Lifetime photos
The finalists, from left, Emilio Sosa, Uli Herzner and Anthony Ryan Auld.

"Project Runway All-Stars"
Episode 12 Finale: "Go Big or Go Home" recap

Heading into the final competition, the designers—Emilio Sosa, Uli Herzner and Anthony Ryan Auld—were told they have just four days to create a runway collection. The designers were free to choose their own themes, colors, visuals, music and the number of pieces to show (or manage to finish in the brief time frame).

The designers were afraid when on their first work day, host Carolyn Murphy drops in on them in the workroom. That usually signals a difficult twist. But this time, it was good news when all the season's ousted designers filed in and the finalists were able to choose one to assist them for a couple of days.

The ousted designers returned, looking very relaxed, most ready and willing to assist if needed.

Anthony Ryan picked first because of his win last week and tapped his apparent frenemy Joshua McKinley, who basically said he was too tired to do it. (Refusing never seemed to be an option in "Project Runway's" history." So the designer extended the invitation to Kayne Gillespie to work on his collection, themed "The Thin Line."

Uli chose Casanova for her collection of whites and creams, themed "Mystical Winter." During critiques Joanna Coles asks Uli to save her little fur jacket for her. It's always a good sign when editors want to wear your designs.

Emilio picked Althea Harper to work on his conceptual showcase, "Urban Plantation," an ode to working women from the plantation to Rosie the Riveter, who took over when men went to war during World War ll. The idea was that the pinnacle of fashion is often the domain of celebrities, the wealthy and the celebrated, and he wanted to honor working women who rarely get the recognition they deserve.

His collection turned out to be colorful and gritty, and very true to his spirit. Uli's was the opposite, ethereal and mythic and the most  artistic and designerly. I was hoping she would win, but true to the favoritism shown all season long, the judges chose Anthony Ryan's collection, which was modern, clean and very commercial. Yet, it's so 2010-11 with its linear and mod-ish color blocking and cut-out backs, nothing that hadn't been in the stores all last year, which to me, was representative of everything he showed, one of the reasons the show has been on a downhill trajectory and is applying more gimmicks. The next season of the original "Project Runway" will have the designers working in teams, rather than as individuals.

Two designs from Anthony Ryan Auld's winning collection.

Two looks from Uli's collection.

Designs from Emilio's collection.

Lifetime photos
The designers enjoy dinner on the Seine. From left, Uli Herzner, Emilio Sosa, Joshua McKinley and Anthony Ryan Auld.

"Project Runway All-Stars"
Episode 11: "Couture de France" recap

How lucky are we to have been able to tag along with the designers on their shopping trip to Paris and a voyeuristic peek into the House of Valentino?

Needless to say, the designers were ecstatic to be able to observe the process of creating an haute couture garment, spend $3,000 euros shopping for some of the fabrics of a quality worthy of the luxury houses, and do their sketching on the lawn fronting the Eiffel Tower. A very wish I was there moment!

At Valentino, they met with creative directors Pierpaolo and Maria Grazia, and were presented with tickets to Valentino's amazing haute couture show.

Of course, this being "Project Runway," they had little time to bask in "the dream." It was a 24-hour whirlwind trip, and next thing you know, they were back in the New York workroom, where they had 10 hours to create their garment. Impossiblé!

Needless to say, you don't learn couture techniques in a day, and their handiwork doesn't come close to touching that of the many hands of the women who have been doing such work for decades. But the inspiration definitely showed in their work.

Emilio's gown.

Emilio really rised up to the challenge, creating a beautiful, restrained and elegant red gown with a fitted bodice and full skirt that was an about face from his street-costume style. The only thing he didn't give up was color.

Emilio and Anthony Ryan ended up on top, though once again, Anthony showed his main talent is as a copyist. The sleek black gown he created was elegant with a touch of menace. Even so, his black gown, with peek-a-boo fabric appeared to mimic designs off the Valentino runway they had all just seen! I guess the judges don't know how close his designs have matched others' in the room through the entire competition because they gave him the win.

Meanwile, the judges couldn't decide whether Uli or Joshua should be sent home. For once, I actually liked the bravado of Joshua's creation. Only he took a risk in pairing fabric that most people wouldn't think to mix together, but it was a little like a pared down Lacroix. Its downfall was that it was ill-fitting in the bodice and proportions were off.

