Runway: Blondies rule and Qristyl drools

Winner: Althea
Auf'd: Qristyl

First of all, who cares. I find that I lose a lot of interest in the show when the designers have a boring challenge. What could be more boring than designing a cocktail dress for their own model. I was more surprised by how far some of the designers were bending over backward to meet the model's requests. The first thing I would have said: "You want me to pick you next week, right? Then whatever I make for you, you better strut yourself down that runway and praise every stitch of that dress, got it?" There, problem solved.

Shirin has quickly become my little favorite. Not as a designer, but as a personality. She's so adorable, which is probably why she had so much trouble saying no to her model last night. I was quite nervous for her when she was asked to design a royal blue jumpsuit. Thank God she finally took it her own way and made a dress just good enough to get her through to the next round. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Let's get down to who stunk up the place.

It was a battle among the ladies last night, with the blondies coming out on top. Qristyl made a dress that at least had some interest to it halfway through the show. Now, granted, it was a bit messy, and Tim said as much. In fact, he said something about it looking like the model had been rolling around in bed all day. (I won't ask what she was doing.) Anyhow, she made the mistake of scrapping that dress and playing it safe with a little black number with an old lady silhouette. Never play it safe! Ever! The dress was wearable, which is what they called Johnny's purple frock as well. On Runway, "wearable" can be extremely bad unless that word is closely followed by "chic" or "edgy." Just wearable is doom. And it certainly was for Qristyl, who hit the fashion highway last night.

Logan sucked, too, with his silky and lace electric blue number. Basically a prom dress. But he looked so cute in his tight silver pants and matching shoes, they just couldn't let him go. (Thank you, judges.)

As I mentioned, the blond girls were on their game last night. It was a battle between Althea and Carol Hannah. Personally, I loved Carol Hannah's the best. She made a draped purple top with a Grecian neckline and asymetrical straps, coupled with a hard, structured pencil skirt with a little surprise of flowy fabric in the back. Beautiful! She was my pick last night.

Althea's was good, too. She put a new spin on the black suit. A puffy little skirt with bunchy bits of interest and a jacket with three-quarter sleeves. I liked it. Didn't love it. But the judges did, so she won.

As always, I have to mention our Minnesota Chris. I worried for our boy last night. That color of green fabric he chose was quite reminiscent of seaweed, and then he put two black bands around it that sort of made it looked like a bunch of celery tied up. Oh, how I worried. But he got a pass. Careful, Chris! You're our only hope of taking home the "PR" title to Minnesota. Do us proud!