Make it work!

Season 4 of Project Runway is underway and I have finally gotten around to watching the premiere. We've got 15 new designers ready to roll, and while I usually try to introduce the designers one by one up front (like I do with the Amazing Race teams), I'm just not going to bother this time because... well, I'm too lazy to. So we will meet them as the season goes along, okay?

The new designers are summoned to home of Fashion Week - Bryant Park, where they are greeted by champagne and a very empty park in the middle of the day - as if that EVER happens. Tim and Heidi show up, looking fabulous as usual and making everyone swoon just a bit. With no time to waste, the designers are presented with challenge #1: Grab fabric from three tents set up across the park, lots of it, and then make an outfit that expresses "who you are as a designer." They all ransack the tents, and I feel terribly bad for the big fat guy Chris who can't really run and is the last one to reach the tents, but he turns out to get what he needs and wants out of the fabric choices, so it's all good.

Back to Parsons they go and they've got 13 hours to make it work! Seems like a lot of time (relatively speaking), but next thing you know there's only 4 hours left and here comes Tim to check out the progress. He's not really amused with Simone's progress, and that turns out to be a bad omen of things to come. Rami's making a lovely gray dress with lots of draping and Ricky's making a super cute sparkly babydoll dress. Elisa decides she's done with her dress even though there are still four hours left, and this is a problem because a) her dress has unfinished edges, b) its "pooping fabric" on the backside and c) she makes everyone hate her because she decides to take a nap while everyone else is hard at work. I'd also like to point out that we first met Eliza at Bryant Park grinding her silk chiffon into the ground to cover it with grass stains. Lovely. She isn't using using her grass stained chiffon as far as I can tell though, but I can't really quite figure out if that is a good thing or a bad thing, given the state of her dress.

At 1AM the designers head back to Gotham City for a rest, and the next morning they go back to Parsons to put in their finishing touches, meet and fit their models, get the models' hair and makeup done and make use of the glorious Bluefly Accessories Wall! I loooove the Bluefly accessories wall and this officially becomes my favorite show entity.

It's runway time, Heidi looks awesome as usual and we get to see the designers' first set of creations. Nina and Michael are seated and ready to judge, joined by designer Monique Lhuillier, whose work I don't know very well, BUT who I know makes lovely wedding gowns.

There are some of the usual disasters, and some outfits that are lovely. Actually, I was quite pleasantly surprised at just how lovely many of the outfits came out - pretty impressive for the first week. The winning outfit:

Made by Rami, and most definitely one of my favorites this week.

One day you're in, the next you're out:

Bye bye Simone. You didn't really stick around long enough for me to decide if I actually cared you were leaving. I was surprised Elisa the puppet maker didn't go home, given that her creation was quite awful, but I guess she got the creativity points.

All things considered, we're off to a good start for season four, and I can't wait to see more of the Bluefly Accessories Wall!