So, the two were given another challenge, another first in the competition's history. They were to face off, given an hour to deconstruct their garment and reinvent it. Uli compared it to the "Hunger Games," in which winning meant killing your friend.

At the end of the challenge, Joshua had pared his dress down to a charming dress that he said would have been the ready-to-wear version of his couture creation. Uli remade her ensemble in entirety, taking the nude lining the judges had made so much, and creating a sexy halter dress, topped with a black lace jacket with gold detailing at the shoulders.

The judges liked both of them, and Georgina Chapman said the challenge was supposed to have made it easy for them to send one designer home, but they made it just as difficult.

In the green room, Anthony Ryan and Emilio wondered why the judging was taking more than an hour.

In the end, Uli's total reinvention led to her staying. Now the three designers move on to creating their collections, but instead of the usual month-plus allotted on "Project Runway," they will have only four days.

Can't wait to see. Still rooting for Uli.

Uli's gown.

Joshua's creation.

Anthony Ryan's winning design.

Lifetime photos
This week's designs were meh. From left, creations by Anthony Ryan Auld, Emilio Sosa and Uli Herzner, the only one worth wearing in the bunch, though we've seen this dress many times from her.

"Project Runway All-Stars"
Episode 10: "All Stars and Stripes" recap

Although hometown designer Ivy Higa left the competition last week, I'm continuing to blog "Project Runway All-Stars" episode recaps through the season's end. As closure, you can read about Ivy's fashion journey from the Big Island to New York, and her thoughts about being on the show in her journal: ivyh.net/the-journal/2012/12/

This week, the remaining four designers met at the U.S.S. Intrepid where they are introduced to their models for the week, four women from different branches of the armed services. They will be dressing them in suitable garments for specific events the women will be attending.

Joshua McKinley is paired with an army captain who lost a leg after developing a blood clot. She will be attending a formal event honoring veterans, so he created a short dress with a fitted bodice, flared skirt and pretty illusion hemline with a black-and-white animal print he dyed green. For once, his design was restrained, accommodating her wishes for animal print without going overboard or obvious.

Anthony Ryan Auld designs for a woman in the Air Force who will be celebrating her 40th birthday.

Emilio Sosa is paired with a Navy veteran who needs a dress for her best friend"s bachelorette party in Vegas.

Uli Herzner is paired with a woman who just left the service, and wants a "long, flowing Uli dress" for  a wedding.

The guest judges are Katie Holmes  and designer Carmen Marc Valvo, a really fun designer I had the opportunity to meet once during his appearance at Neiman Marcus. In judging, he appears to be more serious than he really is.

Host Carolyn Murphy spoke of this week's presentations as being a phenomenal runway, but for me  it was just meh. It's sad that designers tend to show so little imagination every time it comes to dressing women who are not models.

Joshua's winning dress.

Joshua ended up winning the challenge, but I thought his dress was too girly for his subject, and too casual for her formal occasion. It fit her well, however, without making her look huge like Anthony Ryan's design did for his client, or like she found her dress at a sundry store, like Emilio's outfit.

Both Emilio and Anthony Ryan's  dresses looked like my 6th grade sewing projects, when I was just learning to sew. It was no surprise they were the bottom two, but they have also been the judges' darlings all season, so I wondered who they would send home.

For a while, it appeared Anthony Ryan might be going home for emphasizing his client's bust, when she wanted to minimize that area, but in a real cop out, the judges declared a tie, and both designers were saved, proceeding to the finale. In very simple math, I wonder how it could be a tie when there were five judges???!!!

Joshua had his first win. Though Uli's dress was superior, it was also a design she's already known for. It wasn't much different from the dress she wore in opening scenes, which her client gravitated to because of its flowing femininity.

I was hoping Anthony Ryan would go home, paving the way for Uli to win. I really don't want him to win because he displays so much attitude and ego for no discernible innovation or vision.

Lifetime photos
Designer Elie Tahari joins Joanna Coles in the workroom to critique Ivy Higa's work.

"Project Runway All-Stars"
Episode 9: "There's No Business Like Sew Business" recap

This week the designers are challenged with producing a ready-to-wear garment for Elie Tahari, using his fabric, with the extra step of producing a piece within a practical retail price point.

