September 07, 2006

Project Runway 3 show 9

This week found our last 6 designers still in Paris. Catherine Malandrino dishes out the next challenge which is to design an evening dress using couture methods. Now this was an interesting show because it was very educational.

Couture is a method of clothing manufacturing that is totally French. Period. The design house has a huge list of requirements to meet and the French government will then allow the design house to use the word couture. Couture involves a lot of hand sewing, bead work, embroidery, etc. All by hand and all very time consuming.

The designers go to Montmartre and take 30 minutes to sketch while having a perfect view of Paris on a perfect day. Then it's off the a fabric store with a budget of about $375 to get everything they need. Then it's off the the workroom for 2 days to finish a dress.

Laura: black long sleeve, typical cut to the belly button front, and instead of fur she put huge clown ruffles down the front and on the sleeves. Awful.

Uli: very nice gray dress. lace at the top. several lengths of braided fabric for straps. fit was outstanding.

Michael: blue fabric with ruching (MICHAEL STOP! the ruching did Malan in!), really not good. he was definately in over his head on this one. he wasn't really a hand sewer and he was so focused on the mechanics of getting this done that he didn't step back and take a good look at the design.

Jeffrey: jeffrey went plaid crazy. fabrics in yellow plaid, yellow madra, and more yellow plaid. he had imunity and seemed to be taking advantage of the fact he couldn't be out.

Vincent: yet another WTF outfit for our guy Vincent. the fabrics didn't work well together, the skirt looked like draps, ill fit and if the model had any boobs they would have been popping out. back had a little flower glued on. yes couture gluing. nice.

Kayne: beautiful but just too much. always too much because that's Kayne's point of view. hard to scale back when you make a living selling pagent gowns for a living. say what you want his ability to fit a woman's body is second to none.

Paris runway show was during a party hosted by Catherine on a boat during floating along the Seine. On the way to the party someone threw an egg which spattered on Michael's dress. It didn't make the dress look any better.

Catherine did her judging and gave the scores to Tim Gunn. The next morning everyone is back on the plane to NY. Some dresses traveled well, others not so much. 2 hrs to fit the NY models and then only the runway for elimination.

Jeffrey won with his creation. Love it or hate it at least he seemed to understand the challenge and had a point of view. And finally Vincent was out. In my opinion Vincent should have been out long ago but for some reason he just kept getting a pass.

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