Runway Roundup: Week 2

Project Runway might as well just change its name to Project Suede…at least for this week. Elliot thought Suede killed the challenge and managed to annoy more then anyone. Before Elliot gets to that though let’s talk about the challenge.

Thank god we’ve finally got an original challenge after a year plus of corporate sponsored challenges and rehashes (last week was fun but ultimately unsatisfying). Having the models shop for their own fabric certainly brought out the best and the worst in the designers. Kudos to the producers for truly limiting the amount of pre-shopping chatter between models and designers. Elliot loved that many of the models were just as scared as the designers.

While there are still WAY too many designers to cover, let’s talk about those that failed first. Elliot hated Korto’s (wasn’t that the thing that lived in a person’s belly in Total Recall) inside-out look. It looked unfinished and just plain ugly. Fusilli Joe made a fine garment but it showed his age and does not bode well for his future. Of all the whorishly short dresses, Wesley was clearly the worst. Thankfully, we won’t have to look at his 1980’s shorts and sport coat look anymore.

On the flip side, Elliot thought there were some great standouts this week. Kenley made a great garment for the second week in a row. However, Elliot was put off by the Cristian flashback collar. Blayne (sorry for the name misspell last week brotha) showed what he can do when not making designer diapers. He also managed to bring enough of the funny to offset the continued habit of adding “licious” to everything. His Stella/leather routine had Elliot and his partner rolling on the floor. Speaking of Stella, Elliot’s so glad she’s staying, as her blunt honesty is the most entertaining thing on the show. In a perfect world, there’ll be a spin off with Blayne and Stella living together sharing their coke and putting up with their bisexual Sagittarius neighbor Suede. Ah yes, that brings us to Suede. The strip solution to his difficult fabric was brilliant, different and completely appropriate for his model. Elliot often doesn’t agree with judges, but Suede’s dress was so good that Elliot almost forgot about the annoying speech pattern problem that Suede has.