Runway: Black and white and read all over

Winner: Irina

Auf'd: Johnny

Ahhh, a challenge that went straight for my heart. The newspaper challenge! A visit to the L.A. Times resulted in the designers leaving with arm fulls of newspapers and the challenge of making clothes out of the paper. 

Irina was the big winner with her trench coat with fur-like cuffs and collar. It was pretty good the way she worked the paper to soften like fur. But the rest of the coat was flat, plain paper. I

 thought that part looked quite cheap. Plus, Scotch tape was visible on the back side. So, I was surprised of how much t

hey forgave.

Speaking of forgiving, what in the world were they picking on Gordana for? Heidi said she was bored with her little orangey dress because she thought it looked too much like an actu

al dress and you couldn't tell it was paper. I shared

 Gordana's response when she said she thought that WAS the challenge: to design and construct a garment that looked wearable using paper. 

The dress I thought should have won was Carol Hannah's gorgeous read gown. How in the world ... ? It looked absolutely stunning. Paper or not, I'd wear that on a red carpet.  

The big loser of the night was Johnny, who got called out throughout the whole show for a lie. He had designed a dress that looked like someone was bleeding all over it with these birds on the shoulder. Tim came to the work room and told Johnny it looked like the birds had attacked the dress.  Immediately, he crumpled the dress and started over.  He later told designers who were witnesses to the crumpling, as well as the judges, that a steam iron had spitted water all over the dress and ruined it. Why he felt that story was necessary, I don't know.  But I was surprised by the way Tim called him out behind his back after the runway show. Nicolas did, too, on the runway. Anyway, the dress he threw together wasn't great.  Very boxy. Very boring.  Weird edges.  So he got booted. That's fine. He wouldn't have gone much further, anyway.

As always, I have to mention Minnesota Chris.  Incredible! He did a floor-length gown that appeared to be feathered.  He cut up newspaper and applied it to a full-length paper skirt.  He also constructed a hard bodice.  Very ethereal.  The judges loved it.  I think he's going a

ll the way!