Project Runway 408 Recap: "En Garde!"

The last team, Rami and Sweet P, got along on a personal level at first, but had grossly incompatible working styles. He was the team leader, and he had every control freak, perfectionist, micro-managing trait that makes soft, easy-going people like Sweet P get paralyzed. Which makes the control freak freak out more, which then paralyzes the soft one even more, and you're left with a cycle of irritation and withdrawal that's extraordinarily painful to watch for drama-phobes like me.

Said Sweet P, wiping a tear: "I'm just hoping we don't end up in some kind of fist fight."

The whole thing was even more frustrating given that Rami was parked right in his design comfort zone and couldn't be budged out of it by Sweet P or even Tim. That man wouldn't know avant garde if it bit him in the butt, in other words.

At the end of the first day, Tim came in, looking and sounding a bit defensive when he announced that the designers, in addition to their avant garde looks inspired by the crazy hair, had to also do a ready-to-wear look, by the next day, inspired by the couture design.

I wasn't imagining Tim's defensiveness; in his blog, he wrote, "Gulp. Why was I such a wreck? Because, each team had so much work remaining on their single look, how were they going to handle this second aspect of the challenge? As I wrote last week regarding Christian: If looks could kill, then the designers’ collective stares at me would surely have dealt fatal blows."

Tim assured them that designers have to do that all the time, create an off-the-rack version of their haute couture pieces. Yes, Tim, that's true, but not usually in one day and for fifty bucks. I'm just saying.

Or as Victorya said, "My reaction is horror. Nausea."