“Oh, Jesus!” exclaims the monotone Tim Gunn to Kayne Gellespie about his strange bag-like, business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back garment on Wednesday night’s episode — but it really seems to sum up “Project Runway 3.”
Kayne, as you can imagine, is out. Finally.
Finally Kayne’s spiky hair, immature designs and love-me-I’m-from-Oklahoma pretensions are over. And while Kayne may have just lost, America has won.
But really, this season is absolutely ridiculous. Just as Laura Bennet, who we’re all secretly rooting against (although no one will admit it), stands at the edge of a nervous breakdown, “Project Runway” hands her the last challenge on a little platter called a black-and-white cocktail dress competition. Of course she’s going win. What else can Laura Bennet do. Frankly, it’s unfair, to say the least.
I don’t know what the average viewer thinks, but “Project Runway” is starting to wear me down. First, the impromptu Paris trip: the boating down the Seine, Catherine Malendrino, forced complements to Jeffery and the mysterious egg-throwing vandal who nearly cost Michael the competition. Seriously, what’s going on here? And where was Heidi during all this mayhem? Nowhere to be found. Back in New York, I suppose, sitting in an evening English class. I think something’s afoot.
That aside, the cocktail dress episode features an Angela and Vincent re-appearance that’s a real gratuitous surprise. When I flipped the clicker to Bravo on Wednesday night and had to look at that crazed pair for a second time I nearly vomited all over the Davenport Buttery floor.
I find that watching “Project Runway 3” is like staring down a Nebraska country road on a hot day and watching the heat rise up off the pavement: you can’t really see the end of the road — but even if you could see what’s down there, you just don’t care. The third installment of “Project Runway” has proven that “best” means absolutely nothing. When the competition is to build a dress out of garbage, who really wins? Certainly not the model.
The moral of this story is that one can never say just what’ll stay or what’ll go. This is the Runway — “one day you’re in … the next day … you’re out,” as Heidi says in sloppy English. (P.S.: word on the street is that she can’t even speak fluent English but just practices a lot. With her useless comments and misfiring humor, it’s no wonder now why she wasn’t called The Brain in her early years.)
But let’s talk about Laura Bennet — the designer, not the TD sophomore.”
Laura is neither broken, nor helpless — despite her near breakdown on Wednesday night. It’s all an act. What she is is cold and manipulative. She mouths off in the sewing room, makes unnecessary comments and holds it as her personal agenda to hurl verbal ‘bows every episode. She picks her fights and, as the latest episode has proven, she wins them.
After Laura’s Parisian debacle, in which her idea of couture reminded us all that enough is enough when fluffy neck-lines are involved, Laura came back with a smart, youthful cocktail dress that helped her to her first win. But while the sparkles in her dress were enough to woo designer and guest judge Zac Posen and the usual suspects — Michael Kors and Nina Garcia — it was Michael’s barely audible “Congratulations” that stole the hearts of Americans everywhere. One swooning girl in the Davenport Buttery melts: “I love Michael!” And I wanted to tell her that, at the end of the day, so do we all.
But Michael survived this couture cocktail dress debacle. So did space-cadet Uli who brewed up another batch of crazy with a long-sleeved nightmare that was luckily up against the heinous stylings from such disastrous designers as Kayne, Vincent and Angela.
Vincent, now gone (hopefully for good), showed up bedraggled as ever without any good ideas. Still. I just want to send him home before he has enough time to complain, over-buy fabric, walk around in his unflattering tight fitting T-shirts and royally destroy the look of a would-be attractive model. Vincent — you’re 49! Get your life together!
I don’t even want to touch Angela. But I will anyway. A packed Davenport audience howled “OH GOD!” when the camera revealed a full-body shot of her (what only can be described as) ‘all-purpose’ rain boots that climbed to a short poofy skirt. The “modern Edwardian” collar attached to a relatively complete cocktail dress made the whole get-up seem to want to prevent the model from scratching her ears. And the make-up choice: decidedly Chinese opera lips.
All and all, Laura deserved her win — her dress was the most wearable. But, really, Heidi wouldn’t let her lose. Really, isn’t her abrasive personality just a little at home in “Project Runway 3”? If she goes, then it’s just Tattoo-Neck, extraterrestrial Uli and Michael. Who will antagonize? Uli? Who will look sharp and neat on the runway? Jeff? Yeah, sure. It all adds up. Though Heidi doesn’t need a lot of things, she needs Laura.
And after a summer of “Project Runway 3,” we all need a break, and a free Wednesday night.