Project Accessory Recap: Look at This Stuff…

Hellloooooo, Gasmii!  I’m so sorry for the tardiness of this recap.  I was felled by the Plague this weekend, and ring around the rosy-style, but I’ve managed to come around in a remarkably short time.  God bless modern drugs medicine.

This week, it’s all about beachwear!  Or hats!  There’s a lot going on…  Personally, I was finally excited to see Madea get a challenge that’s up his alley, but what turned out to be unexpectedly awesome was Anthrax’s tantrum-mode that took up the entire first part of the episode.  Seriously, I’ve seen five-year-olds that whine less about game show challenges.

Remember these guys from “The Amazing Race: Family Edition”?  There’s no way that kid was 16.

This week kicks off with everyone doing their hair with some product I’ve never heard of (I’m not getting paid to advertise for John F*****, so I’m not gonna do it), and Sheamless is freaking out about being in the bottom two weeks in a row.  She’s still convinced she can win the competition, though, so I’m glad one of us is optimistic about her chances.

Everyone heads to the runway to get info on the challenge, and this week they actually get to stay there.  Mims pops out in what looks like a costume from a Disco remake of Anything Goes, and winky-winks that the next challenge is focused around something she knows a little bit about.  Out come the models in swimsuits!  Swimsuits that I truly hope are not theirs, but I cannot think of any other explanation for the following than “homesewn”:

I guess Mims was some kind of swimsuit model before she moved to Vegas to be Jimmy Caan’s daughter or something.  Never watched that show…  The challenge is, of course, to create accessories for the suit, but not just any accessories – a HAT and sandals, along with another accessory of their choice.  Madea’s finally happy to do a hat, but not happy that it’s a beach hat.  He huffs that regardless, it’ll be big and decorated.  Are beach hats not normally big and decorated?

I owned this…

For her part, Nina squeals like a leeetle girl (seriously, it’s like someone just gave her a damn pony), because she’s from Miami, and if she can’t design accessories for a swimsuit, she should go home right now.  I’ve never been to Miami, but now I want to go even less.

Everyone picks suits starting with Diego, but the only interesting pick is poor Anthrax, who’s already bitching about having to do something that’s out of his comfort zone AGAIN.  I’m guessing watching shows like Runway are also out of Anthrax’s comfort zone because he seems to think that he should be thrown easy money every damn week.  Eeesh.  Anywho, guess what the former diesel mechanic ends up with:

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

Once everyone picks, Mims drops another tiny bomb – the challenge doesn’t stop there!  In fact, it stops at the end of the train – Coney Island!  Eva’s there, cursing the crazy-bright sun for harshing her morning buzz.  She announces that the designers will only be able to use materials they – get this – find on the beach or purchase on the boardwalk.

We wanted to see’em make that bra from “The Little Mermaid.”

Anthrax interviews that he could “give a crap about a beach.”  Jesus Christ, I’ve babysat child actors with less attitude.  Dude?  I promise you, that beach gives way less a crap about you than you give about it.  Find a rusted out engine washed up somewhere and shut your damn mouth.  Nobody said this job was easy.

For the most part, everyone splits their time between the beach and the boardwalk, so they all come back to the workroom with equal parts trash and trash.  Sheamless seems to have brought back sand and an actual bird carcass, which is awesome, but I’m not confident in her ability to use said carcass in the awesome way it deserves.

Brian is being typically amazing, putting together a look he describes as some kind of prehistoric alien race.  But that’s not the best part.  The best part is watching him make his bracelet, which involves the following steps:
1.     Buy bangle.
2.    Cover bangle in tinfoil.
3.    Pour resin into the cavities of the tinfoil.
4.    Let resin dry.
5.    Sand resin.
6.    Achieve awesome bracelet.

Wanna see what I get when do that?

*not my wrist.

That’s what I get, because I can’t fucking do that.  He’s like Accessory McGyver!  Madea’s suit is pretty old Hollywood – high waisted bikini.  He’s following that aesthetic when embellishing a hat he bought on the beach, and Christine is APALLED that he’s not making a hat of his own from scratch.  After all, isn’t that his thing?  Bitch, please.  You all have to make a headpiece, shoes and another accessory.  From what I understand, hatmaking is a pretty involved process, and I hear it can make you crazy.

Maybe you should work on your turbans and leave the rest of the designers alone, k?

Before we head to commercial, we head back to Anthrax and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Challenge.  He’s staring at a pair of flip-flops like they were sent to the planet specifically to make him cry, while Nina (PRINCESS NINA), tells him to shut up and embellish.  He refuses to listen and just bitch-erviews that he doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to make something that he could give “two s**** less about.”  What’s funniest here to me is that he’s not even bitching about selling out, which would be just as stupid, but slightly more tolerable.  He’s bitching about the show not being tailored to his tastes, which makes him kind of a spoiled brat.

I will take your television exposure and chance at $100,000, Anthrax.  I will show up with felt, fabric glue and a fucking bedazzler, and I will take that shit.

Commercial!

We head back, and everyone’s pretty on schedule.  Diego’s doing four pieces, instead of three, Nina’s making some pretty awesome sandals, and Brian’s… gone off the deep end just a tad.  Let’s just say he’s got a hat made out of kite.

