Water Cooler Chat: Project Runway

"Flower Power"

This week's challenge was to make a dress out of plants and flowers. I think this was the equivalent of the supermarket challenge from the first season. In a way I think it is smarter to bring out this type of challenge toward the end. Theoretically, the worst designers have already been eliminated by this point so the remaining people should be able to handle such a difficult task. The twist is that the winner this week is exempt from being eliminated in the next challenge.

--Nick was still taking the loss of his original model hard. Daniel decided to keep his model, so Nick's original model is completely out of the competition. I didn't realize until recently that Nick is a teacher at a design school. That may explain his attachment; he probably works with the same models a lot in his real job.

--This is the first challenge where Chloe looked like she was not going to make it. All the other challenges seemed effortless for her, but I think she became overconfident with the leaf dress. Still, her dress didn't look as unfinished as she claimed it was.

--Santino's impression of Tim Gunn is the only thing he has done on this show so far that makes him likeable. The little story about Andrae and Tim at Red Lobster had me laughing out loud.

--Where did Heidi Klum get that hideous maternity dress? I'll be the first to admit that I am old-fashioned when it comes to maternity clothes. If I could have gotten away with it, I would have dressed like Laura Petrie while I was pregnant. I'm not a big fan of the idea that you should dress as if you weren't pregnant. That dress Heidi wore was too busy with the asymmetrical ruffles and the weird hemline; the belly made it look even more jacked-up.

--Andrae was doing so well, but he disappointed me this week with his dress. There wasn't enough color to offset all that green. I happen to love green, but the model looked like she had wrapped herself in an Astroturf sample. The model walked like her boobs itched.

--Nick also let me down. His dress looked like it was made from duct tape.

--Kara and Daniel both made good use of flowers, but I like Kara's better than his. She redeemed herself with this dress. The bodice fit so well that it gave the model the appearance of a woodland sprite. I'm glad that she didn't cave to Tim's suggestions. She focused on the bodice and kept the skirt simple, despite him prodding her to move on to the skirt. I think that listening to Tim during the creative process has made her back off of her more daring ideas, which has hurt her.

Daniel has immunity next week, and Andrae got the boot. I'm glad that he was able to stay long enough to show the world that beneath all the histrionics is a decent designer.