The Mom Challenge Without the Moms (especially the fat ones) ~ 'Project Runway' Blog

Yes, this was the challenge where the designers design for 'real women.' Thankfully, this time around the 'models of true womanhood' had not birthed any of the contestants and the tears that were shed before the runway were for Jack. 

Jack who has made no secret about his HIV status decided to drop out of the competition after a flair up of some sort of bacteria infection located in his mouth.  Jack, the contestants, the producers, and Tim Gunn took the news with maturity and compassion.  After Jack left, Chris (a fan and fellow contestant favorite) came back to the show. 

Jack you were talented and fun and the competition will suffer for the loss of you. 

To make the challenge seem more mom like, the models had all recently lost a significant amount of weight and the extra baggage they carried was their favorite outfit from their heavier days.  Nothing was very noteworthy except for the hideous wedding dress that some poor sap of a woman thought could be made into something else.  Hint, it wasn't Steven's best challenge.  He did his best and actually I thought his effort was successful (for the love of all that is holy the man was working with a cheap ass wedding dress) but the judges didn't think so and sent Steven (best known for his imitations - a la Santino...there is only one Santino). 

First I have to say, finally, a Christian outfit that I could stomach.  His model looked very nice and dare I add hip.  He won and I was not disappointed. 

I liked Chris's effort except for the big red bow he felt necessary to complete the outfit (that little touch made the woman look like a tastefully wrapped Christmas present).  Overall, I found the cerulean blue and black combination flattering. 

I don't know what Elisa was thinking, but damn, she made her model look a modern day lady pirate.  She was in the bottom two.  I don't know why she didn't produce something more flattering to the body because I would think her capable with her skills and experience.  (You just know she does the Renaissance circuit and you know a lot of those women are no waifs.) 

Jillian just used the trim from her lady's outfit to help complete a very va-va voom look.  Her model looked lovely in red, and honestly the whole outfit would have been better without the trim.  I think because Jillian used a fraction of the original material that it may have cost her this week's win. 

I both liked and disliked Kevin's outfit.  He did do something unique with his lady by giving her a strapless top to what I presume was an oversized business suit.  The model seemed to love it so I guess in the end (assuming you aren't Auf  weidersehened off the show) that is all that counts. 

Kit's outfit was bright red with some prints.  From a distance it looked like her model was wearing a big red holiday apron.  Although Kit's work isn't really my taste, the dress seemed to work despite itself. 

Rami's outfit was beyond cute and downright sexy.  He wasn't selected in the top three which seems almost downright criminal. 

Sweet P's dress was sweet but not memorable.  Her model looked good in it.  The same as above goes for Victorya's dress except she had to work with forest green as a color so she had a bit more of a challenge than Sweet P. 

Overall, I liked this challenge.  I liked that the models were real women and that they had lost a lot of weight in order to dress in normal clothing.  I also appreciated that no mom was in sight in order to complicate the behind the scenes politics that goes on with the designers.  Once again, to the producers of the challenges; good job! 

'PR' will not be returning until after the New Year (which is tonight, but I wrote this some time ago).  Don't they know that some of us are going through really stressful times and with the writers' strike stopping all new 'Daily Show' production or any worthwhile series that all we have is 'Project Runway'?  Where is the compassion?  The concern?  Producers of 'PR' don't make me pull out the my bag of recent woes...because I will!