Project Runway 10/3/13--"Butterfly Effect" summary

Previously on Project Runway: the “make your own print” challenge happened, supposedly inspired by various people who do good things. The inspiration was a little fuzzy, but that’s what always happens with these things. Dom won, finally, which was nice. Randomly Heidi/whoever decided they would have a double elimination, so both Kate and Alexander were sent home. Kate declared that they had done it just to get rid of her. On the one hand, they had the “Tim’s Save” thing so of course they would need a double elimination at some point to get back on track. On the other hand, the producers would totally make up something like that to get rid of a designer they were tired of. On the third hand, Kate’s dress was pretty fugly so she might still have gone home. She and Helen spent all of the episode live-tweeting about what a bitch Alexandria was and how she sucked so much and should have gone home. Then Helen took offense to people saying the fabrics were ugly and suddenly everyone was a horrible person because the designers work so hard and it’s so terrible to say anything bad about their work. Yeah! I know! (click for more)

Justin thought he was going home. He’s never won, but he is ready to. Alexandria states the obvious, that there are five people left. Heidi and Tim are both on the runway today. Tim says “Most Important Challenge Yet” because it “determines” who will go to Fashion Week, as if they didn’t all go and so did the last like, 5 people eliminated. I don’t know if that’s right, I don’t feel like counting. Heidi says “the sausage is dangling in front of your nose right now. Or is it a carrot?” Heidi likes sausages better. Yes. Field trip to the nature center!

This is the “be inspired by nature and do couture but don’t play it safe or we’ll all yell at you” challenge. Right? That’s what always seems to happen. They are at the butterfly house, with Billy B. and NOT hot makeup guy Scott which is still terrible and I’m still going to complain about it every time. Somehow butterflies have inspired mascara. Tim says “avant garde” which means experimental and daring and cutting edge. Sometimes people do that and sometimes they are boring in fear they’ll be eliminated right before the finale as if it matters. Two days for this look. The designers wander around and sketch and take pictures with their tablets which must be unwieldy. Justin looks around and the camera catches him standing there with a butterfly on his hat. It’s cute. Tim gives them a suggested dollar amount of $500 but are the collections coming from this money too? Because if it’s right before the finale, shouldn’t they blow whatever money they have left? Dom goes for prints. Helen has a ton of oranges. “Luxe as hell”. She and Bradon are spending all their money. Actually everyone spends more than their $500, most spending double that.

Workroom. Justin says avant-garde is about material manipulation and fabric manipulation. Yeah…that would be pretty close? He wants big chunky piping to layer and make a new textile. Bradon is rolling his fabric, so somehow it will bounce and be buoyant. Helen tells the room she’s going to focus on the base of things today. Dom and Bradon joke about how he’s spending so much time rolling silk noodles. And hand sewing them. He has no idea what the silhouette’s going to be.

Tim comes in the next day (Day 2) and says soon they’re going to have their makeup consults AND! Nail consults too! Whatever. Does anyone care about the models’ nails? No. I barely care about their makeup and that’s only because of hot makeup guy Scott. Bradon says he’s out of his mind today. He’s decided to have a tank top and miniskirt in front, that somehow becomes a gown in the back.

Tim Time! It was a trick before. It’s really Tim Time now. Dom is talking about cross-breeding and she’s got several prints she’s mixing somehow. Under the multiple prints she is making a jumpsuit and asks Tim if she should make it in ivory or another print and is that overkill? I feel like Tim gives them much more advice than he used to. He cautions her against costumes. She has one print that is black with small flowers, another hot pink and black almost tie-dye design, and a blue and green that looks like painted lines. That’s a lot of print. Helen has a cape, or a burqa, essentially. Only her face will be showing. The cape is black with cutouts, and an orange dress underneath (she was looking at monarch butterflies). It’s not working. The dress will be great, but the cape is covering it. So now that Tim hates it, Helen declares she doesn’t know what she’s doing and starts crying. Why are you worrying about going to Fashion Week? Don’t you watch this show? There are only five of you left, OF COURSE you are ALL going.

After the commercial Tim tells her to come to! Right now! Tough love! I love that Tim is not being his generally cheerleader self but is also tired of Helen always freaking out. Alexandria appears to have a black dress with strips? In more black? It looks shredded and unfinished. I guess that’s what she was going for. Alexandria says she needed Tim’s approval. Bradon is doing his lumpy wavy thing that he did for the shoe challenge. The one that makes me want to smooth out the fabric. The back is spectacular, says Tim. The front is simple because Bradon wants to put the noodles on. Tim hates the noodles. Bradon makes a passive-aggressive comment about how he spent all day yesterday hand sewing a hundred noodles and maybe he won’t use one. Not one! But then he waves them near the waist and Tim likes them suddenly. Sigh. Justin has three pieces and his piping too. Tim looks concerned, because his main fabric looks cheap. He switches to some lace and it seems much better.

