Project Runway-The Product Placement Years

Still life with sopping squirrel. All things sopping.

It's still raining. Who wants to go to work when you work on a ranch without an indoors? Luckily, Project Runway might repeat itself when you are dragging your heels to go handwalk the horses that have been locked in way too long. Let's take a closer look.

They start out in their Product Placement Apartment. Victorya thinks Sweet P is Kit. All those blondies look the same to her. Bitch. Have you noticed that Christian's tote keeps growing? It is almost the size of Chris now. Maybe Christian is shrinking under the weight of his pineapple hair and the tote is staying the same size. Maybe it's just from seeing him with the giant ruffle tower last week. We will still be able to hear him though, even if he shrinks to only 4" high. I'm not worried about Christian.

Heidi invites the team to do a model swap and gives them the horrific field trip news. There is a brief shot of Rami with his arm around Sweet PKit's shoulders on the way to the field trip. Was he in the Israeli army? Is that where he learned his powers of the hypnotic mind? What is he doing to Sweet PKit? The designers are fabulous but have to ride in a janky old ford econline van not befitting of their Designer Status. Hopefully Sweet PKit makes it out alive.

The big surprise is they must run (they are horrible to Chris-they know he can't run and this is the second time they've done this) through a filthy warehouse to grab a bunch of jeans. The theme of this week's challenge is Product Placement for Levi's 501 which just isn't cutting it with the kids today. Who have endangered reading brain and no time to buy Levi's. The levi's lady talks flat out about branding. Don't you remember when branding was supposed to be secret unless you were the branding expert and the marketing people? I used to do that and get giant checks because no one knew branding was just tricking people into buying stuff by coming up with a clever idea about why YOUR COMPANY was unique and special and cool. Once it involved a talking pirate parrot. I had to quit. Now everyone knows so maybe we are ready for a post-branded world? Get ahead of the curve and out of the box Project Runway. Sweet PKit gets a dirty foot grabbing her denim. How many times did Tim have to say Levi's?

Jillian is making the same coat again as last week. For me! But I am not sure if I will wear a denim coat. Sorry Jillian. We liked the black one with plaid lining. She will be sewing a lot of crap all over it too. Jillian's whole face is botoxed I think but with the weight of fashion, not actual botox. Every time you see her face it is pained and troubled but in a creepy terminator way. Rami is too european to work with the denim but he will Make it Work. But he does know about cartoon characters because he thinks Christian is the pineapple that sponge bob lives inside.

Victorya is stealing her idea from Jillian. We know one of them will be going down. It could involve blood! Ricky keeps saying the word lingerie, lingerie, lingerie. There's a whole drinking game right there with Ricky and crying and lingerie and hats. Too bad we have to go to work.

Sweet PKit freaks out Tim with her dress! She always does this and he says the actual words, "Happy Hands at Home Granny Circle Hippie Dippie!" Thanks Tim. We still love Tim just because he said that. That's our old Tim of the horrified look. Maybe he will quit working at Liz Clairborne or Donna Karan or wherever that was that made him leave academia for fame and fortune and bigger buckets of money. A talking pirate parrot could be just around the corner Tim Gunn.

Jillian really is bleeding! She is freaking out too. There is just a lot of whining happening with the designers over the branding challenge. The designers look like the little Wal Mart slave children behind their machines, except for that they have a lot more tattoos. Don't you wish they would just show us all their tattoos one morning in their Product Placement Apartment and we could read Ricky's lettering and see the whole Pineapple octopus arm and is there is rhyme or reason to all Sweet PKit's flowers scrolling all over her back and her arm.

The next time they go to Product Placement Apartment, the boys are all spraying themselves with stuff and we can also see that they have all Ikea furniture. Poor designers. We always have to see them in their underwear. And Ricky has another hat, this is the mesh one, I think that it is his dress hat for the firing squad lineup. Maybe is kevlar mesh. It is his branding. Just be done with branding Ricky, or maybe it's just they've done this branding to you and you didn't mean to be the hat wearing crybaby lingerie guy.

