Project Runway -- Just Shut Your Face

This show better not skip another air date before the season ends because 14 days away was enough time for me to think the following:

This was Make Something Out of Bullsh*t week. They took the designers to a tiny little Manhattan hardware store where faucet washers cost nine dollars a pop and gave them nine dollars each to shop for lumber to carve into evening gowns. Now, if you're a hardcore career conceptualist, this might not seem like such a monumental pain (see: Hussein Chalayan's wooden table skirt-no, seriously, Google it, take a look and then vow not to complain about a sweater itching you a little ever again and just think about butt splinters instead) but when you're used to shopping at Lowe's, you could possibly be forgiven for allowing that fog of doom to cloud your mind where all you can think about is that long plane ride home to wherever you're from where they told you what a genius you are and how YOU should be the one on Project Runway.

Before the boutique hardware store shopping frenzy can happen, they've got to go Meet Michael Kors at his Soho store, a place that has nothing to do with the challenge whatsoever but that Kors must have contractually demanded they visit, much like when they all showed up at his Beverly Hills outpost last season and then went off to execute a challenge that bore no relationship to the field trip. During the visit to this geographic non-sequitur he tells them they need to "push the envelope" and "think outside the box."

Cut for time: his exhortations to "step it up," "take it to the next level," and "make the song your own."

So, okay, let's just talk about Emilio for the rest of this recap. Here are his best lines during the design, construction and display of his bikini made of pink string and washers for a very confident Brazilian woman on a Mardi Gras float:

About the challenge: "This is not what I do. I don't make crafty things. I make very sophisticated dresses."

"Everyone's molding bodices out of metal. To me, that's been done. My plan of attack is to create a Paco Rabanne-slash-macrame dress using the washers and the cord. But I don't have enough washers or cord. I may not have a full dress."

After being complimented by Seth Aaron: "You know what? Just shut your face."
Seth Aaron: "I meant that in a good way."

Emilio: "Whateverrrrr."

"There's a lot of chaos and noise [in the work room]. It's not an ideal situation for me to create my best work."

After his model walks in to see string and washers hanging from the mannequin: "You know what we should go for? Valley of the Dolls 2009."

While the model is walking down the runway and all the judges are busy being gobsmacked by the no-clothes-iness of it all: "It's such a strong look."

In his own defense when asked about it: "I wanted to create a very strong, sexy woman so I used three different sizes of washers and twine and bolts and wire to create a bathing suit look."

When asked by Nina, "What happened?" and why he chose not to make actual clothing: "I figured everyone else was going to do a dress."

But none of those comments mattered when it came down to the end and it was Jesse, not Emilio, who got sent home for his weird metal top/puffy bottom Jiffy Pop garment. That's because Heidi delivered the only line of the episode that held any weight when she told Jesse his skirt resembled a "dirty vacuum cleaner bag."

And when Heidi tells you it looks dirty, then you're effed. Even worse than if you just drape bits of metal and string on a naked woman. Lucky lucky Emilio.