Project Runway: Baubles, Bangles and Beads

Project Runway: Season Six
Episode: Baubles, Bangles and Beads
October 15, 2009

Previously on Project Runway: The designers turned wedding dresses into something that failed brides could (theoretically) actually use in their daily life. Gordana climbed out of the basement and won her first challenge. Christopher wrapped  a divorcee in an oven bag and survived. Epperson didn’t get the idea of “remake” in “remake a wedding dress” and didn’t. Oh, and Nina was still M.I.A.

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You know the drill. Two recaps. One week. Half a life. Cliff-thru. Let’s go.

Oh no! Another designer left! What’s happening?

Heidi delivers tree mail. Something about shiny things. Everyone goes to a “spectacular” place to meet Tim.

The “spectacular” place is another room at FiDM (pronounced: Fid’m). There Tim introduces them to fashion legend, Bob Muthafuckin’ Mackie.

Nicolas wets himself.

The challenge: The designers will have two days to create a stage design “in the manner of” Bob Mackie. (I wonder why they made the conscious decision to not say “in the style of” instead. But since I know zip about fashion, I’m sure it’s over my head.)

And one more thing. The designers will be making said stage design for a multiple Grammy® winning artist, former Mouseketeer and onetime Dirrty, body-piercing addict, Christina Aguilera.

Nicolas becomes turgid.

The designers make sketches of their designs while examining some of the exhibited outfits which Mackie designed for the likes of Cher, Madonna and Tina Turner. (I guess the Carol Burnett curtain-rod outfit is hiding in the next room.)

Shirin freaks out, since this isn’t the kind of thing she does.

And once they get Nicolas to stop humping Mackie’s leg, the gang is off to Mood to shop.

While this happens, we see that (once) sweet Irina is in the middle stages of completing her transformation into Kenley. She rips on everyone else’s fabric choices, because she clearly is so much better than they are.

Back in the workroom, things progress slowly (or maybe it seemed to take forever, since this season is such a snooze).

As I come in and out of consciousness, I see that …

Gordana is losing her Slavic mind, as every element of her dress keeps coming apart. (No cracks about Gypsy curses, please.)

Irina directs her next barbs at Shirin, saying that she doesn’t deserve to still be here. (I now await her story about her tugboat captain daddy and a flying cat.)

Carole Hannah is actually on screen, which normally means doom. She horses around with her lust object, Logan, and acts generally darling. But, despite the attempts to make her seem quirky as they show her making some pretty random things, the fact of the matter is, she’s actually quite dull. Capable, but dull.

Logan has no idea what a “costume” or a “Christina Aguilera” is, so he decides to make an outfit which is equal parts zebra and Wilma Flintstone. During their playtime, Carole Hannah decides to don the designer’s furry vest and do her best Yeti impression.

(This is what passes for entertainment this season.)

And Nicolas is experiencing an erection which is lasting more than four hours and will need to consult his medical professional.

Eventually, Tim arrives for his “talk to me”s.

Christopher is making what looks to be two separate outfits, with the idea to have one break away to reveal the other, a la Cher circa 1975. Tim, though, thinks the “ta da” should reveal something more “slutty.”

(Personally, I never thought I’d hear Sir Tim actually encouraging someone to make something “slutty,” but … well, we know Christina.)



Althea, too, is making a two-stage stage outfit. And, again, Tim’s not too excited by what he’s seeing.

In the case of Nicolas, however, the mentor is startled by the designer’s white, feather-laden garment. Tim says he thought for sure that what he was seeing was Nicolas' ice-princess garment, which (undeservedly) won the challenge a few weeks back, being rolled it over for inspiration.

Tim is worried that the judges will think that they’re seeing the same outfit they’ve saw before, completely forgetting that the judges never saw that abomination creation in the first place, three random replacement people (and Heidi) did.

And Tim is particularly concerned about Shirin’s outfit, which looks to be a big ole’ Ursula in The Little Mermaid mess. He’s worried that it doesn’t reflect her usual level of sophistication and more reflects the fact that she’s totally stumped on this one.



When she asks if he likes anything about the garment, Tim can’t say that he does. (And here I get worried and hope that, like last week, she can pull something off at the last minute.)

Carol Hannah gets some good notes from the mentor. And she shows herself to be thoughtful about her black-on-black, feather-laden plans when she admits that the dress is too long, but she can’t think of a way to transition it into something shorter without having it look like an ice skating outfit.

As for the rest, I can’t say I really remember (or care) much.

Cut, cut, cut. Sew, sew, sew.

