Project Runway Season 8: The Quintessential Marie Claire Woman

As promised, we are back today for the very special Project Runway weekend. Yesterday I wrote about the premiere of season 8 and today we're going to cover the second and third episodes before the fourth episode airs Thursday night. This post is all about the second episode and later today we'll have the final installment of the third episode. After that, be sure to check back here every Friday afternoon for a post on the previous night's episode of Project Runway.

So here's the deal. 17 designers are whittled down to 3 finalists and those designers show their collections at New York Fashion Week. The one winner of the show receives $100,000 from L'Oreal Paris to start their own line, a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine, a $50,000 technology suite from HP and Intel to create their vision and run their business and the opportunity to design and sell an exclusive collection on Piperlime.com. The model paired with the winning designer also wins a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine and $25,000 from L'Oreal Paris Studio Secrets Professional.

Not much has changed about what the winning designer wins on Project Runway, except that the $50,000 technology suite had just been introduced as a prize over the last few seasons and they are designing an exclusive collection for Piperlime, when last season, and I believe for a few seasons before that, it was Bluefly.

The whole look of the eighth season of Project Runway is a little different. It's darker, full of dark golden hues that makes me feel like I'm in some sort of weird, bad Tim Burton remake--and almost all Tim Burton remakes are bad. I think after Heidi Klum got her hair cut and colored she loved the color so much that she immediately vowed to her colorist to remake the opening of the eighth season of Project Runway in that color's image.

At the end of the season premiere, McKell was sent packing and at the start of the second episode, Gretchen and April immediately started commenting on how they were shocked McKell was sent him and how she didn't deserve to be. Just for the record, so was I! I'm still shocked and oh so not happy about it, especially since Casanova got to stay after barely dressing his model and Bowler Hat Jason also got to stay after putting a brown kimono on his model backwards and stapling it together. Oh Project Runway, how you disappoint me.

During the season premiere, I was drawn to Mondo for a variety of reasons. I thought he was super cute, I love certain aspects of his personal style choices, although I didn't really care for the design he sent down the runway during the first episode. Just like I knew I really hated Bowler Hat Jason from his personality alone right after seeing him in the premiere and how he weirded out Gretchen by immediately asking her what her nationality was--so he could inform her that he was 100% Italian and try to intimidate her in some way, is my only guess--I knew that I liked Mondo and his quirkiness. It was during the first five minutes of the second episode where I realized why. He's just like me! He's awkward and uncomfortable in social situations! Us introverted, awkward people are everywhere and we can always spot each other, even when just watching them attempt to interact with people on television. As all of the guys wake up and start talking about who they have formed some sort of friendship with and who they have been spending most of their time with, Mondo is seen just kind of doing his own thing and keeping to himself. He then says because of all of the different personalities that are around each other all the time, he spends most of the time by himself because he doesn't click with people right away, he tends to run away and that life in the Atlas Apartments and on Project Runway has been difficult because of that. Hello, story of my life!

When the remaining 16 designers meet up with Tim and Heidi for their next challenge, they are joined by Joanna Coles, Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire magazine, who tells them what their next challenge is--to create a look that defines in one, quick glance, the Marie Claire woman. And what kind of woman is the quintessential Marie Claire woman? According to Joanna Coles, that woman is intelligent, practical, fashion-forward, confident and sexy. The winner of the challenge will have their look featured in the Marie Claire billboard campaign to run in Time Square.

After the designers sketched in the work room and selected their fabric and materials at Mood, they headed back to Parsons to begin constructing their designs. Casanova yet again made me nervous. Turns out, he does not know how to pattern. He propositioned A.J. with half of a pattern in his hand and starts asking all sorts of questions on how to properly lay out his pattern until A.J., who looked terribly afraid to start conflict, assured Casanova that he did not mean any offense by it, but he was not going to help him pattern. Casanova concluded that A.J. was just too "into the competition", but commented on how other designers have helped him and we see him standing with Michael showing what looks to be Michael showing Casanova how to properly thread a sewing machine.

When Tim Gunn goes in to check on the designers and lend some helpful critiques before they show their looks to the judges on the runway, Tim gets to Bowler Hat Jason, whose concept is to create an "Infinity dress" with the number 8 on the side of the dress, for, in his words, "season 8 of Project Runway." Tim tells him that he's worried about the entire concept, not to mention the lack of work that has been done for the dress by the time Tim goes in to see how the designers are doing. We find out that Bowler Hat Jason does not take critique very well, concluding that Tim Gunn is only hard on him because Jason is "straight in a gay man's world."



Very nice. Really.

