strands of pearls? DRAW

The back of Cheryl Hines’ gown by Chakra is a purple peacock-meets-Bollywood monstrosity. And if you know people will be looking at your back all night, make sure the back of your hair doesn’t look all woolly. LOSER

Blythe Danner needed a brush and some spray to keep her coiffure under wraps. LOSER

Christa Miller’s maternity gown gives her a California girl vibe, and the golden drop earrings highlight the embroidery on her bodice. WINNER

Elizabeth Perkins looks squeezed into her metallic floral gown, which also makes her hips look huge. LOSER

Ellen Pompeo looks great in her sleeveless Dior gown. WINNER

Presenter Felicity Huffman’s matte gown was flattering, but her lank locks weren’t. DRAW

The detail in the bodice of Evangeline Lilly’s dark purple Versace gown was icing on a beautiful cake. WINNER

I like the top of Heidi Klum’s maternity gown — by fellow "Project Runway" judge Michael Kors, naturally! — but the fabric is so thin you can see her belly button sticking out, and the slit’s cut a bit high. DRAW

Jaclyn Smith looked amazing — the best of the three "Charlie’s Angels" stars who gave tribute to producer Aaron Spelling. WINNER

The part of the gown that actually touches Jane Kaczmarek’s body is awesome, but what are those things she’s holding out? Wings? A lousy train? And her stiff-looking ’60s hair is doing her no favors, either. LOSER

Whether or not the wrinkled effect was intentional, Jean Smart’s gown looked like it needed to be blasted with a steamer. LOSER

Jenna Fischer’s dress had an ugly bow, an ugly color and an ugly stiff fabric. LOSER

Jeremy Piven channeled his inner Rat Pack member by wearing an ascot. And I actually didn’t mind — it’s a little different and still honors the specialness of the occasion. WINNER

Whereas Simon Cowell couldn’t be bothered to button up his shirt. I never thought I’d ask him to put on a tight black T-shirt, but please. Nobody wants to see your chest hair. LOSER

Joan Collins looks like a mother of the bride: An incredibly heavily beaded mother of the bride, but still. DRAW

Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ gown was simple and I liked the touches of black. WINNER

Katherine Heigl looks like equal parts Jessica Simpson and blow-up doll. But her nude Escada gown is awesome. WINNER

The iridescence — or is that ombre? — of Kathy Griffin’s dress unfortunately makes it look like look like she spilled several beers on herself. Yesterday, and let it dry hoping nobody would notice the stains. LOSER

I would have loved Kyra Sedgwick’s beautifully floaty gown by Giorgio Armani Prive — except for that weird floral tumor on the front. DRAW

Leah Remini’s purple Versace gown? A winner. Her too-tight shoes that are gripping her legs so painfully she’s bound to have ugly welts on her calves? Losers. DRAW

The conundrum of Lisa Kudrow’s gown: How can something that shows off so much poitrine still look schoolmarmish? Maybe it’s the severe hair and undersize jewelry. DRAW

I loved everything about Mariska Hargitay’s look: It looks flawless and effortless — a major coup. WINNER

Megan Mullaly’s dress by Badgley Mischka makes her look kind of square, and it needs hemmed in the front. DRAW

See, Morgan Fairchild, they’re called evening gloves for a reason. Take them off, put them in your purse, and put them on when you’re inside and it’s evening. Also, her dress is so tight it’s giving her pancake boobs, squashed against her chest. LOSER

Look, even Warren Beatty in the background is grimacing at Paula Abdul. Is she just drunk? Is that why that mystery hand is yanking her off, so she doesn’t make a fool of herself? The dress is pretty and I like the necklace, but the bracelets and hair remind me of a teenager in the ’80s. DRAW

I have no idea who Phoebe Price is – IMDB.com says she’s an "actress" — but I know this: She looks like a horrible Appalachian toilet paper cozy. All she needs is Minnie Pearl’s hat with the price tag hanging off it. LOSER

Sarah Chalke looks sweet in her lace gown, and the neckline is very flattering. WINNER

Tyra Banks is looking more and more like a transvestite Josephine Baker impersonator every time I see her. I don’t care if she’s wearing $3.5 million worth of Chopard jewelry. LOSER

Virginia Madsen should have put the puppies away before heading out for the evening in this Kevan Hall lace gown. DRAW

Candice Bergen looks like she’s busting the buttons of this blouse. And here’s what I hate about white shirts: You can tell where the overlays are. LOSER

I loved Helen Mirren in this white confection. And the bejeweled choker was an awesome touch. WINNER

Meanwhile, Sandra Oh piled on the necklaces, which ruined the look of her Vera Wang gown. LOSER

Rachael Harris is dressed for cocktails, not the Emmys. LOSER

Janel Maloney: dressed to be overlooked. And why couldn’t they afford to line the entire dress? DRAW

I love the play of Portia de Rossi’s scarlet handbag against her olive gown. I just wish she hadn’t matched her lipstick to her clutch. DRAW

The next time I read about the New York Times having to lay off some employees, my sympathy levels will be at an all-time low: The newspaper announced this week that it’s hiring … a perfume critic.

Chandler Burr’s column, Scent Strip, will run 14 times a year in the newspaper’s style magazine and rank fragrances on a scale of zero to four stars. Even "acceptable" fragrances earn a zero — no grading on a curve here.Who’s going to benefit from this? Who’s so taxed and intimidated they can’t peruse the tester bottles at the fragrance counter and make their own decision? If you can’t make up your own mind about what you like, you’ll never be your own person.On a related note, my Great Stuff column in the Tribune on Sunday takes a look at three new unisex scents — but there are only descriptions, not ratings. (Then again, the name of the column is Great Stuff, so you can safely assume they’re not dreck.)

