I Kid, You Not: The Project Runway 9 recap

From the runway, Heidi reports that this week’s challenge will send the designers back to the classroom. Then she makes meaningful eye contact with Bert and cracks: “For some of you, it’s been a while since you’ve been in the classroom.” Get it? Because he’s over 50! Joking about Bert’s age never gets old! (But Bert does! He gets older and closer to death every day!) Bert just smiles at her through grit teeth, as though to say: “Good one, Frau Chuckles.”

Off they go to the Harlem School of the Arts, where they will be collaborating on an avant-garde runway look with a bunch of super talented kids.

It immediately becomes apparent that the teen (and tween) artists are far more mature and competent than their adult collaborators.

Laura, for example, realizes that her art kid is the first well-adjusted human she’s encountered in weeks so she decides to use the little 11-year-old for an impromptu therapy session.

“We had a group challenge last week,” Laura moans. “It was very challenging for me. It was the first time I got any negative feedback.”

“Failure is opportunity in disguise,” mini guru says.  (I wonder if her mother rents her out for therapy sessions. If so, call me, tiny life coach.)

Of course, Viktor seems to have adopted a jaded “I don’t like children” pose because not liking children is cool in 2011, right? (Or wait. . .did he get that wrong? Did not liking children go out of style last year? Oh God, it’s so hard to be keep up with the fashionably disaffected these days!)

(In fairness, and in true Lifetime movie of the week style, his art kid Skyy is so plucky and sassy and scrappy and other words that end in "y” that Viktor eventually succumbs to her charm.)

As for Olivier, his art kid feels compelled to try to perk him up.

Art Kid (hopefully): Do you usually listen to music when you work?
Olivier: Yeah.

Art Kid: What kind?
Olivier: I like weally depwessing music.

Art Kid: :Facepalm:

Josh C’s kid has made a really awesome wolf painting and I feel that Josh could've saved himself a lot of agita (and all of us from having to lay eyes on his butt-ugly Elvira dress) if he had just gone to Amazon and bought this, the greatest garment in the history of mankind:

And did anyone else notice that Bryce’s kid’s portrait—that I have entitled “Sad Woman in Repose”—looked just like Cecilia? Just sayin’

“Thank you, Harlem School for the Arts!” Tim Gunn sings. (Somewhere, Mood is jealous.)

Nothing particularly exciting happens at Mood, but if anyone can send me a gif of Tim Gunn chasing his canine counterpart Swatch, I will be eternally grateful.

Back at the studio, Josh M is fretting because his kid drew a tree, which is something you find outside and therefore is almost as horrifying as sanitary things you find in the girl's room. But then he comes up with a clever concept of making a tree-like skirt and carving JM ♥ KC on it. You see,  those are his mother’s initials and she died of ovarian cancer a few years back. (Damn you, show, for humanizing Josh!) And are you ready for this? Kenneth Cole is the guest judge this week. Initials: KC.

Way to watch out for your son from above with the canny use of subliminal messages, mom!

Meanwhile, Laura is burning organza so the edges don’t fray.

“Kinda smells like when I used to burn my Barbies,” she says, which is odd, because Laura doesn’t strike me as the Barbie-burning type, right? (She’s more of the type to have a bunch of limited edition Barbies in a gilded display case in her lip-gloss-and-glitter-infused room).

And then, apparently in whatever incubated Upper East Side paradise she grew up in, they didn’t know from Eagle Scouts, because when Josh C gamely says, “Fortunately, I’m an Eagle Scout” she replies, “A Needle Scout?” And she’s not kidding. I repeat: Not. Kidding.

So Tim Gunn swings by and basically his message to the designers comes in one of two forms:
1. You are going too far.

2. You are not going far enough.

Then he does  a cute thing: While assessing Kimberly’s feathered creation he says, “You don’t want Michael Kors to say that this is a Hiawatha moment: Take me to Geronimo.”
So while the rest of the world does Tim Gunn, Tim Gunn does Michael Kors.

“Work like there’s no tomorrow, because for one of you, there won’t be,” he says ominously.

And Bert’s all like, “Enough already!”­—but then, chagrined, realizes this is not a “you will die soon” crack, but is in fact directed at all the designers.

There’s some business with Olivier actually gluing his dress to his model’s boobs. “Is that okay?” he asks. “I guess?” she says, which is the wrong answer. The correct answer when someone asks you if they can glue fabric to your breasts is: “Are you fucking shitting me?” Please write that down.

Commercial break and one of those nightmarish Febreze commercial comes on. Do you all know the ones I’m talking about? Where they abduct people off the street and blindfold them and put them in a room that looks like something out of one those torture porn Saw movies? And then it’s all like, “Surprise! You’re not in a meadow filled with flowers, you’re in a smelly dank hellhole!” (It must’ve been “bring your own crack” day at the ad agency when they came up with those beauties.)

So runway time. . .

No Nina. (boo!) But her Marie Claire associate Zanna Roberts Rassi is filling in. (Naturally, she has a British accent. Just once, I’d want one of those Marie Claire gals to be from Sheboygan.)

Plus, the aforementioned Kenneth Cole, although he is clearly not respected by the other judges, who are all like, “Go back to your cute little shoes and your silly controversial billboards, little man.” (Kors and Klum are the like the worst clique of mean girls ever!)

The looks come down the runway and they are a mixed bag.

THE GOOD:

I love what Josh M. did but find his avant-garde dress to be, ironically, one of the more conservative things he’s ever designed on the show.

I agree with Kenneth Cole (Native American name: He Who Speaks Loudly But Is Not Heard) that Anthony’s dress has a slightly crafty quality to it, but it is pretty stunning. (And I loved his kid’s painting. I think it was my favorite—or, as Zanna Roberts Rassi might say, “my favourite.”)

Anya’s dress is so gorgeous, there are no words. I pretty much love everything she does. (Can I double like her on Facebook?)

Kimberly’s feathered mini bird dress with pleather skull cup is actually kinda hot. (Yes, I just wrote that sentence.)

THE SO-SO

The judges really loved Laura’s yellow dress, with its mixture of hard and soft, but I think it was a just a feather away from being a Big Bird homage.

Becky’s dress is not the hot mess that I thought it would be. (Good work, Josh M!) (Yes, he credits himself for her improvement.)

THE HOT MESSY

Bryce’s red and black straight jacket dress. There’s a reason why Insane Asylum chic was never a thing.

Viktor’s dress: To me, it looks like someone spilled blue Gatorade on their wedding dress.

THE HOT MESSIER

Bert’s “teletubby party dress” (™ MK) is an abomination. And Heidi actually likes it. (Maybe she’s smokin the same stuff those Febreze ad guys are?)

Josh C’s “I’m going to be a hooker for Halloween dress” (™ HK) is just, well, beyond tragic.

Olivier’s “look, I added a tiny swatch of color, therefore I am avant-garde” is almost as depressing as he is.

So . . . the Top 3 are Josh M., Laura, and Anthony

The Bottom 3 are Bert, Olivier, and Josh C.

And the winner is. . .Anthony! It’s nice that he redeemed himself from last week’s near auf-dom.

And the loser is. . .Josh C. Again! Because he can’t design. Still!

“Being eliminated for a second time, it gets easier,” Josh C says.

“You’re experiencing twice what most PR designers only get to experience once,” says Tim Gunn brightly. And when even Tim Gunn can't put a positive spin on things, you know you’re totally screwed.