It doesn't take Tim long to throw out the word matronly, which I can never help but giggle at because it's just one of those Tim Gunn isms that is as famous as "Make it work."Again, there is a little conflict going on with Casanova and how he has went "from prostitute to nunnery." Tim is not impressed with Casanova's sorta-kinda sailor outfit and even more drama concerning Casanova flares up when he cannot understand what Tim saying, not being able to speak English very well, but the other designers beg to differ. They claim that they hear Casanova speak perfect English in the work room all day and understand it perfectly when the other designers speak to him.

Something very peculiar is going on with what Nicholas has done with his garment by the time Tim makes it to his station. He has this shirt, which is a perfectly fine, silky-like shirt, and Tim says that the back of it is very sexy and that he likes it a lot. Of course he likes it! So did the judges when they saw the very same back on Gretchen's dress that won last week.

After Tim gives his critiques and the designers scatter like mice for a little while, trying to re-work their concepts and iron out the problems they're having with their garments, he goes back into the work room to surprise the designers with another element of the challenge. Usually when this happens, it's bad news and something that seems impossible--like create an extra look to accompany the look that you haven't yet completed and do it all in an hour. Surprisingly, this extra element can actually be more of an advantage to the designers. They will be working with a photographer and their model to capture an image that they believe screams "Marie Claire magazine!" This does mean that the designers will have less time than they thought to put together their looks, but the photo they choose from their photoshoot will be a part of what the judges will take into consideration when judging the runway show.

Yet again, Jason is claiming that he ran out of time, even though instead of five hours, he had an entire day with this challenge. Nevertheless, his dress was held together by safety pins. The photo he chose to give the judges that would appear on the Marie Claire billboard was a train wreck and you could see the giant hole at the top of his model's stomach because the dress wasn't properly held together. Immediately, we know that he is blaming the judges and the entire premise of the show for his inability to make a dress when he comes out with "the judges have to look past these little closures ... I can't just pop things out." No Jason, the judges do not have to look past the fact that you cannot make a closure. What are you doing on Project Runway?

Everything Jason does just doesn't make sense and he has successfully creeped out all of the other designers. Michael tries to be friends with him and tell him that he loves everything he is doing because he's afraid that Jason will come up behind him with the scissors and stab him in the head. That isn't good.

Luckily, we could not see the model's stomach popping out of Jason's horribly-made dress when it walked down the runway. He had the safety pins securely holding it together.


The judges for this episode's runway show are the usual suspects, Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia. The guest judge is Joanna Coles from Marie Claire magazine.

The people who are called safe go into the back room and begin talking about how because they have seen Jason's menswear and that it is good, he is very talented and it would be unfair if he went home. In case you didn't see this coming, I whole-heartedly disagree. 98 percent of Project Runway is designing garments for women--dresses, pantsuits, gowns and the like. To go on Project Runway and think you're going to be able to make menswear is just downright hilarious.

After the judges rip apart Jason's garment on the runway, concluding no woman would ever want to wear his dress, he starts grabbing at the dress trying to show them all the different ways it can be worn. He took a hold of the bottom of the dress and started snagging it upward which I thought was kind of spastic I guess, and the most hilarious comment of the night had to be Heidi Klum asking Jason if he was trying to show the judges his model's underwear.

I feel so bad for Jason's model, who looks downright pissed off the entire time and considering what this man is doing to her and has said about her in the previous episode, I do not know how she has worked with him this long without punching him in the face. When the designers left the runway they began talking about Jason's garment--and model--and Jason blamed his model, yet again, saying she isn't a runway model so she's the reason why his garment was horrendous.

The first person in the top 3 was Mondo.


I'm kind of sad that Mondo didn't win because I really loved his look. It was fun and his tweed skirt was awesome. I'd totally wear it if he got rid of the weird waist thing going on because that will not translate very well for anyone over a size 2, but other than that, I loved it.

For the second week in a row, Gretchen won.



In a really surprising move, two people were eliminated this episode.

Creepy Bowler Hat Jason was the first person eliminated, which was the VERY BEST decision EVER! So fantastic. Of course, he was really scary after he was eliminated and just stormed out of the room without Tim being able to go into the back and say goodbye first.

The second person eliminated was Nicholas.


I was pretty surprised Nicholas was sent home. His garment was a little wonky in places, but not as bad as same others, like Peach's polka dot Stepford dress. He did not execute the cropped back of the shirt, the idea he totally stole from Gretchen's first garment and the skirt was a little weird looking, but definitely not elimination material.

Because Gretchen won the challenge, her garment was featured on the Marie Claire billboard in Time Square.



And that covers all of episode two of Project Runway. I wonder if there will be any more double eliminations to come. I have a feeling they eliminated two people to get the show back on track for having 17 designers to start with. We'll see...