This week someone gets kicked off for … well, reading, I guess — or at least threatening to. More surprisingly, Angela shows exquisite taste … when she’s picking designers for the team she’s heading. (Now if only she’d wean herself off those stupid rosettes.)
BONNIE, who says working for Nike has given her experience designing for the masses, ends up getting the boot. You know someone who "helped" Serena Williams "design" tennis outfits like this one wouldn’t last long on "Project Runway," right? It’s midseason model mixup time (OK, so it’s really just Episode 4, but the alliteration sounded cool, huh?) as designers shuffle their allegiances to various mannequins. There’s no real shock or connection to any pairings this season, unlike last year when that hussy Zulema absconded with Nick’s model. Now, it’s kind of boring. Can’t they just shove the outfits down the runway on automated dress forms? That’d be kind of awesome in a Herbie Hancock "Rockit" kind of way.
This week’s challenge: Design a three-piece outfit for Macy’s private-label line (translation: house brand) INC, on a $100 budget. The designers pitch their ideas to Mehmet Tangoren, VP of contemporary sportswear for Macy’s, who describes the INC customer as "ageless" and "fashion-forward," which sort of contradicts how I see the INC customer, which is "young" and "budget-conscious." We all have delusions of grandeur about something, Mehmet …
As team leaders, MEHMET picks Robert because of his sketches, Bonnie because she understands the INC customer, Keith because of his color choices and Angela because the producers paid him handsomely to do so, just so millions of viewers would shout at the screen, "WHAT?!" No, actually he says — he says — it’s because of her inspiration, the Empire State Building.
Now, really: If you lived in New York, would you be impressed by someone who’s inspired by the Empire State Building? I’d more likely be, "You and a bazillion tourists a year, Angela. Try something more original." It’s like people who visit Phoenix and wax rhapsodic about the high temperatures: We know. We live with them every day. Stop acting like you’re the first person to notice!
When it’s time to pick teams, nobody looks forward to being on Angela’s. Can you blame them? So far she’s been hard to work with and prone to bad fashion judgment. "Yay, pick me to help execute your designs! I loved your Jubilee Jumbles concept that involved dressing a schoolmarm like a Forever 21 prostitute!"
Angela does, however, pick the very two people that I would want to work with during any challenge: Michael (who greets this news with a less-than-effusive "Awwww, damn") and Laura. Robert picks Kayne (surprise!) and Vincent, Keith picks Alison and Jeffrey, and Bonnie picks Uli and ends up with last-pick Bradley, who interviews that he felt awful, like the kid who was left out at kickball. (I, having been awesome at kickball, could not identify.)
While fabric shopping, Keith bargains with the cashier for an extra discount, which drops the bill from $98 to $80. Foreshadowing alert: "I always break the rules a tiny bit sometimes, because I think I’m right," he interviews. It’s hard to always do things sometimes, but I guess if anyone can in his own mind, it’d be Keith.
And now, a few random observations. …
First, Bradley is becoming the new Vincent — slightly erratic, oh-so unreliable and uncomfortably prone to strange statements. Like this one: "Bonnie was hounding me more than necessary. Maybe Bonnie was doing that because she doesn’t like my beard. Maybe I should shave everything, and just leave a little mustache. Maybe then she would have lightened up a little." And then he gives this odd laugh that makes me very, very glad I am unlikely to run into Bradley Baumkirchner. Ever.
Second, I know that Laura’s married, and has five kids, and it’d never work out between us (Laura, call me!), but I’m loving her more and more every week — she’s got a great signature style and a refreshingly plainspoken way about her, such as this gem, when she’s describing how nice it was that Angela had apparently developed some taste for this week’s design and she wasn’t being a "full-tilt boogie Angela quilted extravaganza of puff." Which sums up last week’s Angela outfit in less than 10 words.
