Recap: Project Runway: All Stars – “Marge Madness”

 

 

There are just some days when you wake up and know you don’t want to check your email. Maybe you know that your bills are late. Maybe you sent an email you regret sending and you know the response is just sitting there. And maybe there’s the feeling I felt a few days ago when John Blabber himself asked me to cover a special project. Usually I’m a team player and will cover just about anything, but there was something about this email I knew in the pit of my stomach that I wouldn’t really like. The email was simple, to the point, and hard to swallow. “I need you to cover this episode of Project Runway because they’re focusing on Marge Simpson this week.” (Editor’s note, it was actually a bunch of Facebook Instant Messages.)

Fuck.

I’m a dude. A dude with a beard, a love of smoked meats, whiskey, and hockey. What the fuck do I know of fashion? I can barely dress myself. I was gonna need to call in an expert. Fortunately, we at Bubbleblabber keep some pretty interesting people on retainer for just such occasion. I was going to have to lean on Bubbleblabber Chief Fashion Correspondent Morgs (@StellaBlue25). Luckily, she wasn’t hard to get a hold of. But I knew sacrifices would have to be made. I was walking into a lion’s den. So there we were. 9pm on a Thursday. Cheese platter. Red wine. I was wearing a sweater. Apparently to understand what I was about to see I had to fully immerse myself in ideals of the show. ChefRich was gonna have to have girl talk time. To make it easier to decipher all of Morgs statements they will be in bold.

The show starts with all the contestants being told they would be creating an evening dress for Marge Simpson. They then cut to a video package of Marge talking to the cast about the requirements for the dress. The video is actually really cute with a few jokes about Homer’s drinking and the fact that Marge has worn the same dress for 25 years.  Obviously the contestants are up to the challenge. So they head to the sketch room and to the fabric store, where they had a tiny budget of only $200.

On the guy with the Mohawk (Christopher) and his choice of large flowered fabric- “Big flowered prints remind me of big women in moomoos. You have to have the right body type to pull it off. I don’t think the dress is going to come off as he intends it to.”

So they get back to the studio and receive a gift from Marge herself: A sweet set of Limited Edition Simpsons Converse high tops. Probably the only time I popped the entire show. Morgs also thought they were cool. This was probably the last time we were on the same page for the rest of the show.

When the guy in the purple shirt (Viktor) did a piss poor imitation of Marge’s voice- “Wow! He did a great job!”

They only have 2 days to pull this whole thing off. And that doesn’t mean 48 hours either. The first day they have the challenge explained to them, design, shop, and create. The next day they fit their model, send them to hair/make up, and then its off to the runway. That’s pretty high pressure. Roughly 24 hours to go from nothing to runway is impressive. Really impressive.

After a small amount of stereotypical reality show drama, blatant product placements, and model fittings, we are about to hit the runway.

On the current state of some of the dresses: Seth Aaron is ridiculous. He’s got way too many dresses. He has no idea what he’s doing but plays it off like he’s the best. Jeffery has lost his touch. Korto’s dress looks adorable. It’s totally something that I would wear. It looks comfortable. Iriana’s dress looks great when its flowing but when its still it’s gonna make Marge look bigger than she is. The belt helps though.

Zero hour. Runway time. With $150k plus a trip and crazy amounts of free swag are on the line. The judges are announced as Anthony Ryan Auld, Issac Mizrahi, Abagail Breslin (Little Rock from Zombieland!), and Stacey Bendet. In true reality show form we quickly find out who is in the middle of the pack and safe until next week. Now for our winner. After much consideration, the judges choose Irina Shabayeva’s flowing purple dress as the best of them all. At the bottom of the heap was Jeffery, who was promptly sent packing.

On Irina’s victory: I think it was the right dress to animate. The color is perfect to contrast Marge’s skin tone. I personally wouldn’t want this dress, however, because I don’t think it would flow like it did on Marge.

On Jeffery’s defeat: I was surprised! But he wasn’t producing like he did in the previous season. He got cocky and it really came around to bite him this time.

Right before the credit roll we get a chance to see Marge on the runway wearing her new, fully animated dress. I must say, I was a bit skeptical about the dress from an animation standpoint. The dress had a fair amount of layers that I didn’t think would come across when animated. But then I realized we were talking about the animators of The Simpson’s and quickly placed my foot in my mouth.

One thing I’d really like to commend is the fact that Seth Aaron was the only designer who said the word “animation” when describing his dress. Even though he designed and scrapped so many dresses, he truly had the final product in mind. He saw beyond the runway and saw it on the small screen and that’s great for inspiration’s sake. All of the judges also mentioned animation, but they’re taught to repeat buzzwords and whatnot.

So congratulations to Irina on her victory! We’ll be seeing you in Springfield really soon! Check out her Twitter (@irinashabayeva) or #DesignerIrina for more.

(@chefrichBB) feels like putting on some camo shorts and a sleeveless shirt to reclaim his toughness after tonight.

(@StellaBlue25) hopes they do more challenges like this, especially because I get free wine and a chance to see ChefRich uncomfortably sitting in a sweater.