Orange County Register

Win, lose or - like Thursday - come in second, Irina Shabayeva has become the “Project Runway” designer of record for the season.

She’s the best designer and the worst person - the beauty and the beast rolled into one - a combination that becomes increasingly fun to watch the longer the season goes on. And while Logan Nietzel went home and Althea Harper won the week’s challenge, it was Irina who stole the show.

As usual, she delivered her cutting criticisms of her fellow contestants while designing better and sewing faster than the rest. But Irina stepped up her game by blindsiding Althea with an accusation of design plagiarism on the runway.

I’m not sure anyone would want to be locked in a room with Irina, but she makes for great television and is almost single-handedly saving what is “PR’s” weakest season.

Not that we’ll miss the dishwater-dull Logan, but how on earth did Christopher Straub survive yet another trip to the bottom? His wacky double gown - “One dress vomiting another,” as the goddess Irina put it - horrified everyone, yet he stuck around again. Perhaps we’re waiting for one last shower of tears before his dismissal.

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“Project Runway” must have used up most of its production budget on the move to Los Angeles, because it has been doing this season’s challenges on the cheap.

Thursday they dragged the seven remaining contestants to Michael Kors’ store on Rodeo Drive, mostly as an extended commercial for Michael. The task they were handed there: Design an outfit inspired by one of the many jet-set locations Michael Kors has visited. Of course, you peons don’t get to go to these places. No, your inspiration must be drawn from a stock photo the production guys found on the Internet.

The lameness of the challenge was counterbalanced and ultimately overwhelmed by a number of more positive factors:

* Christopher Straub has grown from a moderately interesting designer into a complete mess capable of Blaynelicious level terribleness. His Santa Fe-inspired, copper-and-blue nun’s habit was shockingly awful, and yet the judges had the foresight to keep him around for the entertainment value.

* Irina Shabayeva is looking more like the winner and acting more like a witch every week. Where was her wonderfully evil personality earlier in the season? And her Aspen-inspired skiwear on acid was a deserving winner.

* Nicolas Putvinski and his annoying giggling and whining are gone.

* Best off all, the first-string judging panel of Kors, Nina Garcia and Heidi Klum was in place again at last, ably aided by guest judge Milla Jovovich, who is welcome back any time. Nice to see a guest judge who expressed her point of view well and was willing to disagree with the regulars.

Of course, it was Kors who got off the best line of the night, cracking that Nicolas’s losing outfit was inspired not by Greece but by “Grease.” The staff was going to buy Nicolas the DVD as a going-away present, but they didn’t have the money.

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Last week’s preview for the coming episode of “Project Runway” showed the contestants agog over the magnitude of the client/guest judge.

We weren’t told the identity of this guest star, just that she was huge.

Now, Lifetime has spilled the beans. In case someone was just cruising the blog and wants to be surprised Thursday, we’ll make you click to the jump to find out who is making the designers go gaga. (And no, it isn’t Lady Gaga.)

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“Divorcee” is a wonderfully anachronistic term, conjuring up images of Fred Astaire movies or 1950s paperbacks with racy covers.

But if using such an out-of-fashion term produces a “Project Runway” episode like Thursday’s, I say let’s bring on the “maiden,” “spinster” and “courtesan” challenges.

We’ve waited all season for an episode just like this one, which brought us creative brilliance, runway disasters, distinction among the designers, awesome judges’ comments and a sense that someone - namely Irina Shabayeva - might actually win this thing.

The perpetually smirking Irina only finished second in the challenge, but her recent dominance has at last set her apart from the pack.

The challenge was well-conceived. The designers were greeted by nine divorced women in their wedding dresses and asked to turn the gowns into up-to-date outfits for their single lives.

Most of the pre-fashion-show drama centered on poor Shirin Askari, who drew a skimpy shift dress and a divorcee who wanted a feathered Bob Mackie extravaganza. After much angst and tears, Shirin wisely ignored her divorcee’s wishes and produced a modestly restyled dress that made the top three.

Gordana Gehlhausen won the challenge - deservedly - with an impressive asymmetric dress, but it was the bottom three who provided the most breathtaking looks.

Christopher Straub’s two-layer dress - skewered by Michael Kors as “a metallic Hefty bag cinched in the middle” - wasn’t even bad enough to make the final showdown. Instead, it was the two looks that Heidi Klum brilliantly labeled Oktoberfest outfits.

Logan Neitzel produced perhaps the worst pair of pants ever to go down the “PR” runway, but that wasn’t enough to get him ejected, given Epperson’s spectacularly awful German barmaid dress. (See all of the looks here).

Auf Wiedersehen, Epperson. Go enjoy a stein of heifeweisen.

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