Let’s make this quick: It’s over. Project Runway Season Six limped to the finish line with a win for nominal villiainess Irina Shabayeva, but really, is an eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging Georgian mean girl that much of a villain? Read the full story

Have you ever been deliriously excited when you’re almost at the end of an interminable task? The preparation for your SATs? That huge pile of laundry? Moving cross-country? Painting the Sistine Chapel?

Okay, maybe not that last one, but you know what I mean. That’s how I feel this week. The agony that is Project Runway season 6 is almost at an end, and I can feel it, almost like I’m Dorothy and I’ve clicked my heels three times. I want to go home, which in this case is New York City, where in my dreams season 7 is better and Michel and Nina never leave.

Which, according to press reports, they won’t. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

As for this week’s show, I have a confession. Thanks to my penchant for peeking, I saw the final collections months ago, so I figured out who our final three were weeks ago. This week’s shocking double elimination wasn’t so much shocking as expected.
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Logan, wave goodbye. We’ll still see your silver pants from a thousand miles away.

Sorry, I get ahead of myself, but this episode was another in this season’s long line of “Make a pretty ensemble/dress, designers!” My eyes, they glaze over. What ever happened to “Here’s some Tupperware. Design a garment!”

Last night’s challenge even went so far as to bastardize from this season: Make a companion piece to your best (i.e. winning) design from this season. Oops, sorry, Logan. We’ll just pick out your prettiest gown, since you were never a winner.

And since the theme of this season seems to be black/white/turd brown, we were once again left with no color on the runway. Or at least, no vibrant colors.
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You know how Tim Gunn is always saying, “This has great potential”?

That’s how I feel about this season. It had great potential but squandered it weeks ago, and even finally having Michael Kors and Nina Garcia back where they belong (at judging panel) can’t make me care much about the outcome of this sad season.

About the only thing I noticed last night was Althea’s tragic root growth. Garnier is a sponsor. Give the poor girl a box of hair color and let her do a touch up, for the love of Pete Campell!

Sigh. On with the show. Read the full story

Is lots of feathers, sequins and more feathers. In black or white, preferably. Because if you’re in a stage show, and you’re Christina Aguilera, you need to be seen by the 92nd row, and only black and white will do. Feathered black and white.

Oy! I’m feeling dirrrty.

This week’s challenge featured not one, but two so-called fashion icons. The first was Mr. Bob Mackie, the Sultan of Sequins, and yes, he’s looking a little…plastique, but listen, if you grew up in the ’70s like I did, you can’t help but have grown up on a heaping pile of the man’s creations for Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, and of course, Cher. Now would have been the week to pull out the “Half-Breed” tribute, Shirin. Who among us doesn’t remember Cher at the Oscars, thumbing her nose in this little number? Read the full story

Last night’s show. Oh, last night’s show. It makes me happy, and yet, it makes me so, so sad. And angry.

This biased, out-of-nowhere judging must stop! These substitute judges must return from whence they came! I need a drink. Is Oktoberfest still going on? Heidi seems to think so. But I get ahead of myself.

Our usual models are eighty-sixed in favor of several ladies in varying styles of wedding gowns. But these are not blushing brides. They are all divorcées, and their dresses must be remade to represent their new lives. Sort of like the Trash the Dress trend, only without mud and paint. But dye is allowed. Read the full story

First, the good news: Our beloved gentleman of the bon mot, Michael Kors, is back and a bewitching shade of persimmon. Laws, he has been missed!

And now, the bad news: The designs produced this week weren’t fit for the bargain basement sale at Loehmann’s. Sorry, designers. Better step it up.

This week’s challenge was yet more product placement nirvana for Macy’s and the I.N.C. clothing line— make two looks that were cohesive and fit the brand. Oh, and make them both in shades of blue.

Now, blue is my second favorite color, after pink. And there are so many different blues you can work with. But the designers, working in teams this week, picked the saddest combos, and perhaps the shiniest, in some cases. Is L.A. Mood running another special on discontinued fabrics? Read the full story

Annie get your glue gun, because it’s time for a costume design challenge on Project Runway.

Taking note of the Hollywood setting, this week the designers are given a choice of film genres and must pick one and crank out an outfit that hews to their particular archetype, while also envisioning a character who will be wearing it. Some have more imagination than others, and some need remedial film scholar studies. Read the full story

If you guessed newsprint as the unconventional fabric of choice for this week’s challenge, you won the kewpie.

Although it injected some life into this season’s so far dull challenges, there’s still one huge problem with Project Runway‘s sixth season — the judges. Or should I say, the continued absence of NIna Garcia and Michael Kors. But more on that later. The headlines today are all about what you can do with paper.

Heidi appears in a darling black and white Breton top (and really, everyone should have that staple in their wardrobe) to tell the designers the answers will be found…in black and white. Tim loads them into the van and takes them to the Los Angeles Times building, where they meet with Times’ fashion critic Booth Moore. Amidst pallets of newspaper, the designers are given three minutes for a snatch and grab mission, and as usual in these type of challenges (remember the Gristedes challenge, the trash barge challenge, the Saturn car parts challenge?), some get greedier than others.

Back at FIDM, Tim gives a lecture on the history of the paper dress, and lays out the materials they can use, such as dyes, brushes, markers, and muslin for base, although it can’t show in the finished design. Which I agree with — muslin is a crutch for weak designers.
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Thirteen beautiful princesses need an eye-catching look for an industry event. Some will get dresses that look as if fairy god-designers created them. Others will be going to the ball in outfits designed by rabid forest creatures. Or pants from their own closets.

But haven’t we heard this fairy tale before? Project Runway, please stop recycling challenges. Although the past challenge I refer to was creating a wedding gown for the designers’ model, and came in season one, this is getting a little too close for comfort. But it does prove a point: While models have great street fashion, they aren’t always so good at picking high fashion, or even simple evening looks. Read the full story