Shiny, Tight, and Short: The Project Runway recap

Oh, Project Runway giveth, Project Runway taketh away. First, they show us hot little Wesley ironing shirtless and I think (Suede-style): “Maxie can get used to this!”
THEN, they cruelly snatch him away.

But I’m ahead of myself.

“Your challenge is with green fabric!” Heidi announces at the start of the show. And I’m thinking, “green dresses?” (and Stella is thinking, “green leather?”) But no, from the better-late-than-never file, Project Runway has finally discovered the Environmental Movement! Hooray! (I’m sure it’s just a temporary condition. We’ll be back in fur and high-quality tulle in no time.)

What’s more, it’s a model free-for-all at Mood, because they’ve been tasked with picking the fabric, a situation that inexplicably concerns Stella, a woman who last week thought that a tissue-paper thin trash bag was her ticket to runway stardom.

For some reason, perhaps because they took the whole green thing too literally—green things grow in the ground . . .which is brown . . .right?—three of the models choose mud-brown organic silk. Ah, model logic.

So Wesley, Leanne, and Joe are on Team Ugly Brown Fabric. (thank you, Jerrell.) This will come into play later.

Okay, I hate to pile on Blayne, who’s gotten a lot of bad press for his perma-tan and his forced catch phrases (we discovered this week that the suffix “licious” knows no limits) but what was up with that tortured Darth Vader (oh, sorry, Darth-licious) metaphor? If you want to make the metaphor for beautiful on the outside, lethal on the inside, there are plenty of handy ones available: thorny rose, steel magnolias, Trojan horse, etc. But Darth Vader looked like the scary evil bad guy on the outside! Oh, why do I even bother?

Anyway, all the designers were scrambling feverishly to make it work and poor Korto heard the words you never want Tim Gunn to say: “This is the outside of the dress?” and Daniel was so jumpy he was actually spooked by the dulcet, soothing voice of Tim Gunn. (By the way, I can totally see why Keith made Daniel’s bed for him. I want to make Daniel’s bed. He’s such a darling little lord of the manor. I’m surprised he doesn’t wander around the studio clutching a teddy bear, Brideshead-Revisited-style.)

Onto the judging, where—with apologies to Sarah Jessica Parker and Posh Spice—Project Runway went more-A-list-than-ever with Natalie Portman. Hello, Padme. (So NOW the Darth Vader reference makes sense.)

Many nice dresses on the runway. I was surprised that Daniel wasn’t in the Top 3, because I really dug his black frock. Stella certainly won points for “most improved”— really, she had no place to go but up—but that was hardly Top 3 material, in my opinion.

So it came down to Kenley’s chic champagne colored dress (although I am so OVER those fru-fru neck-pieces) and Suede’s undeniably adorable deconstructed cocktail number.

I was actually happy to see Suede win. You could say he went from hot mess, to hot dress! (See Blayne, I can make catch phrase too!).

Now the bottom three: Was it any coincidence that two of three stooges were on Team Ugly Brown Fabric? I think not.

Glad that Korto didn’t get axed, because she couldn’t have taken it—and frankly, neither could I.

So crap. It’s the proverbial rock and a hard place. Or, as Blayne might say, “Caught between Han Solo and Chewbacca.”

On one hand, we have Wesley—oh, the things I could do to that man (even his prissy, uptight name evokes dirty thoughts)—with his “shiny, tight, and short” dress, according to Nina, the epitome of cheap. On the other hand, we have little elfin, she-Pan Leanna, a woman who never met a remnant she didn’t like.

Can’t they both stay and one of those middle-of-the-pack, no discernable personality designers (Joe and Terri, I’m talking to you) go? But no, it wasn’t meant to be for little Wesley. He’s gone from our lives. But, apparently, not gone from Daniel’s life, if you believe those internet rumors. Ah, hot pocket gay designers in love. Bless.