Think back to when you were younger and you were doing something with your friends: It didn’t even have to be something incredibly fun, but at least it was entertaining. Maybe it was just watching something on TV.Now remember what it felt like when your mom came in — all "Hey, kids, what are you doing?" — and sucked all the fun right out of it?It turns out that happens in reality TV, too. And I’m not talking about the annual "meet Tyra’s momma" episode in "America’s Next Top Model." No, this week the "Project Runway" designers must create something for "the everyday woman" — who turns out to be their mom (or, in a few cases, an incredibly matronly sister). Well, not THEIR mom, but a rival designer’s mom, but nonetheless this episode has all the glee and surprise of a mom-supervised slumber party.(Also, who thinks of their mom as "the everyday woman"? Doesn’t the fact she’s your mom make her extraordinary, at least to you?)Jeffrey’s loutish behavior continues, although when a viewer poll says he’s 30% justified in his actions instead of 0%, you know he ended up with Angela’s mom as his victim — I mean, "client." But as callously as he treated her, it’s ROBERT who goes home for what could at best be described as a tent. (But at least he picked a bright color this week!)The episode begins with Jeffrey complaining — surprise! — about Angela, and how she should have been up defending her designs instead of Alison last week. Does this guy like any of his competitors? (The answer, which we find at the end of the episode, is yes, although it’s not clear if he also respects that person’s design work, too.)Then Michael reminds us he has won two challenges in a row: "I actually grinned myself a headache," he says, which is sort of endearing and not at all the sort of thing Jeffrey would say had he won two in a row. And off to the runway for the announcement of the challenge (see above). The models will be the designers’ moms, except for Vincent’s and Robert’s sisters. Everyone’s all teary-eyed. They’ll design for an "everyday woman," but still make it fashion-forward and with the designer’s point of view. They also have one day to complete the challenge, instead of the usual two. (At this point Robert, who has been chastised for weeks about being boring, might have saved us an hour and just bowed out, but no ….)Since Michael won last week, he gets to pick first and selects Robert’s sister. Heidi draws the other designers’ names out of the Black Velvet Bag of Chance, and they then pick the skinniest woman left. I mean, that wasn’t the way it was explained, but it sure ended up that way. And as Jeffrey explains it, "I think God got drunk today," because he ends up with Angela’s mother. I prefer to believe that God has a delicious, twisted sense of humor. (And looks and talks and treats people just like Dolly Parton would, but that’s neither here nor there.)Guest judge this week: Michael Kors’ mother, who looks vaguely Oompa Loompa-ish, which is to say "exactly like Michael Kors, with longer hair and bigger sunglasses." We learn this at a party at Tavern on the Green, which seems like the exact place your mom would want to go to in New York City. They compare embarrassing photos of their children, and we learn that Kayne was a chubby kid — adult Kayne says that he dropped 110 pounds. He interviews that being overweight helped him learn what flatters heavier figures, which will come back to haunt him in about 40 minutes.Also, Laura lets it slip that she’s pregnant with child #6. Her mom is stunned. Yay, parental support!Back to the studio, where the designers and models confer for half an hour. Kayne says his model, Michael’s mom "is not a size 2, not even a size 10," but she’s fabulous and he’ll create something awesome for her. Again, can he walk the walk? It is awesome, though that he picked her because she had rhinestones on her shoes and felt an affinity for her.Most designers are working well with their Mom Muses, but Jeffrey is stumped by Angela’s mom, who says she likes dark green, dark purple and wants to be all covered up. In a moment of lucidity, he points out he probably won’t be able to construct a jacket well given the time constraint, so he nixes her suggestion. Being Jeffrey, he does so with the tact and diplomacy of a pile driver. They don’t come to any consensus in the half-hour before the designers head off to buy fabric.On the return, Vincent points out that many designers don’t know how to create a garment for a fuller figure: They’re used to working with models "with 25-inch waists," he says sort of dismissively. Tough talk for someone who’s dressing Uli’s superskinny mom! Speaking of talk, apparently she doesn’t speak a ton of English and Vincent’s German is, well, nonexistent. There’s a lot of gesturing and loud speaking on his part, and nodding on her part.Thing is, he’s right: "I’m scared of this," Robert says as he drapes what looks like a bedspread’s amount of red material over a dress form. "I don’t know what to do." Everyone soldiers on until just to stir things up a bit, Tim Gunn announces the moms are coming in early so they can see how things are going.Darlene (for that is Angela’s mom’s name) tells Tim she doesn’t like her dress — she doesn’t approve of the periwinkle fabric he’s chosen, etc. — and starts ragging on Jeffrey in this whiny, meek way, then promptly shuts up as soon as Jeffrey shows up. Tim repeats what she’s said and Jeffrey blows it off, which earns a mild rebuke from Tim before he’s off to observe the other designers.Now, here’s the practical part of me: Darlene can’t change Jeffrey’s fabric selection, since he’s already bought it. And I’m betting she didn’t even bother to ask what his plan was, because she complained about the color of a fabric that constituted maybe 5% of Jeffrey’s total design. (She called it powder blue, and matronly.) But a woman who’s wearing the giant-collar-and-shirttails-sticking-out-from-dark-sweater look should not be dictating design to someone, even if that particular someone is a jerk who turns around and tells her that the fact she’s even standing there is bothering him.What she should have done: Stop hectoring him and trust in his design instincts (or sit back and revel in his failure, which would be one fewer competitor for her daughter). What he should have done: Treated her like he would his own mother. I have no particular sympathy for either of them.Darlene is now crying in the break room: "I’m really upset. I’m really insulted," she sobs to some of the other moms, including — awkward! — Jeffrey’s, who immediately begins damage control. She’s done this before, you can tell: "Let’s just go forward," she pleads with Darlene, then goes to talk to Jeffrey and breaks down crying.Jeffrey’s mom seems very … brittle — the sort of woman who interviews that Jeffrey was an alcoholic, whereas he says he was an addict (which implies harder drug use). She’d be the kind of mom who’d want to sweep things under the rug: "Jeffrey is just rambunctious!" she’d chirp weakly to the other neighborhood moms who complain about him kicking their dogs. "Let’s not dwell on the past!"Jeffrey and Angela are working in the sewing room at the same time. "She’s an unhappy customer, that’s all," he says. "She’s also my mom," she replies with an exasperated eye roll. Does she not understand that isn’t going to be help her cause — at all?Time for bed! Laura’s roommates make much ado about her pregnancy. She is more laissez-faire about the whole thing, explaining that by the time you have five, a sixth won’t be that much more work. "I’ll just throw it on the pile with the other ones," she says.The next morning, Mom Models arrive for final fittings and the runway show. The L’Oreal Paris makeup room and the Tresemme hair salon are hotbeds of boring this week: Nobody looks any different than usual.Uli’s design for Kayne’s mom involves a sheer print top that drapes over a solid tank, and pants. The trim at the neckline and sleeves is there to "elongate" the silhouette, Uli explains. Vincent’s design for Uli’s mom is a sleek little belted dress with oversize collar, which unfortunately matches her skin tone a little too closely. Still, cute.Kayne has designed a shirt that appears to have a print chiffon bib in front for Michael’s mom. The capri pants cut her at an unflattering part of her leg. The judges say he didn’t create anything special that made his model look good. Angela, meanwhile, was supposed to create an Audrey Hepburn-ish look for Laura’s mom, but when did Audrey Hepburn have long layers of fringe on a skirt? It’s kind of lumpy looking. Over a black tank dress, Robert has created what I call the Plus-Size Santa Fe Lady top — a lot of big, flowy fabric in a misguided attempt to conceal the true silhouette. There’s an artistic sash neckline that she keeps fiddling with, and when she walks down the runway she’s incredibly grim. Michael’s shirtdress is reversible, so I can’t understand why he didn’t show the interesting pattern side out, instead of the plain black. The belt’s a little big, too. Here begins Laura’s downfall: Even though Jeffrey’s mom is also very thin, what might look good on Laura does not look good on a woman with a few more years of life experience. The bow in the picture above obscures the sailor-style buttons on the skirt, which Laura made in a nod to her model’s love of cruises. Jeffrey’s outfit is a little bit Jeffrey (apparently random patches of color or detail) and a whole lot of Darlene (bo-ring). Those bits mesh together about as well as designer and model did.Judging highlights: Michael Kors says Angela’s dress isn’t Audrey Hepburn so much as "Stevie Nicks in black." Also, Jeffrey’s outfit is "Commes des Garcons goes to the Amish country." Also, Heidi speaks to Uli’s mom, also named Heidi, in German while Vincent sweats bullets. I would have loved it had Heidi translated it as: "That man is so crazy, it made me uncomfortable. All that shouting and grinning! I would like to go home now." Instead, the Heidi-Heidi Conference yields the fact she likes the dress.Who would have thought Vincent would turn out an appropriate design? The judges deem him the winner — with no immunity next week — and trundle off the other contestants, one by one, until it’s just Jeffrey and Robert standing.Jeffrey didn’t really try to please his client. Robert, you’re (repeat it with me) boring. Robert, you’re out.Backstage, everyone is very sad. Jeffrey even cries, saying that Robert’s one of "the good ones," which makes me believe next week’s episode will start with him complaining again.Also next week: Since they didn’t eliminate Alison’s "zaftig" model Alexandra at the beginning of this episode, and Robert’s model is also on the chopping block after tonight, I’m guessing there’s some model mayhem on the horizon. Every time that happens I’m reminded that when model Jia was hit by a car in New York, it was reported she had made it to the top three, which means the rest of the season is part of a live-action shell game: Keep your eye on the model, and you’ll know at least one designer who makes it to the finals. Right now she’s with (shudder) Vincent….

