Project Runway All Stars: "Up Your Aerosol"

With an episode title like "Up Your Aerosol," you gotta expect some drama. The drama was pretty much about how rich Lauren is and how no one else wants to hear about it. And I don't care one whit.

The actual challenge had the designers creating their own graffiti-inspired (or "aerosol art"?) fabric using spray paint. The idea was that their garments would be "wearable works of art." The designers' success in this challenge was incredibly mixed with most designers falling into an unmemorable middle.

Before I move on, I have to talk about the guest judges, Jeffrey Castillo and Robert Tagliapietra. I mean, did you see them in all their casual Santa, hipster lumberjack-i-ness. They looked both imposing and adorable. Plus their critiques were insightful and interesting.

I can't say I agreed with the judges' tom and bottom three, but I knew as soon as I saw Suede's dress in the workroom that he would likely go home. His dress was a mess. It looked swampy and not unlike a witch costume. I don't know why he had to emphasize the polka dots on the skirt with cutout polka dots. The bottom line is that his taste level always falls short, so he went home. Check another off my list of who will go home first.

Now, I'm not saying that Kayne's dress was good, in fact it was pretty bad, but it was much better than I anticipated when I saw it in the workroom. So I probably would have put Andrae's (bottom left) raffia bow-inspired dress or Casanova's (bottom right) odd patchwork dress in the bottom three instead. They both were poorly constructed with not-quite-right proportions.

Laura's dress was just okay. The judges had it right when they said that the top of the dress had potential silhouette-wise, but the skirt looked like a different dress. I really didn't like her fabric; the colors were muddy and the pattern was messy. A graffiti-inspired design should in the very least be crisply graphic and should probably include bold colors too.

I was shocked that the judges put Ivy in the top three; it was awful. Her fabric was lackluster and too literal to say the least, and her silhouette was boring and similar to her leather and lace design. And I don't even want to talk about that ridiculous chiffon lower skirt. The judges keep saying that she's an impeccable tailor, but her jackets are shapeless. To be clear, her construction skills are just fine, but tailoring is not the same as sewing well.

I would have put Joshua in the top three instead. Even though his fabric design was a literal city landscape, it didn't read too literally in the garment (excepting the road lines at the waist). But the interesting thing for me was the his silhouette and structure themselves somehow evoked a city landscape.

Emilio and Anthony Ryan duked it out for the win. Anthony Ryan tends toward clean, graphic looks anyway, so it was no surprise that he did well in this challenge. The lines of this dress were crisp and clean, which is a breath of fresh air among this group of designers. My only complaint: because the waistline was slightly raised, I would have liked the skirt a titch longer to avoid a 90s babydoll silhouette completely.

Emilio snaked the win in the end, and I think he deserved it. The colors were perfect. And while his oversized jacket is not part of my aesthetic, the overall silhouette was well-proportioned and more or less well-made. I would have liked it better if the sleeves were slightly narrower with a more fitted cuff, and the decorative zippers on the sleeve and skirt front should be nixed completely. They weren't needed in his already visually interesting garment.