Oh the Hughmanity! Week 5: “Dipstick Bungle, Dipshit Stumble?”

So this week, possums, Project Runway stumbled into the jungle, but little did they know that what awaited them there, the thing that goes bump and meow in the night, was none other than our own Hughman. And so, without further ado, we present the Bumble in the Jungle:

I gotta hand it to Bravo. They have officially upended my fucking world.

Here I thought, After building the Project Runway brand based on its loyal gay viewers and then losing PR in an ugly, adulterous divorce to frowsy, housecoat-wearing Lifetime, Bravo will surely go gently into that good night.

HELL NO!



(Clearly, I had forgotten the Angela Bassett approach from Waiting to Exhale: taking lighter fluid and a lit match to the whole damned thing, and sashaying off with pert breasts proudly ensconced in a lace teddy.)


At any rate, Handy Andy and his gay elves at Bravo Headquarters (gelves?) have instead decided to troll the bottom of the barrel for this last season in order to parade before the huddled gay masses yearning to be freaks the most confused, childish people on Earth who’ve ever touched needle or cloth. This season’s contestants make The Real World look like the Antiques Roadshow. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some crazy. But though Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear, he didn’t then go and draw outlines around his hand and call it Art. This season, with a couple of exceptions, is all Hand Turkeys. It frankly makes me want to be naked all the time just so I can say “Clothes? Oh no, I’ve never tried them.”

This episode brings us the esteemed Brooke Shields of the possibly fictional TV show Lipstick Jungle. I mean, c’mon. Sure, ‘twas oft-mentioned on this episode, but has anyone really seen it or wanted to? (Well, aside from Kelli Martin’s Nana?) Enough to mention it 10,000 times? Suddenly Susan might have had as much resonance with this bunch. That said, the winner’s outfit this challenge will be shown on JAG! Uh, no! On Lipstick Jungle, or America’s Next Tranny Model, or at some craft service table somewhere.

After pitching clothes and pitching fits, the finalists are chosen for whatever reason and have to pick someone to work with them. Most choose in some blind parallel universe which is AWESOME for our interests. It’s the tasteless leading the tasteless, and the blind leading the lame. Translation: disaster. OMG, so fun! Jerell and Stella - please fail, please fail. The collaborative “process” between Korto, my fave, and Joe, my not fave, is not pretty. Clueless Daniel and Blayne are thrown into their combos where they can relive Madonna circa 1998. Done and over.

Ultimately, deciding what some crazy-ass fictional character on a dying TV show would wear is a no-win situation. It’s like designing an outfit for a character on The Little Mermaid—impossible and weird. The character, if they had listened to Brooke, is a movie executive. Plus she’s FUCKING BROOKE SHIELDS! You could hear the crickets in their teensy heads debating the parameters.


Daniel just turns into the whiny queen who asks every three seconds why you’re walking too fast when you’re late for a movie. His one task is to design a pencil skirt - IN BLACK - which is like drawing a Hand Turkey in fabric and he still fails. And after he claims on the runway to have “impeccable taste,” you’re just left with, “Queen, lay off the K.” Just ‘cause you daydream you’re Karl Lagerfeld doesn’t make you German.


As for Blayne, I really don’t get the obsession with shorts (or skorts) on this season. It’s currently on the runway with the men folk - misguided at best - but with women? Not so much. It comes across as a bizarre reach to the past, and not so original. Like a Three’s Company flashback. Blayne’s design was a nightmare. Step away from the Cul-nots. Day to night does not mean going from your job at Strawberry Fields to doing Jell-O shots at TGIF’s. Ok, maybe it does in Washington State where Blayne hails from, but not on the genius that is *drumroll* LIPSTICK JUNGLE!!! Perhaps he misheard. Dipstick Bungle, Dipshit Stumble? Who the fuck knows? It was fugly all over. Also, can we say “hippy,” as in “makes your hips look huge”? Ew all over.

The loser was, again, a worst of the worst. Kelli’s vision of dressing versus the unflattering shorts is a dice throw of design. Frankly, I would never choose the shorts because I’m not stupid. On a 40+ woman, shorts like this are retarded. They make women look too short and trying to be some age they aren’t. Kelli’s was at least a dress, which an adult woman would wear - especially one who is a supposed Studio Head.

Kelli is out, which I hate. And after reading her interview from when she was booted, I know why. She’s everything posers like Blayne and Jerell aspire to - she’s opinionated and most importantly she’s funny. This season could use a big honking dose of funny because so far it’s just crunching my buzz.