And then it’s time for another stage in Irina’s Kenley metamorphosis.

When the models arrive for their fittings, Irina decides to fire her smacktalk towards Carol Hannah, and this time it’s in the workroom, mere feet away from the other designers. Irina says to her own model that she doesn’t even consider Carole Hannah “a designer” and that the girl doesn’t even have a good personality to make up for that failing.

What. A. Bitch.

In the words of Googie Gomez in The Ritz, “An’ I tot ju gwere nice!”

I think Nicolas speaks for everyone when in interview footage he says that Irina may be a good designer, but is a really mean one.

Anyhoo, before you know it, we’re at the Runway show and we see that Mackie and Christina Aguilera (with an unfortunate haircut and an expanding décolletage) are on board as judges, and Nina Garcia has been released from her secret, black site fashion detention center. But this time we're missing Michael Kors.

And the angels sing.

The show begins.

Christopher’s made a two-part outfit which is now comprised of a somewhat interesting short coat and a somewhat boring, second look of a poorly made corset and spangly panties beneath.

Althea offers a sparkly gown with a 30-foot train, which I really can’t see anyone parading around on stage without additional liability insurance.

Irina’s made a short sparkly number which leaves no impression.

As Logan’s model arrives on the runway in an Animal-Planet-Meets-Tina-Turner-In-Beyond-Thunderdome outfit, the personality-deprived designer says it’s “on the verge” of being a costume. (Er, wasn’t the challenge to make a costume? Do those stupid knit caps cover your pretty little ears too?)



Shirin’s model comes down the catwalk and the top half of the dress now looks like something I would have expected from her. But the bottom is still the mess of spangled seaweed it was before. So sad.

Gordana’s look is a total disaster. From the concept to the execution, it wouldn’t even get her cast on the show in the first place. It’s six flavors of sad.

Nicolas’ model pops out wearing what the husband agreed was a full-on Ice Capades look. Still, I suppose it is appropriate to the challenge. (Side note: The model clearly does not have the boobage to pull this off. So, I have to imagine Aguilera in it for it to work for me.)

Finally, Carol Hannah’s dress appears. And I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s an elegant evening gown, but, to my eyes, the model has trouble even walking it down the runway and I can’t see how it would work practically on the stage. The feather detail is pretty, but I can’t stop thinking, again, how the model isn’t helping the cause here.

After the scores are totaled, Irina is declared the sole middle-of-the-packer. (Take that, missy!) And, having won the final immunity of the season last week, Gordana is sent away. Heidi mentions that Gordana is very lucky to have immunity since she surely likely would have been going home for that horrid mess.

Gordana admits to her disaster and leaves the stage.

Here, I have to admit to (again) not being really sure as to which are the top three and which are the bottom three. (Maybe I’m just stupid.)

Upon questioning, though, we see that Shirin, Christopher and Logan are the three bottoms and Althea, Carol Hannah and Nicolas are the tops.

The questioning points out various details I hadn’t really noticed before, like how Logan’s supposed-to-be-extravagant stage look had three lonely chains across the back, which is hardly extravagant. And the “pop of color” in his design was something that one would only see if one was to reach into the model’s (supposed) cleavage and pull out an inch of purple fabric.

Nina says she sees a “glimmer” of promise in the top half of Shirin’s outfit, but sees the bottom half as a “Carmen Miranda moment.”

And Christopher’s look(s) get slammed for looking a.) not very good and b.) too much like the look Christina rocked in 2001 during the whole Moulin Rouge/“Lady Marmalade” group sing experience.

As for the looks the judges liked … well, they liked them. Nicolas’ would let Miss A move around on stage. Althea’s had a lot of thought behind it, even if it had that massive train back there, too. And Carol Hannah’s was elegant.

After the judges deliberate, and we all have a good laugh about Bob Mackie wanting diamonds on the crotch (you had to see it to get it), the designers are called back.

Althea is safe.

And the winner of the challenge is … Carol Hannah! (Yea!)

She’s thrilled to have finally won something in this contest.

Nicolas is safe.

Logan is safe. (Oh, rats.)

So, it’s down to Christopher and Shirin.

Heidi does her usual shaming and then …

“Shirin … you’re out.”

Jaws drop.

I can’t say I heard anything after that, since everything went dark.

When I came to again, the models were presenting some kind of infomercial for Clairol Herbal Essence hair products and some chick was having trouble walking and talking at the same time.

I suspect I fell on the remote and accidentally flipped over to VH-1.

Next time on Project Runway: Irina completes her Kenley metamorphosis and starts wearing hair pets and using lots of floral prints.