Project Runway 3, Episode 1: The Runway Meets Maria von Trapp

Everyone has been cast and they are all arriving at the Atlas apartments again. Let’s just do quick housing rundown of who is with who (and of course who got cast).

Apartment 1 – Malan (aka Plucked Weasel), Michael, Bradley, and Robert (aka Barbie guy)
Apartment 2 – Laura (aka Annie Lenox), Angela (aka Faux Yves Saint Laurent), Stacey, and Alison
Apartment 3 – Kayne, Jeffrey, Vincent, and Keith. Kayne apparently does not know how keys work since everyone in Oklahoma leaves their doors unlocked.
Apartment 4 – Uli, Bonnie, and Katherine

They all seem to bond well when they meet each other but they find a note that tells them that it’s time for a rooftop rendezvous with Heidi and Tim on the roof of the Atlas, where Heidi can now have champagne rather than sparkling apple juice as she’s not pregnant… well, not at the time of the shooting. Conversation between the other designers also begins and I realize that Robert’s kinda cute and I wonder what kinda of kilt he would make me. I wonder if he made Barbie a kilt as well. Turns out he worked for Isaac Mizrahi and it was one of the best and worst places to work. I wish we got more details than the fact that Robert wanted to drive a stake through Isaac’s heart. I want to hear about how if he didn’t have his favorite headband on, he would just sit in the corner and mope for hours. Not even want to look at a sketch.

We’re getting reintroduced to all of the candidates at this point. I’m sparing you the details unless it’s interesting. So far it’s not.

Heidi calls all of the designers together because it’s time for the new challenge. They must use the materials found in their apartments to design an outfit. It’s all about innovation and how they can turn it into fashion. They must create an outfit that expresses who they are as a designer. The designer who touches an object first owns it. Malan, in his annoying accent that makes ME want to drive a stake through his heart (mainly because he’s reminding me of a vampire), says that he was annoyed because he likes using finer quality fabrics and doesn’t think that sheets and curtains qualified as such. Malan, maybe I should take you to the furniture store I went to where the couches cost, like, $6,000 because they’re made out of Italian silk.

Freak.

Everyone races down to their apartment to grab their bag and start at it. Curtains are going quickly. Lampshades, bar stools. There’s a fur rug and a chandelier claimed by Laura. Angela takes the leather chaise while Kayne is going for an ironing board cover. Bradley snags a pillowcase which turns out to be Robert’s personal pillow that he brought with them. Now, while Robert admits that he can be a bit of a baby and has to have his own pillow with him and we might make fun of him for that, trust me, I can empathize. Having slept on pillows a third of the thickness of mine while on vacation in Italy, I would probably pack my own pillow if I went back. The apartments are totally trashed and I hope someone comes through and cleans up before they get back.

Laundry bags collected, everyone heads over to Parsons to begin working on their outfit. Everyone is seeing what they have to work with and Robert adroitly points out that the hanging plant just might not make it into the final image for a very good reason. As with last year, they are all assigned a model for the first challenge. Interesting to note that they are bringing back immunity for the winner this season. I kinda liked it last year when the winner wasn’t automatically around for another week. Otherwise, we’d be stuck seeing Zulema around, and quite frankly, I was sick of her by that point anyway. Maybe it’s just for this episode. Who knows?

Angela is freaking out about the time limit while Kayne says that he normally works with silk but a rubber mat is usually not included on one of his pageant creations. Hmmm. I bet if ya threw some spangles or bugle beads on there it’d be just lovely and would work fine. Keith reminds us that he’s a menswear designer and never made a dress before. But according to him, he’s the best person there so he’s not worried. Katherine has the down comforter, of which she has begun removing the feathers and it’s a mess.

The real drama is with Stacey. She has no clue how to work a sewing machine. Keith says that the problem isn’t with the machine, as Stacey claims, but with the fact that she just doesn’t know how to use a machine. For her credit, Stacey is just going to hand-sew the whole thing which makes me wonder how she made the first few outfits. Did she hand-sew those as well or was she able to use a machine? I mean, I think we know by now that the machines at Parsons might not be the greatest, but we’ve never seen someone who has NEVER been able to work the machine before. I mean, I’m not the best sewer myself (although I can do a nice baste stitch if it calls for it) but I think I could work a machine I had to. [Assistant Editor’s note: I think the problem was that they were industrial sewing machines. She’s probably used to a commercial machine.]

We’re two hours away from the deadline and Vincent is doing a whacked-out dress. It has HUGE pockets and, according to Tim, it looks a bit cartoonish. I just decide to be blunt and say it’s butt-bleepin’ ugly. In fact, Vincent wants to take a basket and make it into a hat. Tim, for some reason, doesn’t tell him that the basket on the head will make his model look like a freak show alien, and says that the basket on its own isn’t going to cut it. Vincent doesn’t see the suggestion that he should just leave it out and decides to add some chains onto it. While I think that we’re looking at our first elimination, Vincent thinks he’s create something that Anna Wintour would put in the pages of Vogue.

Over to Jeffrey the Neck-Tattooed Rocker Designer, who is doing a jacket and dress combo. Jeffrey wants to make something that’s not just different but better than everyone. Tim questions the design and wonders if the two parts are competing with each other. However, it’s Stacey that’s getting some attention because Tim is being very quiet and she’s not taking the hints that her design isn’t that great. He tells her not to add, just to make it work.

Finally, we’re over to Keith and Tim questions why he’s just using the blue sheet for his outfit. Um. Because it’s material from the apartment, Tim? The argument you are making that it’s too much like “fabric” and he’s not being innovative enough isn’t washing with me. If you wanted them to be innovative, you would not have hung curtains (fabric) or put sheets on the bed (more fabric). You should have made them be surprised and, like, “Oh… well, there goes my idea to make a dress out of sheets.” Tim leaves them with an hour to go and Vincent is still working on his basket hat. Jeffrey thinks that everyone’s work is crap and no one inspires him while Robert says exactly what Tim said before – you’re doing too much and need to edit it down.