There were kids, paint and a mission to create avant-garde looks last night on Project Runway. The designers on this weeks episode were taken to the Harlem School of the Arts, where they were each paired up with a student to then collaborate on a painting. Easy enough, right?  The designers were then told to use that painting as inspiration to create an avant-garde look. 
With a $300 budget and two days to have their garment completed, the designers surprisingly dropped the ball. Maybe it was that they didn't like the idea of working with children or that they didn't understand what avant-garde meant. Either way, this episode was kind of a bore, I'm not going to sugarcoat it.   It's not that I am not a fan of the avant-garde challenge because similar challenges in past seasons of Project Runway have produced some absolutely stunning outfits. You could just sense the excitement in the air. For whatever reason, I felt very uninspired by what the designers had created to have pathetically strut down the runway. Oh wait, aside from Berts' ridiculous teletubby-like clown pants with sponge things attached. That was interesting.See below: 


In the beginning of the episode Tim stresses time and time again the designers need to think avant-garde. Although some how most of the designers created everything but.
Josh C. (the guy who was eliminated but came back last week), started using fake fur taking inspiration from a wolf he and the kiddo from Harlem painted. Anya went feather crazy. Then the designers start talking about their lives. Josh M. makes sure everyone knows his mom passed away several years ago and she is his inspiration. Bert talks about his alcoholic past and partner of 18 years that also passed. This season sure has designers that have had a lot of tragedies.


On to the runway, because there really wasn't much more to highlight from the workroom. The bottom three designs this week were courtesy of Olivier, Bert and Josh C. Let me elaborate. Olivier really dropped the ball on this episode. Gluing fabric to a girls chest just doesn't work and as Tim aggressively warned him, gluing clothes to the models body is against the shows rules. Wow.  Guest judge Kenneth Cole was the only judge who somewhat liked Oliviers' dress but Cole admitted he thought is had a rather confounding asymmetry with just way too many details. You saw the picture above of Berts outfit. I would love to know what was going on in his head when he designed those grey sack-like pants. "It looks like something a Teletubby would wear to a party," stated judge Michael Kors. Seriously, this outfit was the root of about five different jokes among the judges including everything from describing the little shapes on the outfit as baby mittens to referencing sponges.  Josh C.'s outfit just never quite made it. He and his little art school counterpart painted a wolf. Michael Kors mentioned he really thought Josh C. Could have pulled something great out of this painting but instead he took the "too literal" route. After he scraped the fur he was using midway through the challenge, the outfit only seemed to get worse. The now high-collared Victorian inspired cocktail dress didn't work well either. Guest judge Zanna, who was filling in for Nina Garcia, called the dress "trashy" while Heidi mentioned she wound't mind wearing it for Halloween to dress as a hooker. Ouch. Needless to say, Josh C's, design was poor and he was sent home. The second time this season. **Spoiler Alert** The top designs this week were those of Laura, Josh M., and the winner of this weeks challenge, Anthony Ryan. Only after Laura explained that the dark green lines running under her yellow flowy dress were meant to represent "thorns, which make roses original" did everyone understand her look a little bit better. Honestly, I am still struggling to figure out how the painting and the outfit correlate. The first thing I thought at first glance was that the dress looked like something Belle from Beauty and the Beast would wear. (Hmm..maybe it is because I have Disney on the brain from going to their press event here in Cincinnati on Wednesday). Anyway, it's funny that Joshua ended up being in the top three, because he made it clear that he wasn't thrilled with the "organic" painting he and his little Harlem art student created. Kenneth Cole really admired Josh M.'s painted tree outfit, which really was a painted textured bark neoprene skirt paired with  a ripped flame top. Kors thinks the styling is a little "Tim Burton-y" but overall it was enough to place him in the top three.  And finally, Anthony Ryan takes a win. The judges loved his bold brush stroke dress, despite the horrid hemline with unfinished bits and pieces. Like I had mentioned earlier, there really wasn't a whole lot to work with this episode.  Heidi had mentioned, "I love that you're colorblind and still do exceptional things with color." Oh yeah, I keep forgetting Anthony Ryan was colorblind. The fact that he keeps bringing up he is a cancer survivor seems to stand out more. While the dress didn't really give me the idea of Avant-garde, I was glad that Anythony Ryan won. Next week: 10 designers + 2 teams (5 designers per team) = DRAMA! There is another team challenge on the horizon.  I am just sadly expecting to see more drama than designing and that's unfortunate. But hey, I could be wrong.