Funds raised from winning garment sales will go toward NYC's Save the Garment Center and its mission is to promote, preserve  and save the city's stature as one of the world's fashion capitals. The movement's website, savethegarmentcenter.org states: In 1960, 95 percent of clothing sold in the U.S. was made in the U.S. Now, that figure is down to just 5 percent. Despite this drastic decline, there are still 846 fashion companies headquartered in New York City which is more than London, Paris, and Milan combined. ... There are 24,000 apparel manufacturing jobs in New York City that make this domestic clothing production possible."

When it comes time to choose fabric, all the designers pick colors or prints except Uli, who chooses white (again).

Hawaii designer Ivy Higa picked a dramatic landscape print, and when Joanna Coles and Elie Tahari enter the workroom for their critique, Elie tells her, "You have a lot of guts," due to her choice.

To showcase the entire print, she changes her beautiful asymmetric design to a simpler maxi dress. Elie suggests cropping the dress to do away with a heavy black block to give her dress a lighter, beachy feel.

Ivy counters that she didn't want to disturb the print while giving women the option of hemming the dress to their liking. Joanna said she doesn't want designers to expect buyers to run out to their tailors, calling it lazy. I have to agree with that. There are so many things I buy with the intention of "fixing" them, but there's never time, so everything stays as is and many times go unworn.Judges would have preferred Ivy's dress in a shorter, beachy length.

To Joshua, whose dress is bordering on tacky and overdone, the designer suggests, "Try to think about what women want to wear," and what they are willing to wear.

His ready-to-wear critiques were very sensible and Tahari, who also co-founded Theory, is known for wearable designs that flatter women.

Later on, the Israel-born designer—who Emilio relates came to New York with nothing and slept in Central Park to survive—said, something like, "When you have to fight for truth, food, love you feel appreciation, and appreciation is everything."

Editors tend to have seen it all and become very jaded but upon hearing this, Joanna goes, "Oh my god, I feel moved." She was so touched and inspired by his thoughts.

In the end, just as Tahari had feared, because of the black color block, Ivy's dress weighed heavy on the bottom when her model was stationary. It flowed nicely when the model walked, but Ivy was sent home. I suspect it had less to do with her dress than the reality that this was her fourth week on the bottom. Her dress was so much better than Joshua's, which was a travesty. His dress had many counts against it, making his model appear to have mono, sagging boobs, while the sides gaped and a roller coaster zipper, with all it's ups and downs, made the models behind look puffy. And the biggest critique, Tahari said his dress looked slutty.

Well, don't cry for Ivy, who immediately went to work for one of this season's guest judges, and continues to get offers.

Anthony Ryan's dress. I liked Uli's better, and as of this writing, she's winning a higher score with viewers using the "Project Runway All-Stars" website's "Rate the Runway" feature, with 5 stars vs. Anthony Ryan's 4. But I suspect we're not getting the full effect of her fabric from photos. Her knit wool is probably hard for many women to wear, too heavy to sell well.

The dress translated for retail, now available at www.elietahari.com as the Liv dress, $398, in sizes 0 to 14. All proceeds from sales will go to Save the Garment Center.

Uli's dress. Judges commented it looks fresh and young. I think they're subconsciously looking at her model as part of the package.

Joshua's dress was a travesty. Elie Tahari said it looked slutty, yet he's still in the game. How unfortunate.

Lifetime photos
Ivy Higa went up directly against Anthony Ryan Auld in this week's face-off.

"Project Runway All-Stars"
Episode 8: "Flapper Fashion Face-off" recap

This week's episode opened with the designer's discussing Casanova's departure last week. He and Hawaii's Ivy Higa were friends after appearing on Season 8 together, so his departure hit her hard, perhaps moreso because they were in the bottom 2 together, so it was a "he or I" scenario.

In a situation where you're basically on your own against some cutthroat competitors, it was probably nice for her to know there was someone in the room who had her back. They were always helping each other, whether with extra materials or having an extra pair of hands to finish a garment. Both are fast workers who could always lend a hand when the other seemed pressed for time.

