This Week on Project Runway: Chris Takes Fashion to a Frightening New Place

Last week, when Project Runway aired the reunion episode – which I’d managed to somehow miss during every previous season (thankfully) – I reacted pretty cynically: Oh, this is just an attempt to wring even more dollars from advertisers and fans. This week, the producers, as they always do, aired the first of two final episodes that lead up to Fashion Week and conclude with the naming of a winner. Again, I reacted pretty cynically: Do we really need three episodes to find out which designer is going to win $100,000 only to immediately drift into obscurity except for later season appearances in car ads? Clearly this is a ploy by producers to milk the show for everything they can, well past audiences’ willingness to tag along, but they keep doing it. No wonder why I missed Project Runway finales in the past; I just didn’t have the wherewithal to repeatedly tune in when nothing dramatic was happening anymore. Oh well, it’s almost over now.

Still reeling from the ridiculous episode of America’s Top Model we just watched, my girlfriend and I prepared ourselves to find out which of the tied designers – Rami or Chris – would be selected by Heidi, Michael, and Nina to join Christian and Jillian at Bryant Park by opening up a bottle of white wine. In episode-time, it’s almost four months since we last saw our heroic designers; after being given $8,000 by the producers, they’d gone back to their home studios to design a collection that would wow audiences at Fashion Week. For Rami and Chris, this was an especially rough period, as they were both asked to come up with collections, no easy task, even though only one of them would get the chance to show off their work.

Per tradition, Tim paid home visits to all four designers, but none of these mini-episodes proved very fascinating or revealing except for Chris’s (though the sexual tension between Tim and Christian was worth giggling at). The chubby designer had actually incorporated human hair into his collection. Lots of it. I mean, this was some gross quasi-Buffalo Bill shit, my friends. At the end of the episode, though, when Chris brought three designs before the judges, all of them shaggy with dark human hair, he was actually met with delight. Heidi and company were unnerved, but he provided something fresh and outside the box. Rami, by contrast, seemed safe; sure, there was no draping going on, but his work was not inspired in the same way. This is probably why the judges chose Chris to go to Bryant Park.

Okay, that’s a lie. Unfortunately. Chris was sent home, like we all knew he eventually would be, but it’s obvious that, between him and Rami, he was the only one willing to push fashion someplace new. With only one episode left – supposedly (though I’m sure the producers can find a way to fit in another one by announcing a three-way tie or something stupid like that) – it all comes down to Christian, Jillian, and Rami. My money is on Christian, but, then again, whose isn’t?

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