NYC Night Inspires Project Runway Designers

On Wednesday’s episode of Project Runway the designers were challenged to use New York City as their muse for a nighttime look. And Tim Gunn took them to Mood Fabric to shop for themselves, finally. This challenge like the first one is not original. It’s was done in a previous season. The designers were whisked-off in true tourist fashion on a double-decker bus to various neighborhoods in Manhattan, where they photographed their inspiration.

It was surprising to see guest judge Sandra Bernhard because she’s not exactly known for being fashionable, but all of her critiques were spot-on, especially when she commented on Jennifer’s matronly frock. You’d think Jennifer would have learned from the last challenge, in which many of the designers were forced to use satin fabric. Like many of the designers last episode, she sent a crooked hem and puckered seams down the runway this week. Her dress looked like a more dowdy version of something from Forever 21. If she had created a simple shift with the the same top-half, she probably would have placed higher. I thought she should have been eliminated instead of Emily, who created a rather unflattering ruffle dress. Her dress and Blayne’s seemed similar in feeling to me, but he ended up in the mediocre group because he had the design sense not to weirdly place his ruffles. In the end, Kenley’s Christian Lacroix-esque dress proved the most innovative and won. But the judges were almost as smitten with Terri’s backless dress and pants ensembles, one of the few separates combos, which was fierce (Yeah, I said it, er, wrote it.) Shout-out to Korto for being ahead of the jumpsuit summer trend and also Jerrell for creating a gown in the same amount of time it took the other designers to make cocktail attire.