Now for the "drama": Kayne spies some pattern-making books under Keith’s bed, which is against the rules — like bringing a dictionary to consult during a spelling bee. The question is: Will Kayne tattle? Of course he will. I’m surprised the cameras didn’t capture the cartoon trails of dust coming from his heels on the way to the producers’ office. (It would’ve been easier just to, say, point at the books and say to the cameraman, "Hey, look, illegal reference materials! Don’t you think the producers should know about that?" Maybe that’s my passive-resistant side coming out.)
Anyway, Tim Gunn shows up to tell Keith he has to go — like, yesterday — for this violation and also for previously leaving the production for several hours and using the Internet.
This being reality TV, the guys can’t just let him slink off quietly in shame — no, they have to gather around and rub salt in his wounds. Keith interviews that he is disappointed and that he "had a lot of tricks up my sleeve still." (By tricks he means "patterns.") It is kind of a shame, though: He had showed great promise.
In the workroom the next day, Tim greets the designers — "Good morning, everyone!" — with the most hysterical tone of voice ever: It’s the gentle, lilting one you use when you’re trying to wake a room full of sleeping toddlers without startling anyone. He then gathers them for the bad news about Keith’s departure. (Also, earlier in the show he uses the word "caucus" as a verb. It’s like "It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power With Tim Gunn.")
It turns out many people don’t see this as bad news. Vincent assesses the situation thusly: "You do stupid stuff, you gotta pay the price." Laura, using language definitely not suitable at home, isn’t mincing words: "Keith … what an —hole. I’m glad to see him gone." Who’s looking forward to the reunion special?
But Jeffrey and Alison have lost their team leader and must finish the design without them. There is a bright side to this: Apparently they’d been doing all the work anyway, so it wasn’t like they were clueless about the concept. (Although Keith’s pitch about a dress that can be "pulled down into a tank top"? Messed up.) Alison seems a little shaken and tears up but says "We have to keep working." The very next shot of her: Squatting down by a window, deep in reflection … not working.
Michael and Laura, meanwhile, are working very, very hard … to prevent Angela from actually designing anything into her outfit. Like those weird rosettes from last week — the black fabric mini-roses show up again this week, which makes you wonder: Did she save them from last week? Does it count as cheating if you reuse stuff from previous challenges? Or did she go back and buy more of the same materials again, and then sew even more of them?
At one point Angela interviews that "the collaboration is going fantastically well," which is priceless because we’ve seen Michael literally splayed across the design tables pitching a fit like a toddler would to keep her from getting her way.
However, to her credit, Angela does take all of their suggestions into account — like using those rosettes (or, as Laura calls them, "granny circles") only as button detail and on the back of the collar, not splayed all over the edges. Maybe getting shut out by team leader Vincent a couple of weeks ago taught her to listen and incorporate feedback into a beginning design?
Tim’s walk-through time! Robert’s outfit looks a bit "matronly," while the pants Bradley has constructed for Bonnie’s design are a bit "diapery." Which adjective would be worse to describe an outfit? Is that a toss-up?
Then there’s the commercials for the weekly vote: Was it right to kick Keith off? We see footage of moody Keith and then, in an unfortunate bit of editing, that weird footage of Heidi when she’s laughing maniacally into the camera — "Ha-HAH!" — as if to say, "So long, sucker!"
Aaargh! Vera Wang is back as judge. This does not bode well for comments.
Bonnie’s model wears an off-white trench coat with three-quarter sleeves over a pink cowlneck top that’s actually tunic-length with a skinny belt over it, but she never opens the jacket so you don’t see that until the judges decide to examine the outfit a bit more closely … as one of the two worst of the week. The brown pants aren’t very flattering, and I’m glad the top is long to cover them.
Angela’s design ended up looking very little like her original sketch, except for the sleeve proportions. The suit is a matte gray short-sleeved cropped jacket and pants, with satin trim at the pockets, and those rosettes are used as faux buttons on the front and on the back of the flipped-up collar. The pale orchid-colored long-sleeved top has a deep scoop neck: No breasts for this outfit! The pants make the model’s butt look big, which is a feat considering they’re usually a size 2 or 4 at most. Nonetheless, it’s one of the top two. Angela refers to her trim as "my signature rosettes, which I’m currently obsessed with right now," which strikes me as a bit egotistical: Can you have a "signature" something when you’re not famous? Like, can I have say I have "a signature habit of using too many parentheses"? Who notices?
Robert’s outfit is a little discordant: The blouse looks like a short-sleeved black sweater over a wide-collared white blouse with sleeves that have been pushed up above the elbow, but it’s really just one black blouse with white trim. The skirt is slim but the slit was accidentally cut very high in the back — it opens to midthigh when the model walks. The diagonal seam is kind of cool, though. Then there’s this weird ivory windbreaker with drawstrings at the cuffs, waist and bottom. It’s sort of like Tippi Hedren in "The Birds" suddenly threw on an oversize Columbia jacket because she knew it was storming outside. Not really an "outfit" per se. (Bottom two!)
And Keith’s outfit … The white top has a high neck and looks fine until you get to the waist, where the tank sleeves are just kind of hanging there. I was eager to see how the heck the model was going to work that transition from blouse into tank, but she didn’t do anything, leaving it to look like big loops of white material, sort of like she didn’t feel like slipping her gams through the legs of a badly fitted bodysuit. Also: kind of lumpy toward the waist. The long gray belted coat is cool, though, and the black pants look long and lean, right in touch with the skinny-jeans trend. There are, however, buttons at the ankle — or as Vera refers to it as she raves about it, the "vent." I’m telling you: From what she’s said on this show, Vera Wang has no discernible taste. (Top two!)
Team Angela and Team Not-So-Dearly-Departed Keith are told they have to wait until tomorrow to find out who won, when they visit the window display at Macy’s Herald Square.
The members of Team Bonnie and Team Robert are assembled: Uli is exempt since she won last week’s challenge, and the various lackeys are dispatched until it’s only the team leaders left. Also, Kayne is wearing really ugly patched jeans that, just like last week, evoke Dolly Parton’s "Coat of Many Colors." Or maybe everything just does that to me. I’ll have to work on that.
Heidi says: Robert, your outfit was conservative and a total bore. Bonnie, your outfit was stale and not fashion-forward. (As Mehmet put it: The three L’s: Last year, last year, last year.) You’re out.
And then, to put a happy face on the whole thing, the next day two teams trek down to Macy’s where Angela immediately begins shrieking. She’s vindicated! Jeffrey vows this will make him work harder to finally win a challenge.
(Note to producers: Next time put a scrim or something over the window to at least draw out a little suspense! Once Angela turned the corner and had the Face of Glee, the other team didn’t even want to stand by the window.)
Next week … aw, I forgot already. It looks like the models are fighting over something — is it the designers THEY want to work with, instead of the other way around? But thank heavens Michael Kors is back, with guest judge Diane Von Furstenberg! Vera Wang, thankfully, has been banished back to the land of Serta mattresses.
Ready to win some Weleda Sea Buckthorn Oil? I’ll draw eight winners to receive a bottle of the German-made, synthetic-free body moisturizer.To enter, e-mail your name and mailing address, by clicking on the link, and use the subject line "WELEDA." I’ll select winners at noon Wednesday, Aug. 9.A reminder: With the summer heat, I’d recommend using an address where the mail is automatically delivered into an air-conditioned building. The only thing that should sit out in the Phoenix sun and heat all day are cactuses.** And for some reason, the Tribune editors-that-be decided that is the correct plural word, so please don’t send me an "It’s ‘cacti,’ stupid!" message. Send it to them instead , if it really bothers you that much.Update: The winners were Mary Mitchell of Gilbert, Barb Hanser of Phoenix, Lottie Sherman of Mesa, Nancy Isenbise of Gilbert, Wanda Gunn of Scottsdale, Helen Ellis of Chandler, Viravan Prapapanich of Scottsdale and Amy Guzzetta of Chandler.