Project Runway is all about vision and delusion. The vision that making little clothes for little people is harder. The delusion that we care. The vision that little girls are pure. The delusion of tarting up a bunch of children.

Last night's Project Runway was a bit like smearing lipstick on a second grader or one of those shows where little JonBenet Ramseys twirl around in princess dresses trying to impress judges or like Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver but with better hair and worse clothing. It was like one of those. Pick a simile. The designers had to make an outfit for little girls between the ages of 5 and 8. They were each given a mini model and they were in turns cute, annoying, shy, loud, still, and squirmy. And because they needed something to keep the mature coat hangers busy, they were then given a surprise second look(!!!) for their big girl models. Fun. Well, not really because this challenge is one of the:

Things We Hate

  • Full-Tilt Lifetime Boogie: Really, a mommy and me challenge? This is ovary manipulation of the highest degree. This challenge was created so that the Midwestern moms targeted by the network could coo and aww and imagine that they were up there getting designed for by a bunch of hacks on a reality television program. These girls even melted Nina Garcia Fashion Director of Marie Claire Magazine. She actually smiled and it wasn't her usual wince/grimace when she's trying to not look like a huge bitch. It was a beaming that came directly from her uterus and snaked up her body pushing up the corners of her mouth. It was a horrible manipulation.
  • Maya: What the fuck is going on with Maya. She was the only remaining designer not to show at the final runway show in Bryant Park last week, so we thought that meant she was going home for sure this week. No dice. Also, she was barely on this episode. Are they just trying to vanish her like it's 1984 or something? Did she talk trash about Heidi and they're going to erase her from the planet? And now we know she's not in the final. How many weeks are we going to have to go carrying her bangs around like a backpack full of bricks?
  • Listening to the Clients: Especially if they are little girls. Never do this. Ever. How many times do we have to teach this lesson? There are only four people you have to please and they never stand on the runway. They sit next to it in directors chairs stained with fake tanning solution and back sweat. Don't make something for the girls, make something for the judges—every time!
  • Seth Aaron Is Smart: Fucking asshole Seth Aaron. He has a daughter (how, how did that happen?!) so he knows what they like and made a purse, which his mini-model loved and made NGFDMCM's lady parts twitch. We fucking hate him, but he is actually pretty good. His pair of designs looked like Gwen Stefani and her daughter, and that is a high compliment. He is going to do just enough right to get to the finals, isn't he? God, he is Wendy Pepper with a penis.
  • The Asshole Straight Guy: Nearly every season has had one, and Jeffrey Sebelia even won a season! You know the type, they are straight, abrasive, usually punk-rockish, and talk about their love of women and how it makes they design clothes for them, and it just pisses the rest of us off. This year we have two. Why can't Seth Aaron Jingleheimer Schmidt and Logan Jesse. Why can't we just have a bunch of girls and kooky gays? Straight guys have everything, just leave this for the girls and the gays!
  • Bad Parenting: Don't these girls have mothers? Where were they? They were just letting their impressionable young tots hang around with a bunch of absent-minded designers who want to exploit them for a win and a bunch of skinny models using them as props while teaching them sexy walks and the easiest way to barf up a baloney sandwich? Maybe these are all the kids of the producers and crew and they just all happen to have kids of about the same age, so they were really there behind the scenes. Anyway, I fear for these poor tykes.

Things We Love

  • Tim Gunn's Peek: Every week, right after Tim hurries all the designers and their breathing mannequins out of the room for the runway show, he always opens the door to the workroom, peeks his head in, and looks around to make sure no one is in there. It's like Tim is expecting to catch a stray designer hiding in the corner under a table quickly sewing the hem of a dress with an army of fairy helpers guiding the needle and thread. It's so cute. And what if there was one? Would Grampa Gunn wing a Werther's Original from his pocket and hit them in the head and tell them and their little fairies it's time to go?
  • Yellow: Both the ill-fated Jonathan and supremely ill-fated Maya used yellow this week. It was very cool. Why don't we have more yellow clothing? Why don't I have more yellow clothing? This needs to be corrected.
  • Jay's Outfit: Not the purple ruffley thing he made that made his 6-year-old look like a contestant on The Littlest Hooker, the one he wore while shopping at mood. It was a Kelly green sweater and shorts with some sort of printed sailboat pattern and probably topsiders (though we didn't see the shoes closely). It was the most inappropriate getup we ever did see. He looked like he was dressed for a gay clam dig on Nantucket, but he was shopping in a fabric store in New York. It was so out of place it was amazing.
  • The Boys: Last season the boys sucked and we thought it was some supreme Lifetime conspiracy to get all ladies to the end, which they did. Well, this year is the total opposite and the boys are kicking ass. Even if two of them are the horrible straight guys, we're glad to have some penis power back in this competition. Maybe they've been taking the free lady vitamins that Lifetime put in their Atlas apartments and are somehow dodging the testosterone sensors at Parsons.
  • Michael Kors Hates Kids: Of course he does, and it makes us love him even more.
  • Lifetime Movies: God, they all suck. This week we had to watch commercials about Will Truman as a conman pretending to be a straight Rockefeller and marrying some lady so he could kidnap their kid. Also, Jill Scott is trying to win an Emmy for doing the TV version of Precious: A Television Drama Based on the Movie Precious Based on the Book by a Woman Who Wouldn't Sell the Rights Unless Her Name was in the Title. They are so horrible, but we don't want them to die. They're like Sarah Jessica Parker's little mole thingy. Her face isn't be the same without it, and there is one fewer thing to pick on in the world. We miss that mole.
  • "Bravo": When congratulating a designer on a job well done, NGFDMCM said, "Bravo." No, it's Lifetime. Ha! That joke will never get old.

