Project Runway Junior Season 2 Recap: The JumpsuitSucker Proxy

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Promotional Image via Lifetime/Photo by Barbara Nitke

Tonight’s episode of Project Runway Junior promises a double elimination, as the kids get inspired by street art murals to make some really 80s looks.

We’re down to the final six contestants, moving full speed ahead to the finale. But an episode with a Tim Gunn Save means that there’s always a corresponding episode with a double elimination. Project Runway proper usually springs them with no warning. Project Runway Junior is slightly more humane, giving the kids fair warning the double elimination is coming ahead of time….and also guaranteeing the emotional pressure will be on.

The runway had been decorated with street art murals. (What you thought they would take the kids out onto the actual streets of New York City? Half the time they don’t even let them go to Mood.) Aya Kanai joins Tim and Hannah on the runway because this is the Seventeen Magazine sponsored challenge, which will be featuring the winning look within their pages. There are six pieces of street art hanging around the room that are randomly assigned via button bag. (Click the link to see the artwork)

Tieler: “Passion Fruit”
Chelsea “New York City Neon”
Izzy: “Iridescent Hue”
Hawwaa: “Seventeen: Make It Work”
Molly: “Wild Style Paradise”
Chris: “Magic Love”

The kids are allowed to go to Mood for once, which apparently decided to close for the occasion. (From the looks of it, they’ll have a lot to clean up after them, as they wreck the place both pulling fabric from the shelves and when using the cutting table.) The budget for the high end fashion forward look they create from their murals is $300. Since the place is technically closed, Tim is badly miscast as the checkout boy, looking mystified, and can barely operate the cash register that’s 50 years newer than he expected. At least it saves the workers of Mood utter frustration of dealing with teenagers with poor math and shopping skills. Let’s just hope he rang them up right.

Promotional Image via Lifetime/Photo by Barbara Nitke

Back at the workroom, Molly is grommeting, much to everyone’s headache-induced annoyance, while Chelsea has realized to her horror that making her own textile out of pleathers might have been biting off more than she can chew, since this is a one day challenge.

Let’s see what Tim things, since critiquing is his forte, not cash registers.

Hawwaa: She is colorblocking prints and neon 80s colors. It hurts to look at. Tim decided to tell her to carry on.
Chelsea: Her fabric made out of pleather stars makes Tim smile. Good enough.
Chris: His artwork was a girl’s face, so he’s going in a completely different direction, just making some very 80s era clothing you would have bought at Best at the time. Tim is quite concerned about the construction.
Izzy: Her rainbow mural has been reduced to a pink ombre skirt. Tim doesn’t get it, and feels her “surprises” are bad.
Molly: She’s the only designer who ignored the freakish colorfulness of her inspiration and went with black and white that focused on the lines.
Tieler: He’s making an off white velvet leisure suit. Tim is floored. A bad kind of floored.

Izzy obediently rethinks her design in accordance to Tim’s critique. Tieler and Molly do not, suggesting that at the end of the day, they might be the ones going home. But with Chris’ fit issues and Hawwaa’s defensiveness over the Indian inspirations of her designs, it’s really any of them who could be cut.

Day of runway, and the Product Displaying MakeUp People get their segment, while the children panic over who will go home today. Tieler’s fit issues begin to compound much like the did last week (the fit on those pants!), while Molly’s sticks out as the only black and white look in the room.

Let’s see what the judges think.

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