I just finished watching "Wait Until Dark" again — the movie where Audrey Hepburn plays a recently blinded woman terrorized by three thugs (Richard Crenna as the sympathetic one, Jack Weston as the portly one and Alan Arkin as the pure evil one) who are after a heroin-filled doll that’s in her apartment. (FYI, Arkin is now on screens as the heroin-addicted grandfather in "Little Miss Sunshine.")Now, I loves me some Audrey Hepburn style. I mean, here she is, playing a blind woman, and she looks fantastic through the whole movie, great eyeliner, fantastic (false?) lashes, amazing hairstyle with a razor-sharp part … all created without the ability to see. I’m willing to suspend disbelief at all that, just because, well, she’s Audrey Hepburn.But.One part of the film is that her husband is pushing her to be totally independent — "the best blind lady in the world," I think she says — and there’s a scene near the beginning when he stands stock-still and says, "Come to me," trying to get her to navigate through the apartment.So, — spoiler alert! — after a night when she’s trapped in her apartment by three strangers, manages to turn the tables on them and — superspoiler alert! — even kills one of them in self-defense, the police and her husband show up. And when they burst into the apartment, walking over more than one dead body, they eventually find her, cowering and alive but traumatized, what does he do?He stands in the middle of the room and says, "I’m right here. Come to me." (And she does, all glisten-eyed and thrilled to be reunited with her man.)Whereas I would have been, "For your information, in case you haven’t noticed, I have outwitted three criminals, swapped out water in a flowerpot for photo chemicals that temporarily blinded one of them, killed a man … and survived. There is gasoline spilled all over this apartment, sharp glass from where I knocked out all the light bulbs to even the score, and a couple of dead men littering the floor, all because you thought it was OK to accept a doll from a stranger at an airport. And I still look awesome. You can walk your sorry @$$ over here to me."Which is yet another reason why I will never be the new Audrey Hepburn.

