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This week the Top 8 designers got to do something fabulous and something horrifying.
Image courtesy Lifetime
The fabulous: They got to pick one of New York City's wonderful, diverse neighborhoods and wander it for inspiration. And they were tasked with creating both a day and evening look from said inspiration. I loved this challenge. New York has a plethora of neighborhoods that are distinct and retain their spirit, sometimes in the face of gentrification. Some of the neighborhoods are just a few blocks square, but you know when you move from one to the other. The four neighborhoods the designers had to pick from were Harlem, Chinatown, the East Village and the Upper East Side. I would have gone for the East Village for sure...I wasn't exactly a denizen of that neighborhood, but I have fond memories of shopping and walking along 8th Street.
The horrifying: They had to work in teams. Oh nooooooeeess! I am not a fan of team challenges, because they inevitably become about the drama and conflict, and not about creating something great. Call me crazy, but I'll watch a movie or a one-hour drama if I want to see the Aristotelian elements of tragedy in play. I watch Project Runway for the pretty.
The pairs were:
-Anthony and Mya, hitting Chinatown
-Amy and Jonathan, hitting the Upper East Side
-Emilio and Seth Aaron, hitting Harlem
-Jay and Mila, hitting the East Village [cue ominous music here, because apparently Mila and Jay don't like each other.]
The designers hit Mood, eerily absent of any sign of the Previously & Mysteriously Ubiquitous Dog. What happened to the dog? Is the dog still alive? I'm really obsessed with this dog. Maybe s/he's like Paul McCartney, and was really dead the whole time? Someone, anyone: Go visit Mood and ask them about the damn dog!!!
So, let's see, what did we learn this week?
-Emilio thinks he's some Dr. Evil mastermind-type, having somehow engineered the Mila/Jay partnership. And, he doesn't mind showing obvious amusement at their disconnect
-Anthony makes Mya laugh (well, doesn't he make us all laugh?) and Mya can admit to having a "subtle" control issue. Honey, I'm just gonna go ahead and insert the obligatory Inigo Montoya "I do not think that word..." you know the rest.
-Amy and Jonathan are hot messing all over the workroom, with Amy creating some peach-colored monstrosity that reminds me of one of the bridesmaid dresses I had to wear once, and Jonathan turning himself into a cutaway-one-trick-pony.
-For all the promise of sturm and drang, Mila and Jay did not deliver. There were snide asides and withering glances. That was about it. Way to let down the Lifetime execs, Jay and Mila!
Let's move on to the runway. For some unexplained reason, MK is gone!! Instead MagicallyPregnantHeidi and ninagarcia are joined by Francisco Costa from Calvin Klein (makes sense) and Molly Sims (um, why again?).
As always click on the link underneath the designer's name to see their effort.
1. Anthony and Mya, inspired by Chinatown
The day look by Mya: I really didn't get all the fuss over this outfit. The jacket was nice enough, but it seemed disconnected from the skirt. From the back the outfit looks like a million other suits you may have seen. From the front the jacket details were cool, but the skirt with red flaps? Too obvious and incongruous. Not my favorite.
The evening look by Anthony: This was a simple black cocktail dress with plunging vee neckline, and an origami (and therefore three-dimensional) paper dragon-like trail extending from shoulder all the way down to hem in front and halfway down the back in back. The dress itself, common. The paper dragon-like origami, interesting. This didn't wow me, but in the field this week were two obviously successful teams, and two obvious failures. So it was good enough, wow or no wow.
2. Jay and Mila, inspired by the East Village
The day look by Jay: Oh, dear. An ill-fitting tank top that looked like a bathing suit and had horizontal stripes that didn't actually meet up at the middle seam. (And if that was purposeful, no one copped to it.) And bizarre over-worked oatmeal-colored jodhpurs that did indeed add volume at the hips and lots of seams and details that didn't matter. I think the best word to sum it up is: "sad".
The evening look by Mila: Was a not very evening-looking black and white dress, topped with a, you guessed it, black and white color-blocked jacket. But somehow