In the end, Annoying Straight Man #1 took home the top prize for his little striped hoodie with watermelon pockets and a gorgeous black and white coat with a fucked-upedly fantastic collar that looked a bit like a fashion straight jacket for a couture S/M editorial shoot. The judges finally picked right and put Jay's Barney purple tartlet creation and Jesse's French-inspired preciousness in grey and red in the top as well.

It was Tear up Weepy Janeane who was finally sent home for her boring blob of red and some other bullshit that she bought off etsy the night before and just passed off as her own. Bye-bye, dead weight, can't you take Maya with you on your way out? Also horrible was Emilio's Pepto Bismol poured in a shot glass and a champagne flute, Ben's study in wilted lilacs, and Jonathan's tissue explosion that he made with spare rolls from the Charmin Toilet off of the Brother Sewing Room. At least the last one had some yellow. Amy's crazy "petal" pants—which looked like the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons—weren't that bad. OK, yeah, they were. The petals weren't finished and the colors were garish and the little girl looked like an orphan digging for trash in a alleyway right before Joseph Bologna shows up in a limo with a wonderful side part and puts her and four other girls in a band and lets them live in his mansion (Rags to Riches, anyone?). Still, if Amy had made those petals in black, grey, and red and finished them, NGFDMCM and her estrogen-filled Easy-Bake Bun in the Oven would have climbed up onto the runway, thrown the kid out of the way and snatched them off the model's body.

But for Jonathan's spot on Queen Tangerine impersonation, Suzanne Sugarbaker's annoyance with little girls, and some other travesties, you have to go watch the videos. Don't worry, we'll babysit while you're gone. We promise not to take LSD and put your baby in the microwave.

Kors of the Matter
 Description: Jonathan finally show a little bit of personality with his funny German accent and his amazing Michael Kors impersonation.
Vision: "Now is ze time on Schprockets ven vee make fun of Michael Kors."
Delusion: Sorry, kiddo, this isn't as classic as Santino Rice doing Tim Gunn. Nice try.
What Would Nina Say: "You know, my daughter does the most amazing impersonation of André Leon Talley eating Oreos."
Dramometer: 4

Under the Gunn
 Description: Tim goes to visit Amy, who is cutting out a bunch of frayed fabric to make some insane creation.
Vision: Tim thinks this could be inspired, or clown clothes.
Delusion: Oh, Gramps, the only thing that reeks more of clown clothes is the laundry room at Cirque du Soleil.
What Would Nina Say: "If those pants were my child, I would have a late-term abortion."
Dramometer: 3

Suzanne's Beauties
 Description: Our beloved Suzanne Sugarbaker is allergic to three things: subtlety, silence, and small children. Watch him try to deal with all three as the workroom is taken over by a bunch of howling banshees.
Vision: This was exactly the producer's vision of this challenge.
Delusion: They are lucky that this is as messy as things got. We fully expected crying, and were sorely disappointed.
What Would Nina Say: "Suzanne, you can babysit for me anytime."
Dramometer: 6

Runway Arrogance
 Description: Seth Aaron watches his design tromp and twirl its way to victory.
Vision: This is what a girl wants, want a girl needs...
Delusion: it makes us happy, but it won't set us free of Seth Aaron.
What Would Nina Say: "I could just eat you up! Yes I could!"
Dramometer: 2

Caitlin the Hero
 Description: We do not like children any more than Michael Kors, but Amy's model Caitlin is not afraid of bitchy old gay men who sell their wares at Marshalls. Oh hell no. She sticks up for her outfit right to Queen Tangerine's face, and he gives her the scowl of disapproval.
Vision: "I don't care what you say old man, I like it!"
Delusion: That a child would behave any other way.
What Would Nina Say: See for yourself!
Dramometer: 8