Lessons learned from tonight’s episode of "Project Runway":1. If you can’t say anything nice, say it loudly and at inappropriate moments (Laura). 2. The camera loves a sore loser (Jeffrey).3. Once you make it on the show, never, ever interview that fashion is your life, and you don’t know what you’d do without it. Because once you do, that’s the week you flame out spectacularly and are sent home. Unfortunately, we had to learn that via ALISON, and not penultimate-place designer Vincent. Note to self: On "Project Runway," they value crazy more than comfort.Heidi trots out all gleeful and, after the model moment — goodbye, Hopeful Model! — asks the designers if they’re ready for their next challenge. And all we hear is Angela: "Yes!" Just to prove it’s not a rhetorical question, Heidi asks again: "You are?" And there’s Angela loud and clear: "Yes!" Heidi’s just baiting them now: "I think you’ve had it pretty easy so far." Angela’s the only one who responds: "No, we haven’t!"Right now, Angela is reminding me of those annoying people who always sat in the front row of college courses — you know, "returning students"? — and felt the need to chime in about everything useless and random, and how it pertained to their life, and to engage the professor in a lot of dialogue, challenging perceptions and the like, while the rest of us are left sitting there wondering how we could sink into the floor and escape. (And, sure enough, a quick shot reveals Angela is sitting in the middle of the front row. Brown-noser!)But Heidi’s not sharing: She says Tim Gunn will have more tomorrow morning, then trots off.What she didn’t say is that Tim would show up at 5 a.m., telling the designers they had an hour to get ready. Vincent is so groggy he can’t even look out the door — he just stares blankly at the wall of the hotel while Tim tells him to tell his roommates they can’t wear open-toed shoes. (Seriously, though, can you imagine waking up to camera lights at 5 a.m.? I’d be staring anywhere but straight ahead, too.)They pile in vehicles and drive, drive, DRIVE. Alison says she’s started humming "The Sopranos" theme song, and Laura says New Jersey looks as awful as it ever did … and they end up in Newark. Now, on a press junket for the movie "The End of the Affair" (Julianne Moore, Ralph Fiennes, guy from "The Crying Game" whose name escapes me), I took a cab from the Newark airport to Manhattan (and back), and it was indeed one of the least inspiring drives ever — it managed to suck all the anticipation out of my first-ever trip to New York City. That’s a depressive trek, that’s for sure.They end up at a loading dock and once the rolling doors are thrown up, are greeted by mountains of recyclable material. Robert says: "My first reaction was, ‘Shut up! I don’t want to work with trash,’ " which I think he stole from whoever ended up producing Paris Hilton’s new CD.And here’s crazy Tim, all suited up with hardhat and safety goggles, acting like there’s absolutely nothing amiss about the fact he’s standing amid piles and piles of waste. In fact, he sounds exactly like he’s at a cocktail party: "I am delighted to be able to introduce" some guy from Waste Management Recycle America, he says, in the same tones he would use if he were introducing the mayor.He also uses the word "source" as a verb: He tells the designers they’ll be "sourcing" recyclable materials for their outfit: They’ve got three bins and 15 minutes.And here starts the crazy Vincent talk: "Because this is trash, I want to make something contradictory to trash. I’m gonna make art." Later on, we’ll see how miserably he fails at this, but first, poor naive Alison waxes rhapsodic about how working "in something other than fabric is inspiring." Apparently not inspiring enough (see Lesson #3, above).The next steps: They get 15 minutes and $25 at an art store … and the news they’ve got to finish their outfits in about 10 hours instead of the usual two working days. Right about now, I notice Alison’s getting a lot of screen time, and I suspect last week’s correlation of Sudden Screen Time and Ouster is about to be proven.But Vincent’s right up there, too: "I’m letting things evolve," he says, which any manager recognizes as code for "I have no idea what I’m doing yet." "I don’t own the future, I don’t go there, you know what I mean?" Actually no, I don’t — but I do know producers should check his bags for mind-altering substances.Laura, in interview, says: "I think the guy’s like completely wack, he’s gonna crack any day now. He’s not mentally stable." And then, after she imitates his weird grimace, a very awesome "He’s weird." Nominee for understatement of the year.Meanwhile, Kayne and Robert sneak off to the break room for a quickie — lunch, that is. And, like any time two of The Gays get together in a room, they start talking trash about someone who’s not there — in this case, Laura. However, this is a case when I could have used some closed-captioning, because although I can tell they’re saying mean things, I can’t understand an entire phrase. I hear something about being shot in the face, and one of them says she kissed him on the face today and the other says he’s going to get a rash. And then out of nowhere, Jeffrey chimes in with this gem, about her design: "Another high-waisted skirt: (Dirtiestwordever)." Apparently people are not digging the Laura right now, although would I take Jeffrey’s word about anything? Aw, hell to the no. In fact, when he later interviews: "I think I’ve got this in the bag," I can’t wait until he comes close and fails. Comeuppance or schadenfreude? It can be both.Robert’s fun quote: "I love the idea of recycling. I recycle plastics, papers … ex-boyfriends…" Also, earlier this episode Robert is wearing man-pris, and I just can’t condone that sort of behavior. Kayne’s having a little trouble with his dress: It’s described alternately as "the clear dog in the room" and looking like "a toad exploded all over it." When Tim Gunn arrives, he says it looks like a high school project and, more damning, "like an amateur hour." Kayne, who is clearly freaked out by this, can only muster up " ‘Kay" as his responses.Also, Tim reminds Alison that her model is a little "zaftig." If you listened really hard, you could hear the model’s eating disorder kick in again as she watched the program from home.When they get home, Michael says he still had confetti in his clothing. Robert says he has still glitter in his shoe — sure, try to pass that one off on the recycling center, Barbie Boy!The next morning, it’s time for hair and makeup, and while they’re waiting, Laura goes on the offensive. To Kayne: "I wonder about your choices so often, sweetheart!" (It’s not clear if the ugly green she’s talking about is on his clothes or his model’s eye shadow. Both do look distinctly high school drag rebel.)He