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“Project Runway” recap: “Welcome Back (or Not) to the Runway” (Ep. 10.3)

This week on Project Runway is a dream for those of us who have been watching for all previous nine seasons, as some of our favorite ladies from the past are going to be coming back to be the clients for the challenge. It’s also going to be a partner challenge, which is almost always absolute hell for everyone! Rejoice in the drama!

Heidi meets the contestants on the runway rocking a shiny gold top — she is the best! — and says their challenge this week will involve making an “elegant” runway look, which Kooan says makes him nervous. Oh, Kooan. Kooan is this season’s token kooky designer, and I normally always find the kooky designers enjoyable. They make things interesting. Still, even the kooky designers should be able to do elegant — or at least believe they can do elegant.

She also reminds them of Ven’s immunity this week since he won last week’s challenge. Then they are off to meet Tim at South Street Seaport to find out more. The contestants meeting Tim at different places around the city for various challenges is one of my favorite parts of Project Runway, because I feel like New York City is such a vital part of the whole experience of the show and of American fashion in general. Project Runway has five essential characters: Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia, Michael Kors, and New York City. Remember that brief, foolish period of time when they were in LA instead of New York? Nothing against LA, but praise be that that dark time in our history is over.

Anyway. At the seaport, while standing in front of a bunch of cars, Tim announces that this is the Lexus challenge! Oh, Project Runway and your corporate whoredom. It would bother me more if I didn’t love you so much. Each pair will be assigned to a car and they have to incorporate the color of the car into the design — which is a pretty weak link. You can try harder with your corporate whoredom, Project Runway.

There is another very exciting announcement about the challenge, though. Their look will be elegant for sure, because they are designing for the red carpet at the Emmy’s. Whoa! This is a big challenge!

They’re paired up and swept away in their Lexuses to meet their clients, who are still a mystery to them. Predictably, some of the pairs are happy about who they end up with, others, not so much. There are still so many contestants at this point that it’s hard to know them all well as to how things will really go, but this is how things stack up:

Michael, the happy-go-lucky guy, and Andrea, resident oldie, meet up with Anya, the winner of last season with all those flowy tropical dresses. This is a team full of light: they all seem to be generally happy people who are open to working with each other. And in case you were worried: Anya is still super hot.

Alicia, our tomboy lesbian, and Raul, the one with the pointy cowlick, are assigned with Mila, one of the finalists from season 7. Mila was an older, kind of edgy and tough type of designer, which I believe is the opposite of Alicia and Raul’s aesthetics. That said, both Alicia and Raul seem to be some of the quieter, more laid back designers, who I can see working well with others, so I feel hopeful about them.

Kooan and Gunnar, the token bitchy queen of this season, meet with Irina, winner of season 6. Kooan and Gunnar are already a super odd pair, and Irina somewhat haughtily tells them that it “must be fabulous” as she preciously sips her espresso at the cafe. Everyone seems nervous. I sense disaster looming!

Melissa and Dmitry, both of whom I feel like I don’t know well enough yet, meet April, a designer from season 8 who has a gothic aesthetic and who is currently rocking some purple hair. Their meeting seems to go smoothly.

Sonjia and Nathan, team Super Hip and Chill and Awesome, meet with Valerie, another designer from season 8. Valerie is more girly than April was on that season, but also has a super warm, friendly personality–I remember liking her a lot. I feel like this team is going to rock it. By the way I am in love with Sonjia and so I may or may not have somewhat of a bias in these recaps because she is just so outstandingly lovely, I mean, right?!

Next up, Elena, super intense Ukranian chick who never smiles, and Buffi, super bright and bouncy chick who smiles all the time, are teamed up with Laura, a finalist from season 3. Laura is a slightly older but hip and friendly designer, but it’s already clear that this pairing of Elena and Buffi, polar opposites, is not going to go well.

Finally, I-Am-The-Best Ven and Fabio meet with Kenley, finalist from season 5 who is all about the vintage. Kenley can be fun and vibrant but also a little intense, from what I remember, and I can’t see Ven working well with others, because, you know, he is The Best. I don’t know how this is going to go either.

However, when everyone returns to the workroom and starts to do their thang, there seem to be no meltdowns thus far. Tim comes into the room to mention that the winner of this challenge will get to accompany their client TO THE EMMY’S with their look. This challenge is rad. At the next commercial break, there is also an ad that oh-so-casually congratulates Project Runway for their four Emmy nominations this year. Smooth one, PR.

