Everybody Loves Ra’mon: The Project Runway recap

Seeing the preview for next week’s Project Runway, I almost wept. There it was, the adnoidal voice, the pleasingly orange face, the housefrau-from-Boca-style takedowns—Michael Kors is coming back! Praise Chanel!

For now, however, we will have to contend with this sham that bears some vague resemblance to Project Runway.

So FINALLY, they get to a Hollywood themed challenge. The contestants have to choose from 5 film genres: film noir, action/adventure, “period piece” (I put this in quotes because “period piece” is not a film genre), western, and sci-fi. Then they’re supposed to create a character in that genre and dress her.

To help, they get a much-needed “dosier” on their genres. I wonder what the action/adventure dosier read like: “Many things will blow up, sometimes giant robots are involved.”
And perhaps period piece read: “This is not actually a genre.”

For some reason, no one wants western, which makes no sense to me at all, since it’s an actual style of clothing people wear. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever heard someone say, “That Roxanne, her style is so period piece.”

The breakdown is this:

Epperson and Shirin both get the dreaded western.

Louise, Irina, and Althea pick film noir.

Logan and Carole Hannah (who are totally, possibly, ohmygod—squee!—hooking up, at least if you believe the misleading promo for Models of the Runway) both get action/adventure.

Ra’mon, who reveals himself to be the world’s least likely Trekkie, and Nicholas both get sci-fi.

Gordana and Christopher pick the vague “period piece.” (As Gordana aptly puts it: “Could be the 80s, could be Roman time.” Exactly.)

So not much happens. People keep trying to steal Louise’s bobbin, which sounds kinda dirty; Tim Gunn takes one look at Epperson’s (admittedly kickass) western get-up and says, “All I can say is, Annie Get Your Gun!”—which Epperson seems to intuitively understand is a compliment; Christopher thinks Victorian-era women showed a lot of skin; and Irina displays more of her Disney-ready pluck by proclaiming, “I’m going to make the best darn saloon dress that I can!”

The only semi-drama comes from Ra’mon, whose dress, according to Tim Gunn will either be “sublime, or a big, hot mess.” (I love when Tim Gunn tries to use trendy colloquials. They’re so charmingly forced.) Ra’mon has a fitting with his model and realizes that she looks like “Kermit the Frog gone wrong” and goes back to the drawing board. The last time Ra’mon did this, he triumphed! Would history repeat itself?

The three judges this week are Zoe Glasner (again), costume designer Arianne Phillips, and John Varvatos.

If you would indulge me, I’d like to have a private word with John Varvatos: “Please design more womenswear, John Varvatos. Please, oh please, oh pretty please?” Thank you. (Too desperate?)

So the bottom three are Louise, whose film noir dress is more like film mort, and Ra’mon who has now graduated from “big hot mess” to “hot green mess”; and Gordana, who designed a flawless, but let’s face it, totally uninspired, flapper dress.

The top three are Nicholas, who did a cool Tilda Swinton-esque ice queen thingy, complete with frost in the hair; Christopher, whose Victorian dress, pictured, while inappropriately sleeveless, was quite a showstopper; and Epperson, who brilliantly managed to get that rugged beauty thing he was going for.

(An aside: To his credit, Varvatos actually made a reference to the skills of Epperson’s model, Matar, something none of the other judges have ever done. It’s true, Matar worked that fierce cowgirl look to perfection. Models are people, too, folks!)

(Do you think my new, strange over-identification with the models stem from the horrifically bad, yet why-can’t-I-stop-watching-it Models of the Runway?)

I actually thought Christopher was going to win, because the judges were pretty much orgasming over his dress (it was my favorite, too), but that was a bit of misdirection and Nicholas won. Good for him, I suppose.

Loser row came down to Louise and Ra’mon, once Gordana was hastily declared safe, and . . . Ra’mon could not pull another rabbit out of a hat. He is gone.

Tears were shed, a few even by Tim Gunn. And. . .scene.

Hilarious Lifetime programming I won’t be watching this week ™: Diet Tribe.