SFist Watches: Your Locals On Reality TV

When we first saw Mr. March, who is not a small man, we thought, "Well, that's OK. It's a show about sewing. It's not like they're going to be required to run a race or anything." And what's the first thing the designers have to do but race across a field and grab fabric for their first challenge. Unlike past seasons, the first challenge was not to design something using unconventional items. Instead the designers got to design whatever they damned well pleased, and they got to use their choice of fabrics to do it, assuming they snagged those fabrics before anyone else did. Chris was indeed the last person to reach the tents-full-o-fabric, but he claimed it didn't matter because the fabric he really wanted hadn't been chosen by anyone else anyway. We kind of understood why later.

They were given about 13 hours to get everything done. Simone spoke about her approach, saying that it had a romantic, historical aspect. Chris was the first to comment about Elisa, and her methods, which included sewing fabrics while they were on her own body, and cutting fabric into shards. We already hated her at that point, but it would only get worse as the show went on.

At about the four-hour countdown mark, Tim Gunn showed up--in jeans!--and looked at Simone's work. She talked about the colors--which were a pale pink skirt, a bright yellow midsection, and satiny cream top--and how she thought they made the antiquated style of the dress look more modern. She didn't talk about the totally mismatched jacket that went with it. All Tim had to say was she seemed to have a lot of finishing to do.

Chris didn't talk about his design pre-runway show, aside from saying he was very happy with his model. Simone didn't have time to sew in a zipper, and had to sew her model into her dress. What did Tim say about the finishing, Simone!

Chris's design was second down the runway and...it just didn't click with us. The fabrics were purple and gold satin, so that should say a lot right there, and it had this huge bow in the back that just screamed '80s nighttime soap. It was well made and all, but it just wasn't our bag. Simone's dress was just plain boring. The colors were dull, and the jacket did not go with the dress at all. The style of the dress was nice, but that's it. There was nothing very exciting about it, and it also looked kind of sloppy.

The judges decided Chris's dress was amongst the good-enough designs, so he was moved to the next round without discussing his creation. Simone was kept behind with the designers that had the highest and lowest scores. Needless to say, she was amongst the low-scored designers, and in the end it was down to her and Elisa. The judges didn't think Simone's dress was well constructed, and Michael Kors thought the model looked like she had dressed in the dark. We'll agree with all of that, but at least her model didn't look like she was "pooing fabric," which is what Heidi Klum had to say about Elisa's dress. Not only was her model pooing fabric, but she got tangled up in that poo as she walked down the runway. Alas, none of that ultimately mattered, as Simone was auf'd.

We're pretty sure the decision to keep Elise had a lot to do with her flighty and slightly insane personality, and less to do with her dress being better than Simone's. Oh well. Simone seemed like a nice gal, and we have no doubt we'd prefer her dresses to Elisa's any day. Guess we'll just have to put our money on Chris from hereon out.

All images from Bravo's "Project Runway" site.