Project Runway Season 15 Recap: Don’t Drink and Sew

Image via Lifetime

Project Runway throws a faux cocktail party for a challenge to make real cocktail gowns. It’s enough to drive a designer to drink.

This week’s Project Runway drops us into the cocktail party, already in progress. No really, the contestants are faking being at a party really well! They even pretend it’s not weird that the only other guests are Heidi, Zac and Nina, and a CEO from the booze being served!

Did Lifetime really spring for a party for these people, in the middle of the season, in a way they’ve never done ever in the history of the show? Don’t be ridiculous. The CEO gets up and performs a commercial for the drinking pineapples they contestants are having their martinis in, which should have been their first clue. For the slow ones in the back, Heidi then “reveals” this is a challenge…a cocktail dresses challenge! Inspired by the booze, the cups and the party space. $300 budget at Mood, which means the booze sellers must have spent beaucoup bucks for the branding.

Image via Lifetime

At least the shopping trip at Mood isn’t until the next morning, so the lightweights can have the night to sober up. With so much money there’s feathers, fringe and bead trims galore purchased along with the fabrics. The lack of teams means that the cattiness has returned with a vengeance, as Cornelius spend his one work day trying to neg and undermine the competition.

We’d rather skip over that drama, wish he’d been sent home last week, and get to Tim’s walk through.

• Rik: He’s making a leather dress that looks like a sexy blacksmith’s apron. Tim believes.
• Erin: Copper brocade….feathers….Erin. Tim shrugs. She just keeps winning anyway.
• Jenni: Her 1920s appliques look like expensive seaweed. Tim calls it compelling.
• Dexter: Chocolate fringe. Tim calls the neck sophisticated, and says to follow it.
• Brik: His dress is sort of plain, but the overlay really works. Tim can’t believe he has a good idea. So much so he runs away.
• Laurence: It’s a leather quilted cocktail gown. It’s so amazeballs, Tim backs away slowly, afraid to even breathe near it.

Image via Lifetime

• MahJing: He says he was inspired by the pineapple to make… a dress that looks like it’s for Jessica Rabbit but a cartoon bloodstain. Tim is appalled.
• Roberi: He has a sweater that looks like something a tourist would buy in a “Native American Stall” in New Mexico, and a bottom that looks like a 3D art project. Tim’s eyes bug in terror.
• Cornelius: He’s so uncreative he’s literally bought that hideous green houndstooth from a couple of weeks back. Tim calls it sportswear and tuns up his nose, and rightfully so.
• Tasha: He floral top looks like a couch and her balloon skirt looks like something my 7 year old niece would wear. Tim says it’s too junior and too day wear.
• Nathalia: Her beaded pink gown is supposed to be 1920s. Tim says it’s an ice skating outfit. And he’s NOT wrong. and she literally has nothing else, because she spent $250 on half a yard of the beaded fabric.

Post-Tim critiques, we have no less than four designers restarting from scratch: Nathalia, Cornelius, Mah-Jing and Tasha. Jenni gives her extra fabric to Nathalia since she has nothing to work with. The models come, the models go. Those who started from scratch talk themselves into it being ok. Well, not Tasha, who realizes hers is too plain and shops in everyone scraps to find anything. (Funny enough, she winds up taking from the Stall of Jenni Extras as well.)

Day of and there are basically only two modes in the workroom: the overconfidence who got A+s from Tim yesterday and those in outright panic. There is no middle ground, there is no other choices. Sorry Name Dropping Hair Salon and Product Displaying Make Up Folks. No time for you! It’s time to see how the judges react to this raft of insanity.