Project Runway 4: Episode Six - Sugar Rush

Project Runway brought back the fun this week with a trip to Hershey's Time Square. There were actually moments of spontaneous laugh out loud joy from us as we watched, and unlike some of the quirkier "make couture out of garbage" episodes the quality of the final products was almost uniformly high.

In honor of the ten remaining designers (at least at the beginning of the episode) we've decided to highlight our top ten favorite moments from this week. So here now from the home office in Penland, North Carolina, the Top Ten Best Moments from the Construction Phase of PR4 Week Six--and as always, please, no wagering.

10) This is your Tim Gunn wake up call. Tim shows up at the New Gotham and knocks on the designers' doors at 6:00 a.m. He, of course, looks impeccable. The designers . . . not so much. Ricky's clutching his futon cover like a security blanket. Kevin's brushing his teeth. Chris wants to see Tim's footed pajamas. (As do we!) Kit's wearing her pajamas, and keeps her arms folded across her chest the whole time, embarrassed that Tim is seeing her without a bra on! Don't worry, Kit--Tim wasn't wearing one either.

Definitely a day to call in sick if you work at Hershey's Time Square.

9) Pity the poor Hershey's clerks. Wendi and I have both worked retail. We know what it's like to clean up the kids' section in a bookstore after the rampaging hordes have finished with it. That's probably why we both cringed a little as the contestants tore the hell out of the Hershey's Time Square store. We just know that the moment the Project Runway folks left, the store manager was going to turn to the wage slaves and say, "All right. Clean it up." Just like the poor Atlas hotel staff last season when the designers absolutely destroyed their rooms for raw materials. Hmm. Could that episode perhaps be the reason the Atlas didn't want them back this season?
8) Jillian finally fills out those suspenders. We like Jillian. We really do. We like her designs, and we like her personality. She's like some sort of cross between Sean Young in Blade Runner and Tiffany Brissette in Small Wonder. (Wait, is it bad that both of them were robots?) She's one of the few designers on any season we've seen have a distinctive and yet fashionable style--although this week's Mork from Ork suspenders might have been a bit much. Still, it was fun to see her stuff bags and bags of Twizzlers into them on her way out of the store. Is that how you used to do it before hitting the multiplex back on Long Island, Jill?

"The line forms to the left. To avoid overcrowding, please stay within the roped off areas."

7) Christian's strategy: Don't think. Team Star impresario Christian knows what's holding the other designers back: they're using their brains. "They don't have a real direction because they think about their things too much." Christian may not be thinking about his own creations, but he sure has a lot of thoughts about everyone else's. To Kevin: "That's ugly." To Sweet P: "Hello? It doesn't even go." The line to murder Christian now stretches down to Times Square.

"What the hell am I wearing?"

6) Stupidest question of the night. No, it wasn't Victorya's transparent I-could-care-less-what-you-think iterations of "Really?" when Tim told her that dress she was making was boring and ugly. (Always listen to the Tim!) No, easily the stupidest question of the night was posed by the powers that be at Bravo TV, who wanted to know which challenge we liked better--tonight's Hershey's challenge, the Menswear challenge, or the Sarah Jessica Parker Challenge. The only mystery here was if anyone at all was going to vote for either the Menswear challenge or the SJP challenge. We still think they gave Menswear 10% just so they wouldn't have to have a big glaring "0%" up there on the screen.

"Now the finishing touch--edible panties."

5) Jillian's model pitches in. Nothing funny about this one--we just loved seeing an intelligent model with some other talent than walking in a straight line. Props to her model for understanding that her chances of winning the photo spread in Elle depended on Jillian making it through, and then jumping in and helping sew on Twizzlers. Jillian may now not dump that model. Ever. And let's see that model wearing those glasses down the runway! Those were hot!

Sweet P's dress: now with wings.

4) Coffee Filter or Maxi Pad? Tim's assessment of Sweet P's dress: "It looks like a coffee filter or a Maxi Pad." Take your pick, P. Either way, you'll be one of the last two people standing on the runway at the end of the show.

3) I'm Santino Rice, Bitches! We had to rewind and rewatch Santino's hi-larious commercial, where he's all, "Yo yo yo, I'm Santino Rice, bitches, and this is how I roll!" Of course he didn't say that, but you could hear it in his voice. He slips back into normal mode when he's taking us to some art gallery, but that over-hyped intro is a hysterical example of trying way to hard. Has Santino already become an imitation of himself? And while we're on the subject of commercials, how awful are those Bluefly.com ads? It's like they hired the people who make the Mentos commercials.

2) Welcome. to. Hershey's. Time. Square. It's total Schadenfreude on our part, but how hilarious was it to listen to that Hershey's flak nervously cue-card her lines when introducing the store? "Surrounding. you. are. all. sorts. of. delicious. brands. for. you. to. create. your. designs." You. know. she. rehearsed. that. in. front. of. a. mirror. all. day. long. Public. relations. was. a. good. career. choice. for. you. sweetheart.

1) Christian sums up the episode: "Great. We get to make sh*t out of candy."

And make sh*t out of candy they did! Well, okay, one of them did. The rest of them used wrappers, bags, pillows and towels to create their pieces, while Jillian took the hot glue to the Twizzlers. Rami took home the win and immunity next week, although Wendi and I both agree we like Chris's dress better. He took third though, primarily, we think, because Zak Poser didn't like it as much as he liked Rami. Um, Rami's dress, I mean. Yeah. That's the only way we can understand Chris not winning after Nina told him his dress was ready for the pages of Elle. High praise from the Nina.

Jillian came in second with her "deliciously chic" edible party dress, and Victorya, Sweet P, and Elisa were called out for being the worst of the lot. Victorya didn't seem to understand--just like she didn't listen when Tim told her the same thing. Repeat after the Hershey's lady: Always. listen. to. Tim. But her Frankenstein dress was not nearly as bad as Sweet P's, or Elisa's. As predicted, they shared the runway at the end to see who would go home.

Sweet P's dress was just boring and simple. Elisa's was sad. No surprise, since she told us she wanted to turn her model into a "macabre, disturbing Gretel-like figure." Um, Elisa? If they send you to the candy store for materials, they do NOT want to see macabre and disturbing come back. And is it us, or does everything Elisa say sound like those unintelligible "artist's statements" that hang next to bad art in avant-garde galleries?

Who can make this un-fun? The candy man can, cause he mixes it with macabre and makes the world taste disturbing.

In the end, sad was worse than boring, and Elisa made her exit. "I'm going to wander off now," she tells us, and for all we know she's still walking the streets of New York to this day. We were skeptical of Elisa, then grew to empathize with her and like her, and then we got skeptical again when her designing didn't pan out. People argue that aufings are based more on personality than design, but good design will out, and it was time for Elisa to go.

Sweet P, consider this a momentary reprieve . . .