Project Runway Season 15 Recap: Bungle in the Jungle

Image via Lifetime

This week’s Project Runway finds our Top 10 dropped into a commercial for Universal Orlando in the name of designing for the Urban Jungle.

Have we ever mentioned that Lifetime, a subsidiary of A+E Networks, is owned by the Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company? So when Heidi says they’ll be traveling to Florida to a resort, the assumption is that this will be Disneyworld. But no! This challenge is brought to you by the main Disney competitor in this arena, Universal, and their rides that are based on the upcoming most-likely-to-be-a-failure of a movie, Kong: Skull Island.

All this is somehow supposed to inspire them to make an “Urban jungle” outfit. Once they’re dragged away from their poolside sketching and tossed back into New York City, that is. One day, $200 budget. And yes, someone buys fun fur, in gorilla black.

Image via Lifetime

Let us not with the Cornelius or Brik somehow made the Top Ten, or the catty bitchery that continues to infect the contestants, and get on with Tim’s critique.

Thank you!

• Cornelius: Drop crotch pants. denim on denim. All fantasies in his mind. Tim sees “a Broadway version of street” in his mind’s eye and worries.
• Dexter: Cargo shorts, mandarin collar jacket. Tim loves the idea, but considering last week Dexter went off the rails, he doesn’t trust him.
• Brik: He’s making pants, the way he did those first two weeks and did so badly. And there are 70s geometric and 60s wavy black and white mod lines, ad Tim looks scared. Especially when he hears the words “cut outs.”
• Roberi: He’s making a dragon scale coat for a Khaleesi. It’s not street in NYC. It’s not even street in Westeros!
• Jenni: She’s decided this is her challenge to lose, so she’s questioning every decision in order to help herself along in the losing of it.

Image via Lifetime

• Rik: Something muslin, something punk rock. Next!
• Erin: She promises last week was an outlier and tonight will be a return to form. Tim is relieved, except for the time management. Carry on!
• Nathalia: Her cape is too heavy already, and then she breaks out the fun fur, which she plans to *line the inside of it* with. Tim looks like he might have an allergy attack.
• Mah-Jing: Somehow he went to the jungle and came back with “skintight minidress.”
• Laurence: She’s making a Michael Jackson from Thriller inspired red and black leather jacket. Jungle boogie, indeed.

Tim is openly relieved that he hasn’t told half the room to start from scratch with only five hours to go. For the record, so is half the room. Let’s move on to the models arrival. Lots of muslin being tried on, not nearly enough designers have dived into the fabric stashes. Except Brik, whose fabric combo is giving even him an acid flashback.

Day of runway, and our two bottom dwellers from last week, Erin and Nathalia are in the worst positions time wise. To be fair, we’ve seen Erin pull stuff out at the last minute, but she seems dubious of her ability to do that in two hours. We speed through the Product Displaying Make Up folk and the Name Dropping Hair Salon (who are trying hard to make braids happen this season), and back to the panic in the workroom. Dexter made a shirt in three damn minutes, and yet his top looks better than the one Cornelius seems to have.

Let’s head down to the runway and see how much of a jungle it is out there.