As their designs get more fully underway, Alicia mentions that she has never actually designed a gown before. Her partner Raul isn’t comfortable with womenswear either. Uh oh. Their check-in with Mila also goes pretty awkwardly. I feel nervous!

While they started off well, tensions between Elena and Buffi also seem to start rising as Elena keeps telling Buffi to work faster. They have made an ambitious design, and Elena is super perfectionist girl and basically starts freaking out and has to leave at one point so she can take lots of serious breaths. The best part is that, while they are tersely conversing with each other, they keep referring to each other as “babe” because that’s the way Buffi talks. “Work faster, babe!” “Calm down, babe!”

Kooan is also freaking the hell out but Gunnar is keeping it together. To Gunnar’s credit, he also defends himself while holding his temper down as much as he can when Irina comes in and is the most horrible of the horrible and basically calls them embarrassing. Her pretentious looks give me hives. She is the literal worst.

The most surprising unraveling, though, is Michael and Andrea, which is especially sad since at the beginning Michael was all “I’m looking forward to what I can learn from her!,” which is especially sweet and unselfish for a Project Runway contestant. But while Michael is eager to learn and get going, Andrea is workin’ as slow as can be and doesn’t seem that stressed about it. In fact, she keeps giggling, all while Michael’s eyes are bugging out of his head. There’s just something about Andrea’s whole lackadaisical personality that doesn’t seem to gel with this show.

Basically, most of my predictions on the pairs turned out to be wrong. Which is good, because things would be really boring if we could predict everything. The other remaining pairs seem to be working smoothly, both with each other and their clients, such as Melissa, Dmitry, and April.

But ready or not, let’s head to runway time! The guest judge is Krysten Ritter, star of Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23. She’s quirky and cute and I like her as a guest judge.

After the former contestants have walked the walk, the top pairs are Ven and Fabio and, probably to Irene’s surprise, Gunnar and Kooan. The bottom are Michael and Andrea and Raul and Alicia. The designers who stayed safe in the middle seem somewhat shocked as they march into the backroom, as they all thought they had the best dresses and should have been in the top. While this seems kind of egotistical when they should probably just be happy that they’re safe, I have to say that I agree–their looks were all different and eye-catching.

While both of the dresses at the top were clean and well-executed, they were also pretty boring.

As for the bottom two, I feel nervous for Raul and Alicia, as their dress is just plain dull. Like, really not good. In the end, it came down to them not going with their gut of making their look more masculine, as they wanted to. Heidi asks, “Why didn’t you guys make a suit?,” and they were all “…everyone else was making dresses!” This is a good lesson for life, everybody: even when everyone else is wearing dresses, don’t be afraid to GAY. IT. UP.

I don’t think Michael and Andrea’s is as horrible, but the judges hate it. In addition, they have one of the most remarkable defending-themselves-meltdowns I’ve ever seen! Michael is literally devastated because he’s so embarrassed by the dress and wants to be there so bad and is so frustrated with Andrea, who minutes earlier in the backroom said it would be “a relief” if she was eliminated. On the runway, though, I think she feels equally embarrassed by the criticism from both the judges and Michael, and begins an abrupt attitude turnaround where she says she does want to be there and everything was Michael’s fault. And their bumbling back and forth just keeps going and going! Oh man! it is a complete mess!

In the end, Ven is the winner again, and the loser— by a hair— is Raul. Phew. I feel bad for him, since I do think he and Alicia equally flopped on this one, and they both admitted to equally flopping. While you can tell he does feel that it’s slightly unfair, he deals with it very well and is very amiable about leaving. I always want to hug the contestants who are amiable about leaving.

Alicia was lucky this time, but I do really hope she can step it up for future challenges, because I think she really could bring a new, different aesthetic to the runway.

But then! When it seems the show is over, a shocking bit of drama crops up! We see a scene from the Atlas apartments with the text, THE NEXT MORNING…, which is always a good lead in. Apparently Andrea has disappeared during the night, and no one knows where she is. Uh oh. If she has a meltdown and leaves voluntarily, while Raul was just forced to leave, I will be pissed, y’all. But then in continued scenes from the next episode, it seems like everyone is crying and volunteering to leave! What in the world? We’ll just have to wait and see.

What did you think of this challenge? Do you think the winning dress was Emmy-worthy?

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