Project Runway: Black & White, Cuckoo Chanel & Ungapatchka

Since the producers love to drag things out and torture the PR audience, last night’s episode wasn’t really the finale, it was the finale PART ONE. The remaining four designers had $9,00 and four months to create collections.

Tim Gunn traveled to visit all of the designers, and the first was Seth Aaron, in Vancouver. The music was so dramatic when Tim was critiquing Seth Aaron’s collection. It might have well been the Godzilla theme song, all, dun dun DUN. Basically, Tim felt that Seth Aaron’s collection was predictable, which it was.

Later Tim hung out with Seth Aaron’s family and created a classic soundbite: “Eyeglasses. Balloons. Fallopian tube.”

I made an mp3 of this, which you can download here. If the file reaches the max amount of downloads, email me.

“Papa Gunn is on the tramp!”

Next Tim was in New York to see Emilio. Emilio is a jerk. He was showing Tim these weird pieces in vomitrocious colors and got all combative with Tim during the critique, saying, “What is your point?” Later, he said in an interview, “I design my clothes for women. And as far as I know, Tim Gunn doesn’t wear women’s clothing.” Jerk. Tim Gunn taught design at Parsons for 25 years and was the chair of fashion design at the school for seven years and Emilio needs to shut the front door.

Tim went to Los Angeles, where Mila showed her black and white collection in her black and white house with her black and white boyfriend and black and white dog. Tim on Mila: Matronly. I’d add: Shapeless. In addition, her shit-talking about Jay (“I don’t want to lose to that little fucker… He’s really annoying”) was immature and declassé.

In San Francisco, Tim checked out Jay’s collection inspired by Samurai and geisha and asked, “Where is this person going?” Jay replied: “Nowhere.”

Tim: “Qu’est-ce que c’est? What is this?”
Jay: “A sleeve.”
Tim: “It goes a little cuckoo.”
Jay: “Cuckoo Chanel, girl.”

Since only three people are “going” to Fashion Week, and Emilio and Seth Aaron are definitely “going,” Mila and Jay had to compete for the one remaining slot. They each showed the judges three pieces from their collection.

Jay’s Samurai-inspired dress was part Japanese temple, part cocktail waitress from the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars. In other words: Awesome.

Michael Kors adored these leather gaiters Jay made.

Jay’s last look: Fierce pants; bad shirt.

Mila’s models were mirror images of Mila, which some of the judges considered a bad thing. This coat looks lovely, but a wee bit boring.

Shapeless! And old. And riding a rickety train to Snoozetown. Heidi Klum said she would wear it and I laughed out loud. Where would she go that she’d want to look like she was wearing a hideous horse blanket?

Mila’s little disco dress was cute, and if it looks familiar, it’s because it was on every single go-go girl Austin Powers ever met.

While the judges were deliberating, Heidi was pulling for Mila, Michael Kors was rooting for Jay, and Nina Garcia was on the fence. In the end, Mila won, and will be “going” to fashion week, which just made me depressed and irate, because Jay’s clothes are much more current and exciting. But the judges didn’t like Jay’s jacket. At all. Michael Kors called it “ungapatchka,” a Yiddish word for overworked and tacky. I did a little digging and found this video in which old ladies in Florida try to explain ungapatchka, and it’s pretty great. Still sad about Jay, though. I guess I’ll root for Seth Aaron, when I’m not wondering why the people with shitty personalities do well on this show. (Oh, that’s right: It’s the fashion industry.)

Anyway, as has been mentioned before, since Fashion Week already happened, you can look at items from the collections of the ten designers who actually showed in the tents here. The images are in no particular order, and just a smattering of what was shown on the runway. I purposely didn’t identify the designer for each item, because I thought it would be fun to guess. So you can go through the clothes without actually getting “spoilery” info, as in: who designed what.