takes this not-so-inadvertent jab about as well as any uppity gay boy would — nose high in the air but pointing in the other direction, he replies: "Well, I wonder about your character, and that’s worse, so …" and then he looks at the two models surrounding him in that "I just burned her back, right?" way that just makes him look insecure, especially because he won’t look her in the face when he says anything and his whole body’s positioned away from her.Vincent, meanwhile, is pulling some weird Austin Powers vibe: He’s splayed out on the floor, telling his model to walk so he can see how his paper dress moves. "To me, it looked like a huge canvas of art. It just got me off," he says. "I loved it — it was like a child’s drawing." Now, it’s creepy that he’d say that something that looks like a child’s drawing could get him off, it’s creepy he keeps using that phrase, but I’m distracted from all of that when he pronounces "drawing" as "DROH-ring." It reminds me of the Mike Myers "Saturday Night Live" sketch as the little British boy in the tub who made "DROH-rings." Hmm: Mike Myers is swingerish Austin Powers, telling models to walk while making sexually inappropriate comments. Mike Myers also played Simon the British boy. Maybe Vincent has a man-crush on Mike Myers!Nobody’s dress fits their models. This causes great consternation and last-minute fixes. Or, in Alison’s case, tape.Here comes Heidi. This is the first week I’ve noticed her pacing cagily, shifting her weight like a boxer while she talks. The camera work makes me a little dizzy. She’s wearing a cute black top, though, and her hair looks great.Celebrity judge is Rachel Zoe, who’s responsible for inflicting the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie’s "style" upon the general public. Loosely translated: Eating disorders, ugly tops and big sunglasses. Rachel looks uncharacteristically unhaggard as she gives a kittenish "hi." Uli’s short strapless dress is muslin and silver Mylar — the skirt has a petal effect but is braided. Angela’s outfit has a weird strip tube top, and then a bib-overlay of holographic Mylar. (I will say this for it, however: No fleurcons, or whatever she’s calling those stupid rosettes.)Michael’s skirt is made out of a peanut sack, the bodice is strips of gold Mylar and the wrap is a plastic tarp fastened with a pin. It looks pretty awesome, but you can tell it’s a tarp. Vincent’s dress is awful — to the floor, rigid construction paper with black plastic straps and then confetti all over it. The model has to walk ludicrously slow to avoid ripping it. We have to hear him in voiceover again: Seeing the dress come down the runway, "it just got me off." I’ll give him $5 if he never says that out loud again. Who else is in? Let Robert sum up his own dress, made of silver Mylar strips: "A cocktail dress, albeit a cheap, tackey cocktail dress that a hooker might wear, but nonetheless it still looks like real clothes." His model walks weirdly bowlegged in it, with this insane smile on her face that makes me think she’s practicing for a drug pageant. Jeffrey’s dress is made entirely from newspaper and magazines that he’s painted with acrylic paint. The belt is trompe l’oeil (read: fake), and I hate to say it, but it’s a pretty cool effect.From the front, Laura’s dress is a pretty simple sheath dress with Chanel-style flower at the high waist. When the model turns around, though, you can see how the pleating has created a cute little saying: Where originally the peanut sack said "For peanuts only," now the back of the dress is emblazoned with "For nuts only." Alison’s yellow paper skirt is a mess: Stiff and rigid, with an Angela-style bubble skirt. She tried to play up the craziness with the model’s hair bow, which will come back to haunt her.And Kayne: His model looks like a Christmas tree. After a certain point, it doesn’t matter what the dress is made out of — it’s just ugly.The judges confer. Alison, Kayne, Laura, Vincent, Michael and Jeffrey are the best and the worst. Everyone else is safe.The judges love Michael’s dress; Vincent says his outfit "turns me on"; Laura’s dress is "an elegant joke" (in a good way). Kayne’s gown "stepped over the boundaries of taste," and Nina says we went "from Marilyn Monroe to Frankenstein," although with her pronunciation it’s like she said, "from Marilyn Monroe to Frank N. Stein."Michael Kors tells Jeffrey he’s got an ugly/beautiful thing going on, "which seems to be your aesthetic." (Dig! And, even if not, ouch.) And Alison’s — well, everyone just sort of exhales when it’s time to discuss it, although Michael calls it "a paper brioche."Laura’s safe. Michael wins, while Jeffrey swallows hard and later interviews that Michael won for designing "clothes that are the equivalent of diabetic food — no flavor." He says this while wearing the ugliest damn sweater — it’s like a plunging knit from the Freddy Kruger line that shows weird sprockets of chest hair and a festering red sore. Sexy! Also: Shut up. Anyway, Michael appreciates the fact he’s won two in a row, and I appreciate the fact he’s got immunity next week — apparently that wasn’t the case this week, because his prize was a Tresemme ad, and immunity wasn’t included in that. (Did they mention that last week? I don’t think so. Cheaters. Springing it on him after the fact.)Kayne is … in? It’s down to Vincent and Alison. Heidi tells Vincent there’s a "fine line between innovation and insanity." Alison gets told her garment is unflattering. And, in a is-this-sexist? moment, Heidi says it’s surprising that a female designer would create something so unflattering for the female figure. Like breasts and a uterus give you inherent design skills? Anyway, Alison’s out.And then, while everything seems to be the standard bittersweet goodbyes, Laura busts out on Vincent. Maybe she was frustrated he got to stay? Maybe he was actually muttering all sorts of weird things beforehand? Anyway, Laura belittles his outfit: His model "couldn’t (dirtyword)ing walk in that dress, Vincent. You call that a (dirtyword)ing walk, what that girl was doing on the runway?" Meanwhile, Laura’s trademark wide-cut blouse is dangerously close to unleashing one of her puppies, which distracts me from what else she says.Vincent retorts: "You shouldn’t open your mouth that way. Why don’t you put some Harry Winstons up your nose?" That makes no sense. Paul Simon wrote about diamonds on the soles of her shoes, but what would putting diamonds up your nose do, besides make you talk funny? And make people not want to look at your jewelry? You know it’s bad when Kayne, of all people, pleads for nice behavior while they get their last moments with Alison. Pot, kettle: Both black. At least he’s doing his criticism in a smaller venue, I guess? You know he’s just saving it for his date at the snack table with Robert.

