Project Runway Week One: Girlicious is the new Fierce

Ya’ll remember Christian Siriano. He was last year’s maddeningly talented Project Runway champ known for his bi-level hair, his flamboyant designs and his overuse of the word “fierce.” No disrespect to youngest winner in Project Runway history but by the end of the season I’d grown so tired of hearing him describe anything and everything as “fierce,” that it became physically painful for me to say the word, even now months after the finale.

Last night, season five premiered on Bravo. (You should probably start mentally preparing for next season’s premiere to be sandwiched between a based-on-a-true-story movie starring Jo from The Facts of Life and a Golden Girls mini-marathon.) As expected, the first half hour introduced all the contestants and the second half showcased this week’s challenge. After being abruptly awakened by Tim Gunn—OMG, if Tim Gunn ever saw me in wrinkled, slept-in pjs, I would die—the contestants were dragged to a NYC supermarket. They were greeted by a waxy-looking Austin From Season 1 and told they had to create a garment using products only purchased in the grocery store. Stupidly, most of them picked table cloths. Tim Gunn later called ‘em all “lazy slackers.”

Once in the workroom, the true personalities of the designers started to be revealed. Suede talks about himself in the third person. Leanna is a worrywort. Jerrell does a mean Tim Gunn impression (but he ain’t got shit on Santino’s). And Blayne, too tan and a little flakey, has an annoying verbal tick.

This neon-capped dude peppers his vocab with the suffix “-icious,” presumably to reaffirm that he is, in fact, a gay male fashion designer. His design—one of the ugliest in the bunch—was called “Girlicious,” and the made-up, annoying word was uttered no less than 47 times throughout the final 30 minutes of the show. Blayne is the new Christian. Girlicious is the new fierce.

Long story short: Jerry got kicked off for making a hideous shower curtain dress. Kelli won for creating a gorgeous (and totally wearable!) dress from vaccuum cleaner bags, coffee filters and the wire from a spiral-bound notebook.

Snaps to her, but Korto’s yellow tablecloth and veggie dress, Terri’s mop sweater or Daniel’s blue Solo cup sweetheart dress could’ve easily taken tonight’s challenge.

Some of Tuesday’s predictions were correct: Stella’s a whiny bitch. Suede is easily one of the top 10 most annoying men on the planet. Kelli and Kenley are cute and personable. Some were really wrong: Keith seems less irksome and Jerrell doesn’t always dress like he’s homeless. Jerry was kinda boring and it was probably for the best that he left before I could start making jokes about how chubby guys shouldn’t wear v-neck tees.

No previews for next week, but we did get clips from the upcoming season. The promise of hearing Tim Gunn say “holla atcha boy” is enough to keep me tuning it. Keep it fierce, kids.

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Challenge: Supermarket Garments

Guest Judge: Austin Scarlett, Season 1

Winner: Kelli

Loser: Jerry

PW Style Blog MVP of the Night: Terri for abundant use of the word “mophead” and an uncanny resemblance to Donna Summer.