PROJECT FUNWAY Project Runway Season 6 Episode 5 ‘Newspaper as Fabric’

Project Funway Project Runway episode 5 Newspaper as Fabric

That was a fun episode! As I mentioned in my last Project Funway post (episode 4 – which wasn’t a fun episode) I like the challenges early in the season to have serious material or functional limitations so we can have some additional information when trying to assess soooo many different designers.

Johnny Sakalis gets booted on episode 5 of Project RunwayThis week, the designers had to make their outfits out of L.A. Times newspapers! They had access to dyes and were allowed to use muslin underneath the paper, but it couldn’t be visible when worn. It appeared from the designs that they were allowed to use the full color advertisement sections, so the challenge wasn’t completely black and white.

So, when the models walked the runway in their newspaper chic designs, not only could we judge them based on how great they looked and how well they functioned, but also how creative the designers were in utilizing just paper to make their clothes. Awesome!

Sadly, season 6 saw it’s second designer basically quit when Johnny Sakalis (Suckalis) trashed his initial outfit after some brutal criticism from Tim and then phoned in an 8th-grade craft project for his model to wear down the runway. Making things worse, he decided to lie about what happened to his first design, blaming its destruction on a leaky steamer on his iron. What’s really sad is I think he was actually buying his own lie!

Anyway, the riffraff is getting weeded out mighty quickly! This is the point in the season when we get it narrowed down to the folks that can really sew – after that it’s a matter of trying to judge their levels of creativity. Someone who seems to have a good bit of both is this week’s winner Irina Shabayeva! Her design was a great-looking raincoat with faux fur made out of wadded-up paper around the collar. So, going with the newspaper theme, I decided to put the coat on the most famous of female newspaper reporters, Lois Lane! And in order to avoid any generational controversy, I did classic Lois (Margot Kidder) and current Lois (Erica Durance).

Margot Kidder and Erica Durance model the newspaper outfit made by Irina Shabayeva on episode 5 of Project Runway

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