Continued from page 3

Project Runway: The Inside Dish!

Originally posted Thursday October 19, 2006 01:25 PM EDT

Episode Eleven

Photo by: Courtesy Bravo

After a week hiatus, Season 3 resumed where it had left off – with glorious bitching, cattiness, a little backstabbing and some fashion, of course. Watching reruns from my season were good, but I yearned to find out how many designers would show at NY Fashion Week. Speculations have run amok on Project Runway blogs for weeks, so this episode held the long-awaited answer.

The remaining four designers – Jeffrey, Laura, Michael and Uli – opened this penultimate episode with a recap of the challenges they had won throughout this season.

The designers then sauntered over to the Elle magazine offices, where Nina Garcia delivered their final challenge: to create an outfit, with complete "creative freedom," that best defines who they are as a designers. They must also choose three words to describe their design aesthetic and take a photo of the outfit in a fitting backdrop.

As an added perk, the winning outfit will be photographed by Gilles Bensimon for the prestigious "First Look" page in Elle. That?s a mouthful of a challenge. I hope Nina got that all in one take.

While working on this challenge, the designers were visibly stressed and seemed to be nearing the end of their creative wits. Michael was confused; it seemed to take him 4 hours to reach his creative epiphany. Uli constructed a long, flowing tie-dye gown only to then rip it to pieces and start anew. Laura struggled not to be safe, and Jeffrey took out his insecurities by belittling the other designers' styles, as well as doing a bullfighter dance on Uli's ripped gown. Olé!

After the photo sessions, the designers were ready for the judging that would decide who would show at Olympus Fashion Week. I always presume that this is the episode where the designers will blow us away, or "wow" the judges – I call it the Bring It On episode. Unfortunately, they rarely do. Looking back at Season One?s Nancy O?Dell challenge, not a "wow" dress in the bunch. Ditto for Season Two's Iman challenge.

This season was no different. Michael's wine-colored gown was more 1-800-HOT-MESS than sexy, sensual and sultry (the three words he used to describe it). Laura?s dress represented her three words – glamour, confidence, elegance – but it didn't depart from anything she'd done before. Jeffrey?s bubble dress looked amateurish, as remarked on by guest judge Teri Agins of the Wall Street Journal. I secretly wished Michael Kors would have said that it looked more like it was made out of material found in Betsy Ross's bedroom while she was sewing the original U.S. flag! Uli won by default for doing a short dress – albeit another printed one – but with a "non-Uli" silhouette.

Photo by: Courtesy Bravo

In typical PR fashion, we were treated to the climactic twist: there were no losers! So we got our answer: all four designers would create a collection for Fashion Week. Somehow, I still felt unsatisfied. Because no one was actually eliminated, I wondered, then why go through the motions of this episode?

All that changed when the 30-second preview of next week's crazy "Reunion" episode came on my TV screen. It was all I needed to feel wholly satisfied. Thank you, PR. Bring it on!

Read Nick's take on Episode Ten...

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• Inside Project Runway