They are all glueing their models into their denim. I feel bad for them. Ten Hours! To make outfits. Project Runway is like more evil than 100 grad schools all lumped together. They can do that to you when you are lured into the prizes and the money and the fame. The Saturn car. All the Treseme you can drink! I would have been a bad contestant. Aside from the way I sew, which is completely lame. Also that I shouldn't ever get dressed or shop without a stylist. But also my reaction to stress in an art type environment which causes me to lay on the floor and go to sleep. Sort of like when I go to see a band. For some reason, dog showing does not bring this type of stress to me and I never lay down and sleep at anything dog related. The dogs are so soothing. Too bad they do not have dogs running loose in their studio but then it would be like UCDavis or CalArts and I am pretty sure they don't do that in New York City.

The skinny models trot their skinny gangly limbs down the runway. There's a lot of strapless type dresses that I am not sure how they stay up on all those anorexic little chests? Christian made skin tight size negative jeans out of jacket sleeves that are completely cute if you can wear a negative size. Someone that is in tip top dog agility shape could wear these but that someone is not me. Our demographic means most of us are over 40 and it is the over forty weight which is hard to get all the way down to size negative. Junior handers, take note. Then Nina is so excited because Sweet PKit makes a slimming voodoo dress that makes her model actually disappear off the stage due to becoming a negative waif. But that is a good thing so she will not get voted off. And she just happens to be wearing a non slimming tap dancing costume, and we are not really sure why. Because her husband's name is Sage? Ricky will not get voted off. They are laughing at him, he thinks it is with him, but the Levi's lady likes his hoochie mama dress so they can only send subliminal messages through their sharp shark teeth and wait til next week. He is still crying anyways. Michael Kors just wants to chew him up and spit him out all over the stage and keep his hat as a trophy.

Victorya and Jillian have a final smack down and thank god Victorya is finally kicked off.

Tim Gunn, you have just forsaken me.

Allright. I give up Tim Gunn. I give up Carson. Neither of you has been any help. To me or the remaining Project Runway designers or to the nude Lifetime channel ladies who all seek your help. We are all on our own. And you both used to be so important to me. I'm working without a net here. I may not be a specialist, and styling hasn't been my strong point in life, but I can say with conviction I am a generalist and I'm just going to dive right in here and tackle the problem like it's something I do all the time. I have faked it through worse. How do you think I learned to drive the horse trailer when I was 15 or just marched into that graphic design meeting with the fancy guys from a retail empire at the expensive Italian restaurant with all the weird forks and scared their old man pants off about porn on the internet? All in a days work for Team Small Dog.

Here is likely a common problem for many ladies like me in the Clean Run Magazine demographic. You work all day in the dust and dirt. Before work you ran your ass off with your dogs and it was cold yet you got sweaty because you just kept going, going, going because it was that kind of day and the dogs felt speedy and ready to go and no one was knocking bars or blowing dogwalk contacts. Perhaps even doing the teeter at far distances away flawlessly. Maybe you body clipped part of a horse during your day. You likely sat on some horses. You probably spent some time sitting on a fence yelling and making someone cry and carrying bags of feed and moving heavy jumps around. And then you are supposed to go out to dinner at 7pm and Watsonville is a whole world away from Santa Cruz not to mention it is after 6pm and you just finished checking to make sure everyone had on their blankets. You need an ensemble that goes from day to evening in a flash!

Hi! Run in the house, hug Timmy. Hi Timmy! He always recognizes me. He has to stay home all day without the rest of the team. I don't know what goes through his mind anymore but I feel VERY popular when I get home with Timmy. He is my biggest fan. When's the last time I washed this dirty old barn jacket? Left the boots at the door. No visible stains on the jeans. No one seems to have bled or drooled on a basic navy long sleeve t-shirt. There are some other shirts on under it. It is cold. You can't go wrong with 3-4 shirts. I believe it is called the layered look? Do we still say that? Oh wait, Carson you are not even listening. Let's just say we can call it that.

Add a sweater. Add the good shoes-Fluevogs! -note height difference! A good shoe with some height, that just smells like evening right? Even if everything else smells horse and dog. Add a sweater. Just wrap another sweater over your head. It is possible a husband is giving you a weird look but if Tim Damn Gunn isn't here then we're just going to have to live with this Damnit. Grab actual purse made by Dawn down the street and toss those small dogs a treat so that you do not come home to SOMEONE HAS GONE THROUGH YOUR BIG BIKE MESSENGER BAG TO FIND AN ANCIENT DOG TREAT AND EATEN THROUGH A TUPPERWARE AND DEMON SPAWN SMALL DOG BASTARDS HAVE STREWN ITEMS GALORE THROUGH THE HOUSE. Why do some dogs eat things like hats? Clearly because they are bastard children of zombies and have been born of zombie loins, all of them, to torment me and our troops in Iraq and the little Brownies selling cookies without trans fats.

