Project Runway Season Four, Episode 2: Icon, the SJP episode!

Last week Simone was sent home:

Tim: "Someone has to be the first to go. I'm just glad it wasn't someone talented."

Wow, that was harsh.

We start the episode with the remaining designers picking models. Sweet P has to choose between the last two:

Sweet P: "I'm really sorry but I have to be honest and say that I'm just not in love with either one of you."

OH, MY GOD! This has never happened in the history of the show! She turned down both of them! America is shocked!

George W. Bush: "I feed so cheated. The fact that she couldn't find the right match from all those girls is really disappointing. I don't think I've been this upset since Ruben Studdard won American Idol."

Heidi: "Well, get over it. We have a famous person coming in I need everyone on their best behavior. No crying! This is an icon! Do you hear me? An ICON!"

OK, I'm really not holding my breath for an icon. We usually end up with Sarah Hudson or Nicky Hilton or some crap like that. So, here comes the so-called "icon." Who will it be?

GASP!!!!!

It's SJP! Chris is crying, Andre is crying, I'm crying!

Heidi: "I said there was to be no crying!"

Sorry. So, yeah, we actually get someone cool. PR fans have been saying for years that SJP NEEDS to be on the show. The designers will be creating a two-piece look for Bitten's Fall/Winter line. And the winning design may be sold under the Bitten label.

SJP: "MAY ... MAY be sold. I would like to make that perfectly clear. I can't get away with what most of the celebrities on this show say; promising to wear the winning design to a 'major' event and then wearing it to the opening of a car wash or something. I could be stuck having to sell one of your crappy designs so the word 'may' is very important."

What's the catch?

SJP: "Oh, yeah; I think it's very important that every person on earth wear my clothes. To this end, I make my clothes so affordable that people really can't afford not to buy them. So your two-piece look will have to retail for $40. That way even ordinary people--people like you and the viewers at home--can look good. You're not going to look as good as I do--my clothes aren't magical--but you will certainly look better than you do now."

Heidi: "So, the outfits have to retail for $40 but you all know that the price of materials is only a small percentage of the retail price."

Designers: "Duh."

Heidi: "Right. So taking into account the actual markup, that will give you almost thirty-seven cents to work with. But don't worry about the labor cost. You go right ahead and design really intricate pieces that would be completely prohibitively labor-intensive."

Come on! Why is the cost of materials the only thing taken into account here? Even with slave-labor some the designs in this challenge are way too complicated and have too much hand detailing to be produced cheaply, no matter how inexpensive the fabric is. Determining the labor cost is a little more difficult than the price of the fabric but making something that could be cheaply mass-produced still should have been part of the challenge.

That being said, this was still a good challenge. Even the team element couldn't ruin it. Yes, the "T" word. We made it all the way to the second episode before we had to have one. I understand that it makes the early episodes easier to manage, because we had only seven outfits to look at instead of 14, but I still hate it.

Anyway, each designer has to pitch to SJP. Everyone is so excited to meet her:

Kevin: "I'm not gay or a woman so I don't get it."

SJP: "What's not to get? I'm me!"

It's true. She is.

Anyway, Kevin's pitch meeting doesn't go so well:

Kevin: "Here's my sketch."

SJP: "Oh; could you tell me a little about it?"

Kevin: "What's the point? We're obviously not connecting here and you're just going to criticise everything I say. I'm leaving." [Storms out of the room]

SJP: "What's up with Miss Thing?"

She picks Elisa, Kit, Victorya, Marion, Ricky, Christian, and Rami to be team leaders.

Sweet P wants to be on a good team. Sorry, but there isn't any way for you to avoid being on a team that has you in it. Just kidding! These are the teams:

Elisa and Sweet P

Sweet P: "Son of a bitch."

Kit and Chris

Victorya and Kevin

Marion and Steve

Marion: "I picked Steve because he seems easy to push around."

Ricky and Jack

Ricky: "I picked Jack because he's such a good designer. Oh, who am I kidding? I just wanted to spend some quality time with him."

Christian and Carmen

Christian: "I picked Carmen because she's fierce."

Obviously.

Rami and Julia

SJP: "See you on the runway! I've always wanted to say that!"

Well, I'm so glad that dream could come true for you.

In the design room Elisa is doing something weird, as usual:

Elisa: "Lay down and let me put this fabric on you. OK, now I'm just going to mark it."

Sweet P: "Hey! Did you just pee on me?!"

Elisa: "Yeah, that's how I mark it."

Sweet P: "You're crazy!"

Elisa: "I like getting organic human essence on the material. It gives life to the fabric. I don't understand why you're getting upset."

SJP: "I'm sorry but we can't afford all the urine that would be necessary to mass-produce that garment."

Tim is concerned that Elisa is cuckoo because she's hand-rolling all the edges of her fabric. That's why he thinks she's cuckoo?

Christian is loving his design:

Christian: "I think it's fierce!"

Of course you do.

Before we go to the runway Jeffrey Sebelia is telling us that he is inspired by driving his Saturn to Blends, which sounds like a coffee shop and I just don't care.

On to the runway:

Victorya's outfit is very cute. It's pretty and feminine and looks current and stylish, but it also seems like it would be fairly easy to mass produce cheaply and the sizing would be very simple because it isn't form-fitting. She wins! Her design will be sold as part of the Bitten line! Not "may be" sold; it will be sold! Congratulations, Victorya!

SJP: "I think it's Lovely!"

Other Eric invented a new drinking game:

Other Eric: "Every time she says 'Lovely' you have to spray on her perfume."

How is that a drinking game?

Other Eric: "I don't drink."

OK, I don't think he understands drinking games.

Lovely -- available at Target for $59.99

The judges also like Elisa's outfit:

Michael: "What's that mark on the fabric?"

Elisa: "Oh, I mark my fabric with pee."

Nina: "That is so cool!"

SJP: "It's innovative!"

Heidi: "Yeah, I think customers would love getting peed on."

Elisa: "Thank you. I refer to it as 'pee-morphic'"

Marion (with Steve) and Christian (with Carmen) are at the bottom. They are just horrific.

Heidi: "It won't make any difference to the judging but you know I enjoy making people cry so could you each tell us which team member you think should be sent home?"

They all say the two team leaders should be held responsible for the work, which is exactly as it should be. The team leaders had the opportunity to win the challenge so they should be held accountable for failure.

The judges say Christian's outfit is stuck in the 80's. Michael thinks it's just a pair of giant earrings away from being on an episode of The Facts of Life. It's just a boring sheath dress in a dreadful color with a really ugly jacket that has way too much detailing to be produced inexpensively.

Marion's outfit is droopy and makes the judges sad:

Other Eric: "The model looks like she's dressed as Pocahontas."

Michael: "She looks like Pocahontas."

Other Eric: "Damn you, Michael Kors; stop copying everything I say!"

Marion is sent home for his disastrous outfit.

SJP: "It's not Lovely."