Helen is in “shambles” and she says to Dom she needs to stop being a baby and get with it. You think? Model fitting. Bradon’s look is weird. It’s lumpy because of the waves in the fabric but then the noodles are spiky. Helen’s model has to reassure her about her design. She’s going to tear edges, like that one guy used to do all the time? Christopher, I think? So you get a garment that looks pleated but the edges are raw. It was someone that did it all the time and then he did it and won for some challenge and irritated everyone.

Runway day. Everyone walks in the workroom and stops dramatically to stare and curse. Once the commercials are over we discover that someone has put a row of mannequins along one wall with all the losing designs on them. What for? Ugh, I smell a twist. Tim comes in and smiles, but it’s a closed-mouth smile and he looks irritated. He probably agrees with me that this is dumb. Today is not runway day! The “judges” decided to present them with ANOTHER challenge, so they’ll have two looks for two different challenges. Everyone will pick one of the failed designs and fix it. WHYYYY. Why do they always do this shit? Just let them make one dress. You know they’ll get up there and the judges will complain that they didn’t do enough work or it’s not finished enough or some bullshit that could be avoided if you just gave them one challenge at a time. Anyway. They have until tomorrow.

Dom takes Jeremy’s outfit from the Belk challenge, with the jacket. Alexandria wants Miranda’s plaid pants from the shoe challenge. Bradon picks out Sue’s garment, which is from one of the unconventional materials challenges and is made out of placemats. Hee. Helen takes Kate’s fugly dress from last week, because she and Kate are BFFs or whatever. (Side note: they taped the reunion last week so expect everyone to have watched part of the season for maximum drama.) Justin thinks for a while about what to pick, and whether or not he wants to pick out the dress that eliminated him. In the end he takes it. I smell a win for redemption.

So: more working and cutting up of old garments and whatnot. Alexandria spends time making a feather Mohawk. It looks like they didn’t go to Mood so they are just stuck with whatever they can salvage from the actual garments. Bradon is screwed. Dom has taken Jeremy’s jacket and used the sleeves as a collar. Nice. Justin still has a gown. With 20 minutes to go until the day is over Alexandria is sighing or something and she is freaking out now. So apparently when you start freaking out you can get a phone call home. The timing always seems to work out like this. Also there are a ton of kids on this Skype call and supposedly it’s 10:40 PM. Alexandria works for a camp that teaches kids to sew? Sure.

OK, now it’s REALLY Runway Day. Helen has to make her whole bodice. Oh, Billy is here today. That’s new. Where is Scott? It’s his last chance to flirt with Bradon. Everyone talks about how much they want to go to Fashion Week. They all went, so whatever.

Heidi! What in the hell are you wearing? It’s like a weird sheer shirt in a brown knit pattern. Boo. Guest judge is Emmy Rossum. So first up are the avant-garde looks. Dom: short dress with a very full skirt like a tutu, in the black floral print. There are elbow length sleeves that bell out slightly, and a high collar. The front is slashed across her chest so it’s open a little bit. Then there are palazzo pants in hot pink and black. It is crazy but certainly creative. Alexandria: long black dress with two tails of sheer fabric that the model is holding up like wings. Eh. It’s either shredded or layered all through the bodice and the top of the skirt. It’s hard to see dark on dark. I think the very bottom of the skirt is sheer. Helen: long orange dress with horizontal strips of silk, sleeveless with a high neck. The strips are all raw edged and the whole thing looks kind of pleated. It’s nice but avant-garde? Justin: when the girl comes out she has an ivory dress that is knee-length with a full skirt, and then over that a black piece. There seem to be armholes so maybe it’s not a cape? Then at the end of the runway she takes off the black and the top has a ton of sculpture to it. Like he took thick rope and coiled it over the bodice. It’s cool. Bradon: ivory dress with a mullet hem, short in front and a train in back. The top is cropped too. He did the wavy treatment, so the fabric is lumpy, plus there are the noodles sticking out everywhere so she looks spiky too. The back of the skirt has a bunch of noodles stuck on vertically.

