Project Runway designer lays an egg. On purpose.

The assignment on last night's "Project Runway" sounded deceptively simple. Design an outfit -- any outfit -- for pregnant (with twins) super model and actress Rebecca Romijn. 

Despite being a little star-struck and a lot freaked out over designing maternity wear, most of the designers did okay. A few of them designed big hits, a few designed big misses, and one laid a giant egg. And he did it on purpose.

Malvin got a little too conceptual with the assignment, and envisioned Rebecca Romijn as a giant mama chicken, complete with feathers, carrying her little egg belly swaddled in draping fabric. Thank goodness Tim Gunn talked him out of the jodphurs that he was designing to flare out at the hips like chicken legs. Seriously. That was his stated intention -- "chicken legs." 

After being warned not to get too costumey, Malvin toned down the jodphurs but still presented Rojmin with an outfit that looked like (and I typed this as soon as I saw it) a skinny woman carrying a basketball in a muslin sling. And that is exactly what the judges said, too. They liked the delicate black feathery detail on the shell underneath, but they thought the main piece looked like a giant sling. 

The all-female panel (designer Monique Lhuillier sat in for Michael Kors this week) declare that no pregnant woman wants to look like a big chicken carrying an egg and they send Malvin and his "bizarre" (said Nina Garcia) chicken suit home. Malvin tells the other designers that his outfit was "too conceptual for America." No, it was too ugly for America.

The winner of the evening was Shirin, who designed a beautiful red dress and a dark gray wool jacket with a patterned lining that played off the red in the dress. I loved that jacket. She gets immunity next week.

The designer whose days are numbered has to be Mitchell. He came up with a nice idea -- a trendy shorts set that Romijn could wear anywhere. And from a great distance it probably looked really cute. But if you got within 50 feet of it, you could tell that the waistband of the shorts was all messed up and the tshirt was too tight, making the horrible craftsmanship of the shorts clearly visible. Heidi said the shorts looked like she had sewed them herself. The judges call it a mess and tell him they liked his concept but his execution was sloppy. After last week's disastrous "naked lady dress," Mitchell needed to bring his A-game and he definitely did not.

The judges also were not fond of Ra'mon's purple paneled cocktail dress. Mitchell tried to tell him when he was sewing it that the belly of the dress looked like a bowling ball bag, but Ra'mon had a mini-meltdown and Mitchell backpedaled a little. So it was funny when Rebecca Romijn said the exact same thing upon seeing the dress: looks like a bowling ball bag. And it did.