Project Runway: Couture du Jour

Wow, I don't know about you, but I'm still on a high from seeing Angela get the boot last week. It's like I snorted some fleurchons. Put those on the DEA Schedule 1 list ASAP.

But I digress!

Previouslies: the judges finally stopped dicking around and cut Angela. Oh, and there was some flight to Paris and Jeffrey likes to Bedazzle his crotch. But he won, so I guess the joke is on someone else.

(OK, honestly, I missed the first two minutes of this episode where C Mal gave them the challenge charge, but I gathered that it was to design a couture dress in two days and no shortcuts allowed!!)

I joined the party when every is talking about how much they looove Paris, and how inspiring it is and blah blah. Frankly, I love Paris, but I'm a little tired about hearing how it inspires so many people. We will call this group the Get Lost Generation.

So, Tim takes the Get Lost Generation gang up to Sacre Coeur cathedral so they can sketch. If you look carefully, you will notice that they are all out of breath because there are about a trillion steps to walk up. But they all recover and start sketching, and Vincent start in with the creepy "it turns me on" crap again. Is there anything that turns this dude off??? If so, let me know STAT. He also starts talking about how he is a natural at couture... I start to think I know who is going home soon.

After the sketching, Tim takes the designers to Tissus Reine, which is like Mood, but with attitude and not quite so close to Show World. Tim also tells them that they get 300 euro for this challenge!! Cha-ching! Bravo spares no expense on this challenge. No siree.

Back to the Sweatshop (oops, I should call it La Salle Chaude or something) for some sewing...by hand that is!

Uli immediately starts draping her purply grey fabric and making these braid straps and you know she will be in for the next round.

Laura starts draping, and spouting off about how she is going to make a Belle de Jour dress. Hmmm, bored frigid upscale housewife looking for a change in her life, maybe Laura can identify. Start getting worried if she starts describing dreams where he husband flings mud all over her. Also, I guess we know she's not frigid based on her newly appeared bump!

Jeffrey chose an acid yellow madras and tartan plaid materials at the fabric store and starts working and blabbing about how he wants to be the first designer ever to win when he had immunity. I'm all, it's good to want things.

Kayne is making something very gold. Very very gold. And bless his little heart, he just loves it. Everyone else thinks it's crap.

Michael is talking about how he hasn't ever really sewn by hand, and he is very worried. He is working with a dark bluish purple fabric and ruching the bodice a lot. Everyone, including Michael, seems very worried about Michael.

Then there is Vincent. Apparently working under a greve against clothing, Vincent has stripped down to his wife-beater undershirt like Ryan Atwood from the OC. Unfortunately for Vincent, what works in Chino does not fly in France. He is also making some kind of sofa dress out of this gold fabric. Laura, ever the astute people person she is, comments how Vincent spends all of his time admiring himself, his work and forcing others to do the same. And then runs off mumbling things to himself. Yeeechhh.

The Paris models come in for their fittings and they are all off to the secret location of the C Mal party. And it turns out to be....the Seine! Weird! So secret! And they are on a Bateau Mouche!

Uhhhh, that's Boat of Flies. Have you ever been on one? There's a reason it's called that.

So C Mal gives them all feedback (which we later learn was all fakely positive, based on the comment cards that Heidi reads in NYC. That minx!).

Then Vincent pounces. He gets totally freaky creepy on her ass and you can tell that she is about to yell, au secours!, and scamper behind Tim any second.

Then, rapid fire, back to NY where the not-so-expats have to refit their dresses on the regular models. Apparently, models in America are fatter than the ones in France too.

Then the judges start in on the criticism. They love Uli, comme toujours, and feel that she has kept her design aesthetic but elevated it. Because her dress was almost exactly the same as her others, but it was much dressier. My favorite element was the braid straps in the back, but I didn't feel like she took any risks.

They loooove Jeffrey's homage to Galliano's Dior and old school Vivianne Westwood. I actually thought his was the best dress up there. I thought he was the only one who really took a risk and went out there the way that real couture does. Bear in mind that 90% of a couture collection is never meant to be worn, but is more for art's sake. I would have liked it if the dress wasn't cut up to the model's va-jay-jay in the front though. No need for that!

Kayne got the tacky award of the week with NinaGarcia giving him the kiss of death comment, "I don't know that the taste level is there." I love how she says "taste level" in the hushed voice, like when my grandmother tells me someone has "cancer" in a whisper. I thought it was a little over the top, but not as bad as everyone kept saying. I thought it would have looked better with a tutu skirt though! Tres Swan Lake goes Elton John.

Michael took his first beatdown of the season. I didn't think his dress was as awful as they made it sound, especially considering it was his first misstep of the entire competition. The bodice did look heavy in that Malan-pageant-dress way and didn't fit the model as well as it could have, but cut the kid some slack! He is still my choice for final three, if not winner of the competition.

Laura's dress took a wrong turn at Belle de Jour and ended up...back at Laura!! It looked like EVERY SINGLE OTHER DRESS SHE HAS EVER MADE. With a big poufy collar. And it didn't look that bad (on the model in Paris, it looked a little bedraggled in NY though) but that's because it's a pretty basic dress. Seriously though, she makes fun of Angela for the fleurs d'enfers, but et tu deep V-necked dress?

Then there is Vincent. First of all, there was so much glue on his dress that horses would be afraid to go near it. Second of all, it was horrid! It was a mishmash of the worst elements of other dresses from the show. It was huge, with a deep V-neck a la Laura, wingy sleeves from his pageant dress, the flower detail from Angela's everything, and the over the top gold lame of Kayne's couture dress. I think my boyfriend summed it up best when he wandered into the living room while Vincent's creation walked down the runway. "That sucks," he said, then turned to go back to the bedroom.

I was so relieved when they kicked him out I almost cried. I can stop being afraid of the bad man now. But, Vincent did get in his parting shot (pun intended) when he said that the whole experience, "Got him off."

Gross!

But you don't have to take my word for it. Tim's Take and BPR.