Later on, Eva stops by and hits up Sheamless first, but before the mentor even gets a word out, she’s cut off by Sheamless who explains that the necklace “isn’t finished!”  Eva inwardly rolls her eyes and tells Shea that her necklace, finished or not, is fug, and it needs to improve.  She hits up Madea and becomes the eighth person to tell him that his hat is a cop-out.  The only real embellishment he’s done is to widen the brim, and stick a shell on the… head part?  Wow, I guess I don’t know what the other part of a hat is called…  I’m not a huge fan of it either, but Eva tells him to go further and make a fabulous hat.  And here’s where Madea and I see eye to eye – it’s a beach hat.  There’s only so far you can go with a beach hat before Carmen Miranda bitchslaps you for stealing her look.

Finally Eva visits Anthrax and listens to about 2.5 seconds of his whining before telling to find some metal and get inspired.  Surprisingly, Anthrax listens to her, goes off to find some metal that’ll go with his Lisa Frank suit (good luck), and interviews that he just needed to get inspired.  Uh, okay.  You could call it that.  I would say it differently.

You need to stop bein’ a bitch.

In other news, Shea’s not done with anything and everyone thinks her necklace is “eeedious.”  Okay, that was just Diego, but Christina doesn’t like it either.  I feel like Sheamless must be kind of an awesome person, though, considering how nice everyone’s being about how awful her look is, so far.  Commercial!

The morning of the runway show, Brian comes to his senses and 86′s this bullshit:

He makes some oversized knitting needle-type things to stick in the model’s hair, and my description doesn’t really do them justice.  They look pretty interesting and are a much better compliment to what he’s already done.

As for Madea, he’s finally realized that what his hat was missing all this time was a band around the CROWN (new vocab word!).  He grabs some royal blue material, winds it around and then uses the extra to embellish the brim further.  I hope he gets rid of the shell – it’s a little Beach Blanket Blossom.

In Sheamless’ corner, she’s rushing to complete her necklace, and the… drill-thingy she’s using to make holes in the shell/beads goes right on through her thumb – DAMN.  That’s like getting rid of a cavity in your finger with no novacaine.  She doesn’t flip out as much as I would, though and gets straight back to work announcing she “DOESN’T HAVE TIME TO SEE A MEDIC!”  Yeah, Sheamless is a little bit of a drama queen.  Hilariously, it’s Anthrax who points this out.  He’s had a good night’s sleep, so he’s done pouting for the time being.  He steals the bird carcass Sheamless picked up on the beach and uses the head to clip shut his sarong.  What sarong, you ask?  The sarong he’s using to cover up his hideous swimsuit.

If you can’t beat it, pretend like it doesn’t exist.

He makes a headscarf out of the same material, and when I say “make” I mean “tied extra fabric to her head.”  Sheamless calls him out on what a lameass excuse for an accessory that is, but then ties this to her models waist.

And with that, we’re off to the runway!  Kenneth Cole remains conspicuously absent AGAIN this week, but we’ve still got Blob and Mims, not to mention the president of J. Crew and Rachel Roy.  Kind of surprised about the J. Crew lady – hats and swimwear are not things I think of when I think of J. Crew.  Generally I think of bitchy girls from my high school and peacoats, but maybe this was the only opening she had in her schedule…  Anywho, onto the show!

Nina, lovely as always.

Brian – Bam!

Rich – I can make two of the things on that model.  Not good.

Shea – Ariel wants that half of her bra back.

Diego – eh.

Christina – I like it, but if I can make part of it, I don’t respect it.

Madea – SQUEEEE!!!  (I like it)

Afterward, Anthrax, Madea and Sheamless are sent backstage with the lowest scores to stew in fear as Nina, Christina, Brian and Diego stay out to see who’s the awesomest.  I hope it’s Brian – mainly because Christina did another damn turban, but also because his look is fucking sweet, and I would want to be from that planet.  Nina gets top marks as well, but where Christina has no “signature,” Nina has too much of one.  They want to see something different from her, and I completely disagree.  I love everything that girl does, which means I would BUY it.  Kind of the point, no?  Finally, Diego.  His clutch is made out of a beach mat, which is cool, but his shoes are Dr. Scholl’s pom-poms.  Blob doesn’t like the headpiece, but that’s their only complaint.  Seriously, no complaints on the shoes.  WTF?

Also WTF, Madea is in the bottom.  I know the look is a little ridiculous, but in no way does he belong next to Sheamless and Anthrax.  He knows it, too, and tells the judges he doesn’t know why the hell he’s there.  Ha!  Awesome.  Blob thinks the look is too costumey (which is probably why I like it so damn much) and Rachel Roy tells him he needs to edit.  They all like the shoes, though, so I’m confident there’s no way he’s losing to Sheamless’ shellbagbeltthing.

Speak of the devil, Sheamless is up next.  Everyone, including me, likes the ring, but the necklace and the belt are universally maligned as not only hideous but as things the judges feel Sheamless would never wear.  I think the key is that they are things no one would ever wear, but I digress.  Onto Anthrax, who’s evened out into some gallows humor, who’s now totally comfortable with the fact that he can’t do shit when it comes to thinking out of his little, metal box.  Everyone likes the sandals, the headscarf is ludicrous, but the ring, the copper bangle and the bird skull are thumbs up.

I still can’t believe that shit is real.  Makes me think of a sequel to “Teeth.”  “Beak,” anyone?

In the end, Brian (FIST PUMP) takes it all!  Well-deserved, Homey, and a long time coming.  Also well-deserved and a long time coming?  Sheamless’ elimination.  A woman cannot step out on a ring alone and the hat, the necklace and the shellbagbeltthing do her no favors.  Sheamless takes it pretty well, and at the very least she can go home and say she cried less on this show than Nicolina, and that’s saying something.

Next week – Kenneth Cole is back and it’s time to pimp his brand instead of John F****, thank God.    Also, Brian lets his bitchy side out, and I cannot frigging wait.