OK. Fixing old looks. Dom: the jacket now has different sleeves, in another print, and it has a big collar so it’s more interesting. The dress fabric went into the sleeves, so there’s just a black pencil skirt. I think it looks better, but then I didn’t think Jeremy’s outfit was so horrible to begin with. Alexandria: the pants look the same. They do, she just put them with a longer top so the high waist wasn’t so obvious. Instead of a weirdly cut white crop top and strange vest, the look has a dark tank top and a silver vest, and the random feather Mohawk Alexandria made. Eh. Well I guess the pants fit better. Helen: white crop top with short sleeves, and a dark blue tight skirt that hits below the knee. It has nothing to do with Kate’s old look and is fairly boring on top of it. Justin: his gown is now a short dress in a darker color, with some gray pieces at the top. Much better. Bradon: still a short dress, but now the black is most of the dress while the placemats are placed like an apron. It’s a cute one-shouldered dress.

Heidi claims this was one of the best final runway shows or something. Justin liked an albino butterfly which is why his dress is white. Then he transformed his old dress and it’s very emotional and a triumph of spirit and stuff. They do like both looks, Nina telling him that his avant-garde look is the best work she’s seen from him this season. It’s weird, clearly they liked it but they didn’t rave about it. Helen is up next. The back of the look that’s based on Kate’s dress has weird car wash strips. Heidi likes the avant-garde look, and Zac likes the reworked look. No one mentions how it’s not like Kate’s look at all. Nina agrees with Zac about the avant-garde look. Too much orange.

Alexandria doesn’t really talk about how she made her dress. Heidi loves it, of course, because what do I know? They don’t particularly like the reworked look, although the pants are much better than before. Nina is like, you’re all idiots, the plaid pants are really great but the avant-garde looks like a dead butterfly. Hee. Zac seems to hate them both. Bradon’s silk noodles are risky but Nina raves and raves about how the whole dress is interesting from every angle. It’s art. It’s certainly more out there than we usually get on this show. Dom’s avant-garde look is exuberant (I think Nina has been listening to Tim). She takes off the top part, because they didn’t realize it was a jumpsuit. Nina gasps in ecstasy. Hee! She gave herself a challenge in Jeremy’s look but it’s so much better.

Now is the time where everyone begs for their spot and then says who is worthy of the finale and who sucks. Justin says he’s a role model and he would pick Bradon and Dom to come with him. Dom tries not to cry but fails. She really wants this. Helen and Justin should come. Alexandria says she is ready to “handle the pressures” of Fashion Week and she wants the validation. She says Dom and Justin should come. Bradon found his second love which is fashion, I hope. Unless he’s talking about hot makeup guy Scott. He also picks Dom and Justin. Helen wants to show the world a new look. She will take Bradon and Dom. So you’ll notice that everyone said they would take Dom with them, while no one said Alexandria.

They are tired of Helen’s pleating/strips (they’ve seen it before a lot), but Tim says they should be happy there’s a dress at all. They still love the remade look. Nina still doesn’t like Alexandria’s look but she does admit it’s very Alexandria. Zac says the cliché “but I don’t know who she is as a designer”. Heidi, salability is not required for avant-garde. They call her “modern” a bunch of times. Justin’s piping is messy but a big risk so they respect that. The judges all have an emotional moment about Justin’s remade look. Emmy puts on Dom’s jacket which is really entertaining for some reason. So the remade look is not a jacket and skirt, but a sleeveless jacket, a top in the print with a boatneck and long sleeves, and then the skirt. The top looks cool. Lots of raving about Bradon’s noodles. Nina is verklempt about the remade look. It’s not that great, Nina.

Heidi declares Bradon and Dom the top two. Nina would eliminate Alexandria, because not one person chose her and why is that? I think Nina’s not impressed. You guys. Stop talking like she won’t show. Sigh, I’m talking to the TV again.

Bradon wins which is lame. I mean, it’s creative, sure. But is it really better than Dom’s? I don’t think so. Both Bradon and Dom are in. Heidi tells the bottom three that they suck, but since they all seem to suck equally, they ALL get to come to Fashion Week and compete for the last spot or whatever because OF COURSE. Why do you always pretend this isn’t going to happen? I guess shame on me because I thought they’d get rid of at least one person and that was stupid of me. Heidi carefully does not say how many spots are available for these three. Final three? Final four? Some number that doesn’t matter because they all showed? The bottom three talk about proving themselves. Tim pretends he’d rather jump in front of a bus than tell someone they’re out. Sigh.

Next week: home visit time, tears, weird clothes. Heidi smells something.