project runway: baltimore

so, since i know you're all chomping at the bit to know details about this weekend's project runway birthday extravaganza (not my birthday--my friend michael's. i could've never come up with something so hysterical.) i won't keep you waiting any longer. let's just say this: i never knew that a bunch of drunk queens could actually pull something like this off. i mean, the outfits that we put together actually looked like clothes. and this wasn't some tin-foil-and-duct-tape business, either. we were given fabric glue, 6 yards of fabric, and needles and thread. oh yeah.

so the challenge started off like this: we were divided into three teams, evenly matched because all the people who had some experience sewing (myself included, since i worked in a costume shop one summer when i was 14) were divided between teams. the teams weren't exactly even since one team got a major albatross around its neck: two random, WASTED straight girls. one of the girls was so drunk that she let her team build an outfit on her...without underwear. let's just say i saw my first live set of "laffy taffy," as the song says. the other wasted girl immediately passed out under a side table.

once we were broken into teams, we were sent to separate rooms, where we each had an hour to build some "swimwear." when we opened up our bag of supplies, we found the most absurdly un-swimwear materials: six yards of non-stretch, non-summery, totally non-cute fabric. that didn't even match. it was like some butter yellow searsucker, some eggplant purple knit, some big-flowered print, and some chiffon.

refusing to let it get us down, though, my team began its mission: to build boardshorts and matching tank top. in an hour. with no pattern, we started cutting material for the boardshorts. i started constructing them while molly, this incredibly funny, over-it girl who kept smoking blunts in the corner, and shilpin, a really nice phd student from hopkins, started on the tank top. i got the board shorts partly done and looked over at their progress: molly was swathed in this awful butter yellow material, wearing something that could only be described as a poncho. it was all pinned together, no sewing materials in sight. tank top? poncho? what?

so i put on the board shorts and realize that i've missed a very important aspect of clothing construction: room for body parts. meaning ass and package. the board shorts, because of my ass and package, barely went halfway up my asscrack. so now we've got these boardshorts that don't go on me and a yellow poncho.

i'm standing there in my underwear. we look at the clock and realize that we have 10 minutes to finish our project and a pile of fabric on the bed. nothing. we're like wrapping material around me. molly suggests a toga.

"no way," i tell her. "we have to MAKE IT WORK." and make it work we did. we put on the board shorts and then made a "sarong," meaning the nasty chiffon wrapped around my midsection. i start pinning the boardshorts to the sarong, covering up the fact that they don't cover anything, and ensuring that it won't come off. we take yarn and wrap it up my arm. we stick flowers in the yarn. laughing the entire time.

what's our look called? "real honolulu. we're not talking waikiki here. we're talking drug addicted, down at the heels, snorting cocaine off a toilet in a bar." i really think we achieved it. watch the video and judge for yourself. thanks, phong, for the video...what a pro.