Project Runway - Season 10, Episode 5 - Recap - It's My Way on the Runway
Last week, on Project Runway, Andrea and Kooan quit the show, which prompted the producers to bring Raul back. The designers took on a challenge to design a look for a "woman on the go." Sonjia's perfect balance of glamour and practicality won her immunity, while Buffi's poor construction skills and tacky fabric choices got her eliminated.
For this week's challenge, the designers were tasked with creating a fashion capsule collection of professional women's wear that was both editorial and practical for the real world. The designers were divided into two teams. In addition to designing their fashion line, both teams would be responsible for an editorial photo shoot. The winning looks will be featured in Marie Claire at Work magazine.
Predictably, no one was particularly excited at the prospect of working in teams. Can't say I blame them. I always hated group projects at school and it would definitely suck to be eliminated from a competition because you ended up on a horrible team, but being on a team also means you just have to not be the worst person on your team....so I guess there's some upside.
Sonjia got first pick for teams, since she won the last challenge. She chose Elena for her technical skills. Gunnar wasn't impressed with her choice and opined that he'd rather "eat dirt than work with Elena." The rest of the designers would each draw buttons to determine who chooses next. Raul, who had earlier shared with the camera that he loves Chris like he hasn't loved someone in a long time, was crestfallen when Chris didn't pick him for his team. Chris tried to explain this by saying it was merely because Raul & Ven don't get along and because Raul's aesthetic would clash with the team, and not because, you know, Raul sucks. Sure Chris....
It came down to Gunnar and Raul for the last person to be picked and not surprisingly, poor Raul was the last person chosen.
The final teams were:
Team 5: Nathan, Ven, Gunnar, Fabio & Chris
Team 6: Alicia, Dmitry, Melissa, Elena, Raul & Sonjia
Tim took a few moments to do some product placement for HP and then told the teams they would only have until 11 PM that night to work on their looks, as instead of getting their normal two hours before runway to finish their looks, they would be heading straight to the photo shoot.
Sonjia immediately tried to take charge and assign tasks to her team based on their strengths. She decided that instead of having everyone work on one look each, they would instead work on the individual pieces that best suit their strengths. For example, Sonjia would do two skirts, while Alicia would do two pants, etc. Everyone seemed pretty on board with this idea, except for Raul, who was only concerned with making sure his looks stood out so he wouldn't end up in the bottom three for the third week in a row. Raul would continue to be a thorn in the side of his team mates throughout the challenge, generally refusing to listen to their advice or compromise any of his choices to ensure his look was cohesive with his team. I found myself hoping he would get sent home, just because he was being such a jerk about refusing to work with his team.
Team five focused more on agreeing on a theme and color palette and settled on "fall into color." Everyone on the team seemed to think that Gunnar was the weak link on the team. Gunnar, on the other hand, felt like the rest of the team was ignoring his input and micro-managing him too much. I actually felt a bit sympathetic to Gunnar in this department, as the rest of the team was treating him a bit like a slow toddler. Initially Gunnar pretty much went along with what he was told to do, but after a negative review from Tim, he decided to just go his own way.
The teams were given a $200 per look budget at Mood. Team six had a lot of trouble agreeing on fabric choices, while team five seemed to be working a bit better as a team.
Back at the work room, team six discovered that they lost the bag that had Elena's fabric, which resulted in Elena having to re-design her look. Elena, who has been difficult to work with in the past, had a mini-meltdown, generally running around cursing, whining and being hyper-critical of everyone. She pissed off pretty much her entire team in the process. I totally get panicking a bit upon discovering you don't have something as vital as fabric, but Elena, who was one of my early favorites, is really starting to wear out her welcome with her diva persona.
Amusingly enough, when Gunnar complained about his team trying to dictate everything to him, Elena accused Gunnar of not being a good team player. Guess it really does take one to know one.
While pretty much everyone hated Raul's look, Tim thought that overall Team Six was much less of a "hot mess" than he was expecting and he thought they were headed in the right direction.
