Project Runway, Episode 11: The Anya Curve

This week the contestants had to draw inspiration from birds. Like Bert, I was not inspired by this challenge (which ultimately led to his elimination). However, I thought that the way the eliminations worked this week was a great motivator (not to mention the $20,000 prize)—at least in theory. The designers were paired then each pair was assigned to one bird. Then each pair of designers competed directly with each other. The winner in the pair was in the top three and the loser was in the bottom three. They also had the designers make two looks, but only show one, which I thought was unnecessarily mean.

Bert's losing look, "inspired" by the parrot.
His styling is always so bad.

It felt like the designers were hitting both their physical and emotional plateaus. Most of the drama was focused on Kim, who seemed to be unraveling emotionally. Poor girl sewed through her finger, burned a whole in one of her looks and had to start from scratch to make a dress in three hours. Yikes. Her dress looked suspiciously similar to Viktor's (they were both assigned to a cockatiel), and she ended up winning in the head to head battle.

Kimbery's dress, made mostly of lining.

Viktor's dress with fabric feathers.

I suppose I liked Josh's the best. Meh.

Josh's parrot-inspired dress.
Lambasted for the corsage bit, but I didn't mind it.

Who won the overall challenge, you ask? Anya. Shocker. I want my life to be graded on an Anya Curve. I want to produce mediocre work and have it seen as genius because I have the least amount of experience. This sounds bitter, and maybe it is for the moment, but it led to my Project Runway epiphany this week: Anya knows how to compete and play the game and she is playing relentlessly. Maybe it's all her training as an international beauty queen contestant. So, I am compelled to respect Anya's savvy in playing the game, but I'd rather see the best talent win. Alas, life is never fair.

Anya's raven-inspired "winning" look. Bored.

What did you think of the new After the Runway Show? I personally didn't think it added much insight.