Couch Tomato: Sarah Jessica Parker's 'Project'

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Express' Arion Berger turns her critical eye on last week's "Project Runway."

NOTE: The shows described below have already been aired. If you've Tivo'd or DVR'd any of these shows, you will be spoiled.

LAST WEEK, "Project Runway" got all tizzly over the fact that a "fashion icon" was to grace the workroom with her presence.

The show likes to talk big and deliver tiny, as in the case of Season One's "Rock Star" challenge in which the contestants were asked to make a stage design for a totally random and anonymous singer whose press presence involves one slutty photo shoot for Stuff magazine. Excuse me, for Stuff.com.

But "Project Runway's" profile is much higher than it was when Austin Scarlett was the gayest thing on prime-time, and this week's "fashion icon" really was one. Sort of.

Sarah Jessica Parker is at least 1) relevant 2) famous and 3) a notorious clotheshorse. The workroom goes all squealy when she walks in. Chris March even hyperventilates that he moved to New York because of "Sex and the City" and seriously, girl, how many cliquey brunches and late-night Cosmos and pregnancy scares have you been through since packing up? I moved to D.C. because of Pamela Harriman and I can't get more than 20 people to come to a party.

Anyway, remember that SJP is less a fashion icon in her own right than she is an ex-clothes hanger on a show that dressed her up alternately as a chic party girl, a time-traveling hooker and a blind person let loose in Trash and Vaudeville to put together an outfit while the staff
stood back and laughed at her. And let's not forget it was the one and only Pat Field, "SATC" stylist and the perp responsible for SJP's costumes, who unleashed such monstrosities as the newsboy cap and the oversized cloth flower on the susceptible, Target-wearing public. What Parker wears by choice tends to be pretty and appropriate, even chic, but she's no, like, Chloe Sevigny, who's crazy as a bedbug but at least tries to make couture statements.

Not that any of that matters, because the "PR" designers were asked to create two-piece outfits that "may or may not be" sold among SJP's hideous, cheap-ass line, Bitten, and sold at various Dave & Busters across the country. The outfit had to retail for under $40 and the materials were to cost $15 or less. Day-um.

Sorry, wait. Someone's tapping my shoulder. Not Dave & Busters? Whatever. Take a look at this and tell me this line of hoodies and leggings is worthy of what Tim Gunn calls the most talented pool of designers yet. These are like the ideas that American Apparel rejected.

The day I see SJP wearing one of these sleazy things will be the day I accept that she's in this because "fashion shouldn't be a luxury and quality shouldn't be a privilege" — the Bitten motto. Stop with the negatives, Warty Witchface, and tell us what your line is.

The designers had to sketch for SJP and pitch her their designs, and I must say, SJP chose the precise opposite of the six prettiest/coolest sketches. She picked the two pitches that involved capes — capes! — and boring hoodie/legging things already featured in her crummy "line." Add to that, she accepted with glee the idea of a very wide A-line dress with a tiny little vest over it. Who puts a vest over a billowy dress with a loose top? I know she's a size 0 petite, but it just seemed like madness. Anyway, Victorya, who pitched that design, created the selfsame black, billowy A-line thingy in last week's challenge, so she ought to be pushed to step up her game.

The designers split into couples, the most entertaining twosome being Crazy Elisa and the rather patient Sweet P, who tried so hard to understand her nutty partner's way of designing that their outfit — a sexy "polymorphic" dress and flowy gray cape — came out in the top two (it's pictured above).

Speaking of beating a dead horse with a ponyskin shoe, Elisa's design featured the same stretch fabric in vibrant teal she had worked the week before. And she spit on the fabric, but that TV moment has already gone down in legend.

The outfits I was most impressed with were each given a pass by the judges. Kit "Pistol" and Chris March's smart little sweater with keen semi-circular pockets and a very flattering collar did, as Kit noted, look French and sophisticated, and once they topped their (smokin') model with a beret, it was all over. Chic, young, fun and reproducible (it's pictured at left).

Weeping Ricky and Double-Barreled Jack produced a sweetly ruched red frock with handsome detailing and a touch of nasty — a braided leather belt with a whiplike demeanor. I would buy this. I wish I could buy this. Ricky, give me your number. Also, I want to pay wholesale. Have a tissue.

Sister Christian proved once again that he's 12 — I mean 21 — by sweeping aside Tim Gunn's advice ("I think it's perfect" — yes, dear, but Tim Gunn has just told you that you're going home because your design is unflattering, silly and stuck in the '80s. What he really meant was, "Heed me or pay on the runway, you embryo.")

Carmen the ex-model rocked the look in the workroom, but it fell flat on the runway and Sister Christian ended up in the bottom two along with ... now, this pains me. The two Odd Boys, Pale Steven and Sad Marion, ended up on a queer, whispery team together, making a fringed, dun-colored, knee-length cape over some kind of skirt we never got to see. Child, that thing was hideous; the model's styling was atrocious; the word "Pocahontas" was flung around. Marion's shoulders slumped further and further down as the competition went along and Steven's freaky little code-id-the-dose voice got steadier.

Marion went home, deservedly, although I have always wanted to see what happened to a
Eudora Welty character who got stuck in the '00s and went on a reality show. That short story had been written and this episode was The End.

And who won? Oh, my stars, Victorya's unwearable A-line dress and Christmas-party plaid vest. While the racerback was a nice touch, and the dress fine on its own, that vest added nothing to the party except the promise to do the Mr. Bassman parts of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" once the punch got low. That said, I actually own an Anna Sui dress not unlike this one, except that it cost 12.5 times as much (retail) and makes me feel like a princess. I wore it to "Happy Days" at the Kennedy Center the night after Thanksgiving and if there hadn't been some bitch in an amazing gray Victorian eyelet dress — bitch! — I would have been the best-dressed woman there. As it was, we tied.

Next week: The scissors come out in the workroom and the whole place smells like pants. That's right — menswear.