'Project Runway': Denim saves the day for Kini Zamora

Lifetime photos
Kini Zamora with his model/muse on the runway.

‘Project Runway’ season 13
Episode 10: Muse on the Street

The episode opens with the male designers at home longing to work with their regular models again after last week’s twist of working with children.

Hawaii designer Kini Zamora expresses happiness over last week’s win and says in an on-camera interview that at home people live paycheck to paycheck so winning the competition and its $100,000 grand prize would change everything.

The designers next meet with a representative from Mary Kay cosmetics who reiterates that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and with that, they are sent to Washington Square Park to look for real world models for a makeover challenge.

The competition is about transformation so the designers are told they should not be looking for runway models but real women who could demonstrate the transformative power of clothing and grooming. The winning designer and muse would be featured in a Mary Kay advertisement in Marie Claire magazine.

Some of the designers have problems finding a person to agree to be a model, and Zamora is relieved when one girl says yes. But in talking to her, she says she doesn’t dress home unless she has to, and she likes wearing tie dye and boho clothing, which is incompatible with his sleek, structured aesthetic, leading him to worry, “Oh boy, that isn’t my style at all. Maybe I picked the wrong person.”

In the workroom he is stuck, and Sean Kelly notices he isn’t his usual self, silent instead of talking and laughing.

Then Zamora has an aha moment when he thinks of his mom and her advice to avoid going overboard. Thinking of her humble style, he thinks of going back to denim, which he had used for earlier collections at home.

He comes up with a denim on denim look of a dark denim jacket over a paler chambray dress that he imagines as a date-night outfit.

During the judging, Zac Posen praises Zamora’s look as being “perfectly polished.” Host Heidi Klum said she appreciates that Zamora’s model, “Looks real” and not as if she had been dressed by someone else.

Judge Nina Garcia called Zamora’s jacket is “phenomenal,” if casual by her date-night standards. Duh, different generation and income bracket. Hello.

Zamora ends up in the top three again and said, “Thank God for denim. It saved me.”

But Korina Emmerich won for a motorcycle jacket and skirt ensemble. And the youngest designer Alexander Knox is sent home for a midriff top and circle skirt ensemble in too-heavy fabric. It was his second design after starting all over after mentor Tim Gunn described his first creation as hideous. (It was.) Gunn has become less tactful and more direct with his criticisms lately. I like it. I think it’s more real.

Korina Ennerich won for motorcycle jacket ensemble and total transformation on this woman on the street.

Alexander Knox went home for these heavy separates that were too light on design.

I also liked Emily Payne’s dress and jacket that the women judges deemed too costumey and theatrical, but that designer Zac Posen also appreciated as a wow moment.

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Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her coverage in print on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.