Project Runway season 16, episode 5 recap: Descending into Good and Evil
By Buckie Wells
Project Runway season 15, episode 5 image provided by Lifetime
In this week’s episode of Project Runway, the remaining designers must transform looks inspired by Disney’s The Descendants for guest judges from the movie.
The designers take a trip to Lyndhurst Castle where they meet Descendants stars Dove Cameron and China Anne McClain. Their challenge for the day includes designing either ‘good’ or ‘evil’ outfits with fantasy-inspired themes. Last week’s winner, Michael Brambila, doles out who will get which theme and chooses to split up the twins. Hopefully, this will finally break them apart.
“Indeed.”
With two days to complete their assignments, the designers start by walking around the castle grounds. As Dove Cameron points out, the looks should remain contemporary. Then, they receive $300 and thirty minutes to shop at MOOD. (Tonight’s Swatch shot included watching everyone’s favorite Boston Terrier running up the stairs.)
By now, we know everyone’s styles and weaknesses. We know who works best together and who is intimidated by styling the plus-size models. Because the designers are meant to be sort of inspired by Disney, a lot of the colors they choose seem really young. However, some of the people who stand out early include Kenya, Batani, and Amy. Some of them don’t appear to have a vision, but if everyone went into the sewing room knowing exactly what to do, there wouldn’t be a show.
A lot of Tim Gunn’s critiques sound familiar, too. There are a lot of “Pull backs” and “Mmmmmno” comments as he strikes fear into the hearts of designers like Claire and Kentaro, who didn’t buy enough fabric.
“I tried so hard to rein in my spookiness, I don’t know if the judges will view mine as evil.”
If you’re any sort of adult Disney fan, you can tell that Samantha is a Disney fan from a hundred miles away. Unfortunately, Tim believes that her design comes across as “too crafty.” At first, I heard “crappy,” but upon clarifying with some of the other people in my viewing party and the closed captioning, Tim did say “crafty.” Crappy sounded funnier, but Tim’s classier than that and we all know it.
Over on the other side of the room, Aaron kind of just goes for it and hopes for the best. Meanwhile, Brandon hits his stride and keeps moving forward. They didn’t add any sort of weird zen graphics during editing, so too bad. Ayana also uses several different textures and color, but I’ll save my judgment for the runway.
On the second day, Claire wants to scrap the bodice of her “Coachella after-party” look. She’s on the “good” side, but her dress looks super juvenile. Though not unlike something you would find in The Descendants.
So let’s go to the runway.