It looks like my Wednesdays are going to get a little busier starting in mid-September: The seventh season of "America’s Next Top Model" kicks in on the CW network on the 20th. And I’m going to recap each episode, along with "Project Runway," so it’s online bright and early Thursday morning.

They’ve released the names and photos of the "ANTM" contestants, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve watched too many seasons (which they insist on calling "cycles," which makes me think of dog food), but I think I can already pick out the archetypes, just by looking at their pictures.

ANCHAL (left): The one with the striking face who can only give one "look" and will be dumped because she can’t show a range of expression. Also possible: The one who freaks out when they chop her hair off.

A.J. (right): The tomboy who, after a battle of wills with the judges, realizes that embracing your femininity isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

AMANDA (left) and twin sister MICHELLE (right): The jolie/laude girls who Tyra raves about after they learn how to put on makeup and get rid of that bland hair color. Amanda will last longer than Michelle, if the above pictures are any indication.

BROOKE (left): The small-town naif who cracks under the pressure of being away from her family. (Also possible: The bigot from Texas.)

CARIDEE (right): The one from North Dakota. (Also possible: The one who can’t stop giving off sexual vibes in her photos.)

CHRISTIAN (left): The one who gets her hair chopped short to show off her "interesting" face.

EUGENA (right): The one who gets the really long weave.

JAEDA (left): The one I refuse to believe wasn’t born a man.

MEGAN (right): The one who is "too old" to win, because she’s the ripe old age of 23. (Also: The one I probably want to win, unless she’s really stupid or mean.)

MEGG (left): The one who can’t do anything right and freezes up under pressure.

MELROSE (right): The know-it-all who thinks she’s already awesome because she works in the fashion industry.

MONIQUE: The one who says "This is not ‘America’s Next Top Best Friend." The one who will hurt you. Leave her alone.

When moisturizer is outlawed, only outlaws will have moisturizer: One of my roommates had the misfortune of trying to board a 5 a.m. flight from Washington, D.C., this morning, without knowing about the recently enacted bans on water-based items in carry-on luggage. They seized his toothpaste, saline solution, cologne … They offered him the chance to go buy an envelope and mail the items back to himself, but he would have missed his flight."But the worst thing is, they took my Hope in a Jar" (the awesome, awesome moisturizer by Philosophy that I got him hooked on), he said plaintively when I talked to him on the phone. "And it was almost a full jar. I almost cried."So, keep in mind: Put that stuff in your checked luggage. Because you’d be really sore if they confiscated your $210 jar of La Mer ….My friend Michael says he’s going to open a Walgreen’s in the parking lot of every major airport. He’ll make a fortune.

