Winding down toward Fashion Week — only four designers still competing. Korto, Leanne, Jerell, and Kenley ready themselves for the last challenge before the three finalists are chosen. Their personalities still hold: Korto resolute and dignified; Leanne quiet and determined; Jerell humorous and confident; Kenley... well, Kenley.
The morning after the “hip hop” disaster, Kenley still blames Leanne for the outfit’s failure and her near dismissal. Jerell is the last male contestant, and living single is - well, working his imagination perhaps. Jerell entertains himself with an impromptu play. The stars are Tim Gunn’s bobblehead figure, a bottle of pancake syrup, and a piece of fruit with a face drawn on it. It’s kind of like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Except in an expensive New York apartment. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Jerell uses the carpet squares as a stage. Tim seems to figure in all the impromptu theater on Project Runway. Remember Santino’s Tim Gunn: The Musical or skit involving Tim and Red Lobster?
The stress is also showing between Kenley and the other women designers. They are no longer on speaking terms. More on that later. For now, the weekly model question is asked. Korto, last week’s winner, decides to keep her model Katrina. Xaviera, Suede’s model, is out. Heidi, in a leopard print mini dress, tells the four designers to meet Tim downstairs for a field trip. They pile into a van. Tim and Kenley are in one row of seats, the other designers all behind them. The group jokes about what the challenge might be. The van turns into The New York Botanical Garden. Founded in 1891, it covers 250 acres in the Bronx, has fifty curated display gardens, a fifty acre forest, and over one million plants. Should be enough scope for this challenge: Design an outfit inspired by a flower or plant on these grounds.
The range of colors, shapes, and types of flowers are “really therapeutic,” Jerell says. Tim quips, “It’s therapeutic unless you’re Joan Crawford, and a control freak, and you don’t want the bloom to fade,” drawing upon the film Mommie Dearest for his awesome pun. Remember that scene in the movie star’s garden, where she hacks every plant and tree to pieces, because she’s gotten old? I do, and Tim’s marvelous reference kept me laughing loudly for a good few minutes. The image transplanted into that serene setting... Kenley walking next to him in her ‘50s hair... I don’t know. She’s not mad at you, Leanne. She’s mad at the dirt.
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