Oddly enough, when the opening credits of the latest episode of Project Accessory flashed across the screen, I heard an unusual dragging sound coming from the television.
One of them arrived yesterday, a Henry Pollack 1940's brown mohair fedora/witch hat, that my husband forbid me to wear when I am with him. "I'm sorry," he said as he fled the kitchen as it was still perched on my head at a bold angle. "I can't be married to Truman Capote. It begs too many questions that I am not prepared to answer."
Rich, who used to be a diesel mechanic and gave it up to design anklets and hoop earrings, is in a tizzy.
His design is fantastic--green leather in a sharp shape, and his client loves it.
Diego's hannabag is flawless. It's gorgeous brown leather with an wonderful frame and flat bottom. Nina, a random girl who has somehow vanished since she won the first challenge, is plunking along with her metal and leather handbag, and it looks like she might have something worthy of someone who's never had a new purse that didn't already come with chewed up gum stuffed in an old Marshalls receipt at the bottom of it.
Then, a lot of nothing really happens. Rich wants to start a stupid fight with Shea, and that fizzles out. Although his bag is great, he doesn't know how to sew it, claiming he "is a man of fire and metal." The result is a disaster.
The stitching looks like he had a Grand mal in the middle of it, and the bottom of the purse gapes wide open. It's a terrible, awful mess.
On the runway, things don't liven up with the two guests judges, both accessory designers whose identities are a mystery to me. One is wearing a necklace that looks like it was made from kidney stones, and both look as bored as they are.
Diego's bag is awesome, but we already knew that. James' bag is big, lumpy and looks like a tumor, but that's aside from the fact that he didn't finish the challenge, which was to make a second accessory from one of the used handbags their clients already had.
Shea's bag, according to the mystery judges, make her client look "quite large" because it's designed it an "east-west direction." So heads up, girls. Purses now make you look fat, too.
I really hate this show.
It's not much of a contest, and Diego wins, hannas down. He deserves it, but the show is about to strike another blow.
And it's that James is about to go, even though Rich's bag was so badly made that stuff would fall out of the bottom of it. But it's James' time, and as he returns to the workroom, not a skip in his step, me is met with a collective, soft, "Jaaaaaaaaaaaaamesssssss," from the survivors.
It's for the best, I want to remind James in a deep, slow, monotone.
Please don't struggle.
Author Laurie Notaro's on a mission to make it through the first season of Project Accessory on Lifetime. Read more of her episode recaps below: