Episode Report Card Jeff Long: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Clowns Puking Rainbows
By Jeff Long | Season 9 | Episode 1 | Aired on 07.28.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It’s back! This year, the show takes a particularly cruel turn at the very beginning and invites 20 designers to the show, only to kick off 4 before the competition proper even begins. Everyone seems to get along well as they all meet. They present their designs to Heidi, Nina, Michael and Tim. Are those Twitter tags that are featured the name panels when the designers are presented? Must be. The judges are awfully jovial. I will speak more of this later, but...Heidi Klum has a DEFINITE career as a lounge singer in her hopefully immediate future. This shit ain't a lie. She sang briefly. It was perfect.
Immediately after the presentations, Heidi comes out and in excruciatingly slow fashion tells the designers who is in and who is out. All of the people who go home seemed like nice and talented folks. One girl postponed her wedding in Iceland for this. Ouch. One guy says he’s going to have to wait tables again. I feel you. One guy made a dress so crazy and for the Kentucky Derby that he should be designing for Nicole Sherzinbabaganoush or whatever that Pussycat Doll girl’s name is anyway, so they’ve done him a favor. Then, there was one perky girl who is clearly going to be cutting herself when she gets home. Live with that, Nina.
They go to the Atlas apartments to unpack and sleep, but Tim wakes them all up at 5 AM. He makes them all join him in their pajamas and a bed sheet. Weird. They go to Parsons where their challenge is to create a look from their pj’s and the bed sheet. Christina Ricci is the guest judge and looking fierce. The looks hit the runway and most everyone does a pretty impressive job. Cecilia made a dress that featured a clown puking rainbows that had been on her t-shirt. Inspired. Bert (this old guy who has lost like everyone in his life and apparently went to DC to be a drunk for like 15 years -- his being alive, much less on this show, is a triumph), Anthony Ryan (testicular cancer survivor) and Anya (Miss Trinidad) have the top looks. Anya seems to have a lot of design skill but not much sewing expertise and managed to make pants (for the first time) that the everyone loved, especially the butt part. Bert used his gingham boxers and made this amazingly constructed cocktail dress that the judges love and deign the winner. Joshua, Rafael and Julie all had the bottom looks, though you can’t totally blame someone for not being able to bang something out with their ratty pajama bottoms. Rafael gets the boot for his ill-fitting stretchy pants and tiered shirt.
Because I’ve spent all of like five minutes with these people, here are my quickie predictions for the designers and where they fall in the pack:
Bottom: Laura, Joshua, Kimberly
Middle: Bert, Anthony Ryan, Cecilia, Viktor, Bryce, Becky
Top: Olivier, Danielle, Julie (I still believe), Fallene and Josh
Want more? The full recap starts right below!OK, so maybe you've been wondering about what's going to happen with this debt ceiling business. Or perhaps you are concerned about Rupert Murdoch tapping your phone. Are you still trying to figure out what happened to all of the bees (seriously, where are the bees?)? Well, now is the time to look inside of yourselves and get your priorities right and start thinking about what's important-- like who is going to be the resident queeny catchphrase minter on the new season of Project Runway! Cause, girl, bitch cannot live by Rupaul's Drag U alone (unless one can). I'm really ready for this show right now. I need it to be very good and I think it's OK that I'm just putting that out there.
The show begins with Tim and Heidi separately welcoming us to the ninth season of the show. Heidi, working hard to showcase that award--nominated personality, seems surprised or annoyed that we're doing this all over again. We immediately start seeing contestants lugging their garment bags around New York. This little elf of a dude tells us that it's cool being in a city so big, as compared to Louisville, Kentucky. Sure. Louisville's not like some sort of half-barren cul-de-sac but whatever. Everyone's excited to be in New York. Here's a girl that apparently lives in the city -- she's kissing a man on a front stoop -- but doesn't know anyone with a car that could help her with her garment bag. And, her boyfriend isn't going to help. She tells us that she postponed (she actually says "cancelled") her wedding in Iceland for this opportunity. Now I know why he's not helping with the bag. He wants to be chilling in a hot spring with Sigur Ros and planning the rest of his life, but, no, there's sewing to be done. The girl says that this is a one-time-only opportunity, whereas she can fly to Iceland anytime. This has actually happened nine times, girl.
Tim tells us that they haven't even decided who is going to be on the show yet. Wha? Heidi says that they are shaking things up -- they've invited 20 people to New York, but before they are on the SHOW show, they have to present their wares to Tim, Heidi, Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. Tim says that 16 of the 20 will go on to actually be on the show and Heidi admits that it's kind of cruel of them. A guy with a drawl and spiky hair says that he did not come all this way to not be one of the 16. Famous last words.
So, for some reason, this showing is happening at Astor Wine and Spirits. Cute space, I guess, but I'm confused. Here's a nervous guy with a shaved head. He says that they are going to meet with the judges one last time. As we see all of the designers unpacking and ironing their collections in a large room, a skinny dude says that it's fun to size up the other people. We have our first contender for catchphrase sister. This shiny guy says something about how many blondes it takes to turn on an iron. The Sew-away Bride says that there are many talented designers in the room. This knockout girl tells someone that when there is dyeing to be done in her designs, someone else usually does the dyeing. We see some looks that are supposed to be directed at her, but they could have been looking at birdies or something for all we know. The shiny guy tells the elfin dude that he believes that good people can make good things. He is totally gunning for the catchphrase spot. The elfin dude very sweetly says that means he must believe in himself, so he won't be going anywhere today.