Tonight’s episode succeeds in making me very nervous, because at the start of the episode my two favorite designers get a lot of screen time, which in reality TV usually translates to a hasty departure. Michael and Laura are still safe — in fact, one of them wins this week’s competition! — but I’m still not sleeping easy.Meanwhile, BRADLEY somehow manages to make the most boring outfit ever supposedly inspired by Cher, and gets kicked to the curb by the judges (including, thankfully, the long-lost Michael Kors). In the words of the former Cherilyn Sarkasian LaPier: "So sad that you’re leaving / It takes time to believe it."Or not. Bradley really was a lousy designer.At the beginning of the episode, Jeffrey’s still chafing that Angela won the Macy’s challenge — "It cut me straight through," he says via the tiny, tiny mouth above his giant, giant tattooed neck.And now for this week’s Drama Involving Models. I can tell the producers are trying to get us to pay attention to the models, but their gimmicks are becoming increasingly frantic: For starters, this week, the models get to pick the designers they want to work with! Shocked faces all around, from both models and (disappointed power-trip) designers. However, in a total ripoff, last week’s winning model doesn’t even get to pick first: The selection order is determined by drawing their names out of that cursed black velvet bag. And because two designers exited last week — Bonnie through lousy design, Keith through rule-breaking — the last two model names in the bag are automatically "out." One of the dismissed girls was the one who wore Kayne’s award-winning Miss USA dress. I would try to register some sense of unfairness, but … I don’t care. They’re the models. If the producers really cared about them, they wouldn’t make them wear those black slipdresses and walk around barefoot like subservient white-slavery victims each week.One by one the models select their designers, and suddenly one of them gets interview time: "I always wanted to work with Laura because she has a clean, sophisticated style," Well-Spoken Model says, and my heart is filled with dread: Does this mean this week Laura’s going to really screw up? Is she going to get in trouble for hewing too close to the same standards? I don’t think I could bear to part with her just yet — please, take all the models, just leave me Laura a little bit longer. (I’ve moved through denial and anger, and am now squarely in the bargaining stage.)The last designer left is Bradley, who’s paired with Relieved Model, who’s just happy Heidi pulled her name from the bag. (Let’s hope she took a cue from that Tim McGraw song and lived like she was dyin’ for the next 50 minutes.)But wait! Models Are Important, Too Time isn’t done yet! This week’s challenge is about modernizing a look for a fashion icon, and the models get to do the picking. When they walk into the Parsons design room they’re greeted by (a) Tim Gunn, and (b) small posters of women, whom Tim explains were fashion icons from "the past century." Apparently they’re taking that by birthdate, because the oldest "icon," Katharine Hepburn, was born in 1907 but didn’t really make it big until "Little Women" in 1933 and probably wasn’t an icon until "Bringing Up Baby" in 1938. But I digress. …Anyway, there’s a big grabfest for the photos. Relieved Model can’t get her model mitts on any of them and ends up with the leftover picture, Cher. Well-Spoken Model has done an awesome job and grabbed Kate Hepburn, which makes a great match for Laura — why does my stomach hurt so bad right now? Seriously, I am really stressed at this point, quickly moving into the depression stage.Some of the other pairings hold great promise: Robert doing Jackie Onassis; Jeffrey and Madonna; Kayne and whom he refers to as "Miss Marilyn Monroe"; Michael and whom he refers to as "Pam Mother(dirtyword)ing Grier."The other pairings are … well, interesting: Uli seems psyched about updating Diana Ross, which isn’t a choice I would have guessed, but OK. Alison doesn’t get into Farrah Fawcett too much. Vincent says his model picked Twiggy "because of what I could do with it," which I translate as "Make something horrible with it."Then there’s Angela, who says "I basically peed my pants" that her model seized on Audrey Hepburn. "It was so dead-on," she says, dead serious. I’m pretty sure I never saw Audrey in a hoochie-mama satin tank and rosette-plagued pink satin bubble skirt, but I’ll have to do a Google Image search just to be sure. … Nope, I was right: Girl’s deluded.And Bradley. Willfully contrary Bradley: "I don’t know (dirtyword) about Cher," he interviews somewhat gleefully. "Maybe I should pay more attention to celebrities," he adds, with a tone that implies that this consideration is both new and beneath him. We see Relieved Model tryinig to explain Cher’s various incarnations, including her "kind of pop" era in the ’80s. To which he says: "Like Prince pop?" At this point, Relieved Model realizes now is the time to go skydiving, and Rocky Mountain climbing, and go 2.7 seconds on a bull named FuManchu. …Tim uses the word "caucus" as a verb again this week. Why can’t he just say "gather and discuss"? We see caucusing, then fabric shopping, then cutting and sewing.Or trying-to-sewing, anyway. Bradley’s machine is messed up, and Angela says she had the same trouble with it but she "fixed" it. He’s not buying it and pretty much says she messed his machine up. Jeffrey overhears this, and just itching to take out his frustration, goes off on her. She tries to defend herself, rather ineffectually, but he’s having none of it and keeps going, which bothers the other designers — including Laura, who finally turns around and, in her role as Greek chorus, says, "Jeffrey, if you’re so (dirtyword)ing successful and you know so much, what are you doing here?"This challenge of course upsets Jeffrey, who interviews that Laura had no business talking to him, and quacks for six seconds straight to imitate her talking. Then, to show us what a class act he is, we see him walk out of the sewing room muttering, "God, I wish that (dirtyword)ing (dirtyword) would have a stroke."And here comes frightening trend #2: Michael gets some screen time — no, a lot of screen time. He thinks Jeffrey was out of line: "I’m not trying to play Captain Save-A-Ho, as we say in the hood … but it wasn’t really his place," he interviews. Jeffrey tries to explain how exactly it was his place to ream Angela, but really we already know how it was his place: Because he’s a jerk who’s still mad she won last week’s challenge and he didn’t. (This explanation does not come up in his version.)And then Michael calls his mom, who’s very supportive (the anti-Malan-mom) and tells him to pray, and he replies that he does every night. My stomach begins to knot up. Then he says: "I feel good, I feel energized, I’m ready to continue on." I feel so full of dread right now, it’s like trying to watch the opening scenes of "Bambi."His outfit is super sexy, but he begins to doubt the miniskirt he’s created and decides he’s going to create some hot pants instead.At the fabric store Robert picked up a Tiffany-blue fabric for his classic Jackie O look, but for some reason he thinks it’s a good idea to instead use a tan linen that Vincent discarded to make a jacket and skirt. OK, let’s discuss which is the more stupid move: Using something that Vincent picked out, or using something that even Vincent decided was wrong? Making a tan linen suit when last week you were in the bottom two for being boring, or making a tan linen suit for Jackie O? (Also, I hate rope belts.)Kayne’s gown has black leather trim, nude stretch material and sheer black overlay. It looks sexy, but not what I imagined when he said "Marilyn Monroe meets Gwen Stefani."Jeffrey and Vincent are mocking Bradley’s truly lame shiny silver blouse. Jeffrey calls it "supercalifragilisticexpliali-crazy," and they compare it to the Woody Allen movie "Sleepers" and the David Bowie song "Major Tom." Neither of which is too far off the mark, but the best thing is that Vincent tells Bradley, "I want one of these for myself," because you totally know he’d wear it.When the models come in for fittings, though, it’s not the blouse that causes Bradley grief, but the pants. They’re a little snug — so snug that Relieved Model exclaims, "Cameltoe!"Which made me flash back to a horrific moment when my then-recently arrived boss heard me discussing how we couldn’t run a particular Q&A column on the Style page because the writer had thought cameltoe was an appropriate topic, and she asked me, "What is cameltoe?"And the room, formerly loud and bustling with entertainment and features reporters, suddenly became very quiet, very quickly, and I could see many, many pairs of eyes turn to me, eager to watch the train wreck that was about to happen as I tried to explain in an office-friendly, boss-friendly way what exactly that meant. "Well," I said, after a deep breath, "it’s a problem that some people have when their clothing is too tight over … parts … of their body.""What parts would those be?" asked one of the other editors, who already knew but wanted to watch me twist a little longer."As my black Southern nanny would have said, your ‘lady parts,’ " I said. "If I had had a black Southern nanny, that is."