Prints For the Woman On the Go

The start of Project Runway this week really wasn't a surprise. When it came to the Terrible Twins, Shawn might have had good designs, but Claire was the person with the skills to actually make them. Without Claire's sewing skills, Shawn would have been gone from the Runway long before. The workroom will be much quieter now, and even though Claire will be a bit weepy and morose, we might actually have a chance to see if she can produce some excellent designs when she isn't being pulled into two opposing directions for each challenge. 

Claire managed to get over Shawn's absence, but she missed her sounding
board. The other designers were unwilling to help her make design
decisions. She had to operate solo and that seemed quite hard for her. 

The challenge itself for the remaining nine designers was to design for friends and family members of crew members. The challenge was sponsored by Dixie - a product designed for the woman on the go. Each designer would also design a custom print. That print would be featured in the clothing design as well as used as inspiration by Dixie. The prize was awesome - $25,000 to the winner, and the designers had two days for the challenge. 

Margarita had fits about Claire's design, which was quite reminiscent of the winning design from the previous JC Penny's challenge that she won. The designers worked on their designs, and the next morning found their prints waiting for them at each workstation. There were some really nice prints, and there were some disasters. 

Batani's print was horrid, it turned out way too big with too much empty fabric around the elements. She decided to cut them out and sew them onto a blue heathered fabric wrap dress. Ugly and boring and not really using the print in a print challenge. Kentaro's design was too plain. The colors his customer wanted were there, but it was a simple sheath dress with nothing interesting and nothing saying that it was a Kentaro design. Brandon seemed to have a good design going on top- very much in his style. The bottom, however, was a standard pencil skirt, a bit too pedestrian and his designs are starting to look predictable. Amy actually put an interesting print together, although her clothing design seemed very banal. Kenya's client was in love with her print, her design, and Kenya herself. It was a love-fest between the two of them. 

By the end of the day, Margarita was still fuming about Claire, Michael was declaring that if Claire ended up in the top, he would feel obligated to say something, and Claire was feeling that the workroom was much less friendly than it had been when she had been with Shawn. She was right, her competitors weren't going to give her the design assistance that her sister had. They weren't there to be her sounding boards. Tim's critiques were on-point and most of the designers had changed some or all of the designs they had originally conceived because of his advice. I'm looking forward to seeing the runway because I have no idea what these finished designs are going to look like. 

Two extra judges joined Zac and Nina this time - an author and former "Real Housewife" and Lifetime host for a new show, Yolanda Hadid, and a model, Sophia Stallone, both of whom were completely forgettable. All of the clients seemed very happy with their looks and most of them did a great job walking the runway. I'll be going into details tomorrow, of course, in my spoiler discussion of winning and losing looks, but we had started with DRAMAH  and the Twins, and we ended with DRAMAH, when Michael walked off the Runway in protest. Why? Well, I think I'd better get into that in Saturday's post when all of you can look at the winning and losing looks while I go through the nitty and gritty of Project Runway design. 

I'm looking forward to a great swim, the final weekday I'll be solo while Rosemary is away on vacation. She'll be back on Monday morning so I'll be sharing a lane with her once again. It's a good thing I enjoy swimming with her so much and that she's become such a good friend over the past few years, since we see each other five days a week. Enjoy your Friday and I'll be back with the details in tomorrow's blog.