If I had a million giant organza ruffles to wrap around my head, I would be happy to apply this to my head. If I had equestrian style jodphurs (doesn't this seem like something I should have?) and the best black fitted coat with genuine vampire collar ever, then that's what I would wear. If Christian could come over and show me how to stand better when I take my own picture to look more stunning and photogenic then that would help. If I had little sparkle hair things I would maybe not wear them in my hair because Kit Pistol is not age appropriate for me, but I would also not barf them up all over the front of an ugly dress just because I have the hypnotic power that works on Heidi and chickens and perhaps even donkeys that you want to teach to quit smoking. I just have my favorite sweater and shoes and I have the gall to throw them on over dirty old work clothes and stroll out the door to dinner.

Is this a problem? At least it is not a 30 billion dollar deficit. That is worse.

OK. Did you guys know I have just hired Mary as a consultant? Basically, she can just write this blog for me now! She also does photo research. Thanks Mary! If you can also body clip horses and wash them so they actually get clean and not forget to make the supplements, you may have a full time job!

Yes. This is the perfect dog agility wear and goes from day to evening in a second because you just throw the coat on over dirty barn clothes! You can wear ANY underwear with it because the pants are baggy and the top is flattering. I may have to experiment with running in the little '80's boots but I think I used to have those and run in them just fine. I may have been drunk though. A faux hauk is a risky look for me, but I think I could manage it if I had that coat! Madonna would wear this! So would Gwen Stefani! So would Kurt Cobain! So would Puff Diddly P Daddy! Thanks Jillian and Mary. We will assume Victorya (banned) had nothing to do with it.

Project parka.

Sometimes, this is just what I look like.

OK. It just gets so sad sometimes, that it takes me a bit to get over it. Not my damp parka.

Last week Marion. This week Chris. When little crybaby face Ricky is still left standing.

Does it do this to me every season? There are always the ones I can't WAIT for to get the ax, like how much did you just want Vincent gone last season? And Daniel Franco made me barf. I wasn't sad to see Carmen's hair go last week. Although, that whole thing with mens' suits just seemed wrong and evil. But still. Goodbye Carmen's hair! I am sure you are nice ex model Carmen but Goodbye your hair!

I of course, blame it on Heidi. She said Marion's ugly fringe idea was dirty. Bitch. I KNOW Tim Gunn did not want them to make suits or use neon colors and fringe. Not when they had to face vicious talons of snarky Michael Kors and Donna Karan and that other one, Nina. I think I just love almost all the designers too much and I want them ALL to win. That might be some of my poor competitve spirit there. Can't we all just get along?

I had sort of liked Victoria up until this week. Even though Ricky was being completely lame, her attitude was poor and she is so not invited EVER to join Team Small Dog. Even with the fastest Jack Russell which she would probably train so well to beat the pants off of my dogs every time. Take that Victoria. Blackballed as of now. Even though she was the agility favorite with her arm strap holder dress. So not anymore.

I think Sweet P is the one who we could use for a team designer instead. Thanks Sweet P! Maybe you could work with Santino on some costumes once the season is all over, if you're not too busy. She's got to have a dog. She is not super skinny and is ok with things a little bit baggy. She jumped up and down like a monkey the time she got her mens pants to fit. She loves Elisa, yet is horrified by her. (By the way-Elisa, Karl did we know her from CalArts? Doesn't she seem familiar? Or was it just a lot of people somewhat like Elisa and I rolled them all into her?)

If Elisa was a dog, she would be Ruby. Otterpop would be Jillian. Actually, she might not be mean enough. But she seems closest to being the meanest one, Victoria is too anal to be an Otterpop. Although so is Jillian. Perhaps there is no Otterpop equivalent in Project Runway right now. Maybe Kit if she was all strung out on meth and had a pistol shooting rampage. That would work. Timmy would be Marion (come back Marion!) and Gustavo is clearly Christian but he would have to sew REALLY fast. I bet after Christian has a few cups of coffee, he is a dead ringer for Gustavo. You know. In case I ever needed team small dog to do a nice play called Project Runway as Interpreted by Team Small Dog. And I am not damn Heidi. That's for damn sure.