Tim wasn't as impressed with team five, calling their fabric and color choices "clownish." Gunnar added that his team's collection looked like "drag queen cocktail hour." hehe I find myself rooting for Gunnar, just because I enjoy his snark.
Elena & Melissa dubbed team five the "silk chiffonzees," because they feel that the members of team five don't really understand a woman's body or what is practical for a woman to wear to work. Neither of them think that silk chiffon is a practical fabric choice for office wear. Sonjia added that she felt team five's looks were more appropriate for resort wear than office wear.
Dmitry probably had my favorite snarky moments of the night. After Elena loudly went on about how much everyone hated Dmitry's navy blue fabric, Dmitry remarked that everyone hates Elena and then went on to express that Gunnar has no taste and that Ven is a "one way monkey....I mean a one trick pony." "One way monkey" is now my new favorite expression.
The Photo Shoot:
Both teams were given three hours in which to style their models, choose props and pose them for the photo shoot. Team five worked together pretty well, but had some trouble settling on the three photos they would be judged on.
Elena drove her team nuts, barking orders at them constantly, starting a war over using props and generally being a pain in the ass. In the end, the rest of team six basically told Elena to do what she wanted with her particular looks, but the rest of them were going to stick with the plan.
The Judging:
The guest judge this week was editor & chief of Marie Claire magazine, Joanna Coles.
The two teams had exactly the same scores, so everyone is eligible to either win or lose.
Team Five:
They wanted to use black and white to make a strong statement, but add some color for interest.
Heidi thought they were very smart to add the color to make the business woman look "not so tough."
Nina thought that their theme looked very consistent. She loved Chris' skirt and thought he made a potentially matronly pattern look fresh with his fabric manipulation. She did not like Nathan's look, calling it matronly and unflattering.
Michael liked Chris's Skirt as well and Fabio's dress, but called Gunnar's dress a "soufle that flopped."
Joanna liked their modern interpretation of a business suit. She thought it looked like they were having fun at work in the photo shoots.
Heidi disagreed with Nina about Nathan's look, saying she thought it represented something an older professional woman would wear. She thought Gunnar's dress looked cheap and that the floppy boobs were not office appropriate.
Heidi asked the designers who was the weakest link: Fabio refused to give a straight answer. Everyone else picked Gunnar.
Team Six:
They were going for a more modern look.
Nina thought the collection was modern and editorial. She particularly liked Melissa's blue dress and Alicia's trousers.
Michael agreed with Nina, but didn't like the ruffles on Raul's top and remarked that the collection didn't look like a collection, but six individual looks.
Heidi also didn't like Raul's ruffles or Elena's bulky shoulders. Melissa and Dmitry had her favorite looks.
Joanna liked that the line is very commercial, but she hated Raul's top. Joanna didn't think the cut outs on the back of Dmitry's dress would work in many offices.
Weakest link: Sonjia - Raul. Raul - Elena. Melissa - Raul. Elena - Raul. Alicia - Raul. Dmitry - Elena because of her work ethic
Results: (there was no official top and bottom three due to the team challenge, but based on the judges comments)
Top Three:
1. Melissa
2. Chris
3. Ven
Bottom Three:
1. Elena
2. Raul
3. Gunnar
Winner of the Photo Shoot: Team Six
Winner: Melissa
Out: Raul
I didn't like team five's collection nearly as much as the judges did. I agree with Sonjia that their collection looked more like resort wear than office wear, with the exception of Ven's suit, which I actually did like. However, team six got the photo shoot, so I am happy about that.
I did really like Melissa's dress, except for the color, which I kind of hate, but the judges say that color is very "in" right now, so I guess it was a good choice.
I was super glad to see Raul get the boot. His whining and refusal to work with his team, coupled with his generally bad designs made him the obvious choice for me. His need to take a couple of nasty shots at Elena, even though she probably deserved them, on the way out the door just sealed the deal.