(If I had known my boss as well as I do now, I would have just busted out my iPod, which includes a song by that very name by a band called Fannypack and includes such E-Z definitions as "She had a frontal wedgie: A cameltoe!" and "Is your crotch hungry, girl? ‘Cause it’s eating your pants!")But I digress.Here’s Kayne’s drama: "My model is Amanda. And Amanda will not shut up," he interviews. And true, we hear her prattling on about any- and everything. Models "should be pretty and seen, and not open your mouth," he says — so close to the actual phrase, and yet so far!And then here comes this weird guy who looks like the love child of Tom Ford and David Gest: He’s Nathaniel from Tresemme, here to get their product placement pitch in by consulting with each of the designers about their hairstyles. Bradley says of Tresemme: "I used their gel last night. It made my hair look better, I think." Hint: Scroll up and look at that picture of him at the top of this post. (Anyway, the winning model gets to be in a Tresemme ad in Elle magazine. I imagine it will appear right next to the "fashion spread" the winning designer gets.)Nathaniel says lots of obvious things that are revelations to none of the designers or the viewing audience. When he gets to Vincent, though, he says something about how Twiggy’s hair should be the essence of the ’60s, and Vincent gets this look on his face like Nathaniel said: "I’d really like to deposit some fecal matter into your model’s hair and use it as mousse." I’m not sure what freaked Vincent out so much, but this is one case where I’d like to know his thought process.Two hours before end of day, and here comes Tim Gunn. Let’s caucus.Robert calls his own outfit out as "incredibly boring," and Tim doesn’t disagree. When Michael says he’s doing hot pants, Tim says, "I hate hot pants" like he’s saying, "I hate ethnic cleansing" — then hastens to add, "but they’re really now, they’re back" and doesn’t oppose them too much. He does tell Bradley his top looks like "armor, like the tin woodsman from ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ "We see Angela putting one of her stupid rosettes on her dress. I want to cut off her hands whenever I see her fiddling with those rosettes. But wait: It gets worse, I promise.Models come in for fittings, and Kayne’s gown is sort of gapping at the front. "It looks sloppy!" Amanda exclaims while he’s fitting it. Have you ever heard of microexpressions? They’re instantaneous, fleeting expressions that people try to hide but can’t — investigators look for them during interviews as indicators of what people are really thinking. And let me translate Kayne’s microexpression as she says that: "Oh no you didn’t, beeyotch."Indeed, he later interviews, "Amanda … I will use her in the future, but put duct tape on her mouth."Robert’s having issues with his outfit. He cautions his model to be "still as a stone, because this (badword) is wrinkling like crazy." He interviews that "a miracle from heaven is needed to turn this whole thing around." Unless that miracle turns his dress into something interesting, a la water into wine, he’s not going to do so well. And if something did happen and suddenly his plain linen suit with ill-fitting blouse turned into a chic little outfit in a smart print … well, that might just get me to go to church again.Anyway, it’s runway time!But first, Heidi. Her hair is up in loose tendrils and she’s wearing a dress with a plunging, wide-open top with big sleeves made out what looks like lingerie material and a high-waisted supershort skirt. Plus: big bulky knee-high tan boots. She looks horrible, like a slutty Swiss Miss.Alison’s version of Farrah … well, at least she got the hair right. (Thanks, Nathaniel!) The brown blouse is very open in the front, with sparkly silver superhero-style trim. The skirt is weird — too short, too flowy and too see-through. And seafoam green? The blouse has a tie in the back that hangs down and looks at first glance like the skirt has brown detail on it. It looks like a bad costume design for a "Star Trek" vixen, or "Wonder Woman" characters on Paradise Island.Bradley’s Cher is the most boring outfit, which is a sin for when your reference is a woman who showed up at the Oscars one year in a mohawk that made her like 10 feet tall, and picked up her Oscar in a see-through bodysuit. Lame-pronounced-la-MAY refers the shiny fabric, and lame-pronounced-like-dame means something is lousy, and this top is both of them at once. And then his white low-rise trousers have fringe trim on the front pockets. Because it’s not bad enough they’re tight, they also have to have strings hanging down right near the crotch, too.Angela’s Audrey dress is … not as bad as I had imagined, but I still don’t like it too much. What is it with very wide-open tops? Did Laura consult on every outfit this week? The chiffon overlay gives it detail but the vertical seaming makes it come off a little lingerie-ish to me. She’s got those cursed rosettes as trim at the hip and lining the whole hem.Kayne’s gown is very Marilyn. The sheer black over the nude gives it a greenish effect. Amanda’s hair and makeup make her look Marilynish, too. Nathaniel’s been doing research!Laura’s Katharine outfit is a pair of high-waisted trousers in a camel-colored plaid fabric that looks suspiciously similar to her coat from the dog challenge. Now, it’s one thing to stick to a signature style, and another thing to churn out variations on the same thing every week. The top is a cool blush-colored top with a wrap waist and a long sash that hangs on one side.Vincent’s Twiggy jumper is … part horrific plaid, half black, the sleeves are big and swingy and the poor model has eyelashes painted on that make her look like a Harajuku girl. Vincent starts talking about how "Twiggy was this, Twiggy was that," and Diane Von Judge interrupts him to say she thinks it’s important to note that Twiggy is still alive. If by "alive" you mean "a replacement judge on ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ " then sure. But is Living Twiggy 2006 a fashion icon? No. I like most of Michael’s Pam outfit but want to tweak little things all over: The halter-style top is so wide on each side that it looks like a skinny girl is trying to wear an outfit made for a woman with Giant Knockers. The gathered waist with Gucci-style chain-bit detail is awesome, but the hot pants seem like they’re cut a little wide. I mean, on the runway is when ideas are at their most true — the translation to the consumer market (a wider hip, a longer hem) shouldn’t come into play here, should they?Robert’s Jackie linen suit looks vaguely like the "Barefoot Appalachian L’il Abner Barbie" outfit Raymundo created last season, without the frayed edges. You’d think the Barbie designer would have steered far away from something like that. I don’t even like the blouse hidden under the jacket.Uli’s Diana gown is pretty awesome — stripes and leopard patterns, all in flowy, shiny violets and purples with a cross-halter top.Jeffrey’s Madonna outfit reminds me of something Bai Ling would wear in a red carpet disaster: The top looks like it was ripped off a toy solider, is stiff and rigid, and the black fabric of the skirt is really deconstructed.The judges are Michael Kors, guest judge Diane Von Furstenberg, Nina Garcia and Heidi.Laura, Uli, Jeffrey and Alison are safe. The judges love Kayne’s dress: Using leather was "genius," and Michael thinks it’s like "goth Marilyn" and "the back’s fab." At this point, Kayne reveals that he’s a lot like his model and won’t shut up, going on and on about how he likes the black crystals instead of the usual ones, etc., etc.Nobody really likes Vincent’s dress. They wish it were "happier," which I translate as "better."They do, however, drool over Michael’s outfit, including the proportion of shorts (ahem). Diane says: "I wore a lot of hot pants in my days, and those are good ones." Maybe they need to sit closer to the runway.Diane also has the most subdued comment about Bradley’s work: "I don’t really love that outfit too much." Michael says the crotch is "insane," and Nina compares it to "an old Halloween costume you pick up in a mall." Yikes!The judges like Angela’s dress a lot. I think Vera Wang taste cooties have infected the chairs, because Heidi says, "I would want to have that dress in every color." And then Angela announces that she’s calling those rosettes "fleurchons," which makes me want to reach into the TV screen and smack the faux-French right out of her. Robert’s choice of linen was the worst mistake, the judges tell him, because Jackie O was always impeccable, neat and sharp.Angela’s safe. Michael’s announced as the winner, and Kayne’s next microexpression is: "(Dirtyword)." Kayne is safe. Then Vincent.I’ll let Heidi speak for me: "Robert, you couldn’t have chosen a worse fabric for your style icon. And once again, we were bored. Bradley, your poorly made, cheap-looking outfit was unworthy of your style icon." Ah, the "poorly made" — the kiss of death for Bradley, who gives one final weird interview: "There’s serious high fashion going on, and I made a Tinkertoy. And they kicked me out!"I would be sadder, but I totally called this one earlier today. I just hope my ominous premonitions about Laura and Michael don’t come true next week.As Michael and his model posed for the Tresemme ad, I noticed they both have pretty jacked-up teeth. Look for a closed-mouth ad in an episode of Elle near you, soon!