Any student of fashion should be watching and noting that every setback seems to make Ivy more determined to succeed, and that's what it takes to keep going in New York, where, even if I'm just working Fashion Week there—a week—I come home exhausted. I'm not psychic in any way, but I am sensitive to what's in the air, and during fashion week I feel an overwhelming clawing, desperate vibe from those trying to make it, and it feels like a suffocating, energy-zapping blanket. Yuck!

So this week marked another first. It seemed straightforward enough when host Carolyn Murphy announced the challenge of reinterpreting 1920s Jazz Age fashion for the modern woman. The designers were then asked to draw cards which had them matched with another designer. At that point, one would assume a team challenge, but this time it meant the two designers would face-off against one another, with the winner making the top three, and the other the bottom three.

So Emilio Sosa  was pitted against Joshua McKinley in the creation of an "Afternoon Garden Party" ensemble, Uli Herzner would challenge Laura Kathleen for a design befitting a "Social Soiree," and Ivy vied with Anthony Ryan Auld with an "After Hours Speakeasy" theme. The two don't seem to have much affection for one another, and Anthony Ryan seemed to confirm this when he said something along the lines of, "I'm not pest control but I don't mind exterminating Ivy."

There's nothing like a one-on-one competition to bring out the claws, with Laura Kathleen saying of Uli, "She's more like a stylist who tacks things on to make things look better." Meow.

The one-upmanship kept going when Joanna Coles came in for her critiques, asking the designers to size up each others' work.Emilio said "My lady owns the estate, Josh's lady is a guest."

She also asked Anthony Ryan and Ivy to rate each other's work. Anthony Ryan offered a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. Ivy rated his dress a 5, saying, "I happen to think his dress looks like curtains from the 1920s instead of a dress from the 1920s."

Ivy's Art Deco-inspired design.

Her own dress was inspired by the geometry of Art Deco, and she chose an expensive fabric, with, I believe, sequined stripes that she wanted to use to create a chevron pattern. Joanna is positive in telling Ivy her design, "Feels very 1920s. It's very Roxy Hart from "Chicago."

Observing Ivy working, Uli said she's making her life more difficult by cutting a beautiful fabric into many pieces that will be hard to put together. By day's end, it appears Uli might be correct. For a second time, Ivy leaves the workroom without much to put on her model. Her fabric is still in pieces and there's only two hours to show time the next day

After judging, Joshua, Laura Kathleen and Ivy end up on the bottom. It doesn't help that Ivy has a model who doesn't walk dynamically and has a tendency to slouch or stand sloppily. A model with better posture would have showed her dress to far better advantage.

Anthony Ryan's design. Love the cape, not the dress.

I was so sure Anthony Ryan was going to be on the bottom. His dress was very plain, and while the judges said it looked very modern, it was a shapeless babydoll that was so boring he had to dress it up with a feathered capelet. Well, who can resist a feathered capelet? I just bought one from Sass & Bide.

I was doubly shocked when he was named the winner, but at that point the judges seemed to have no choice. Emilio's dress was beautiful, but didn't have much of a 1920s factor. Judges deemed it closer to the 1930s or '40s. Uli seemed to repeat herself in layering on fringe and other frills. The judges were down on repetition this week.

After that, Joshua was saved for another plain dress that I can find any day in any junior store. I don't know why he's still in the competition.

That meant Ivy and Laura Kathleen were the bottom two, but I had a feeling Ivy was going to be saved because Laura Kathleen had sent jumpsuits and pantsuits down the runway one too many times, and guest judge, actress Gretchen Moll really seemed to work hard to sway the other judges into seeing the work and thought process that went into Ivy's dress, which Georgina Chapman said looked familiar because it was Prada-esque.

So once again, Ivy was spared hearing the dreaded, "You're out." Prada-esque is far better than being Forever 21-esque, which is how Anthony Ryan's dress appeared. Maybe his fabric looked better in the studio than over television.

We're now down to five designers and Ivy needs to do something amazing next week to stay in the game. She's been on the bottom three weeks in a row now, and nobody would survive a fourth week in bottom two. Though at this point, Joshua is the weakest link, unless he can buy some taste.

In the face-off between Uli, right, and Laura Kathleen, Uli won for her fringed flapper dress.

Emilio, left, was the winner in his face-off against Joshua.