Let me start by saying, last week's preview was a major teaser for stuff that didn't even happen this week. Boo to that! There was no fighting and very little bitching this week. There were a few designers who have obviously been groomed in the art of the sound bite (actual quote from Laura Kathleen: "More classy than assy"). But it was still interesting to see which designers were able to step up to the audience-pleasing unconventional materials challenge. This year's creativity challenge? Materials found in a pet store. Sounds pretty straight forward. And it was, but still a great episode.
Several designers break this cardinal rule, but Bert seems particular oblivious to it. ("If you abuse your immunity, the judges will get mad" warns one of his fellow designers while Bert ignores her and sings about his immunity while asking if anyone heard what Tim said in the instructions.) Good thing you have that immunity, Bert, but let's see how hard the judges are on you NEXT week.
Another designer who struggled with their choice of materials was Fallene. Despite bragging/complaining that "all of the other designers" thought this was her challenge because she's the artsy-crafty one, it seems like it's anything but. Or maybe that's just what she said later to cover her tracks. First we see her complain about picking out so many orange flowers from the pet store. "I never use orange," she says in the talking head interview. "I don't know what I was thinking!" She says this despite the fact that at the pet store she herself was wearing an orange blouse, orange shoes and orange earrings.
Later she is quick to agree with the judges that her choice of using orange and black together in her design was a poor one, as it clearly looks too "Hallowe'en-y." This is a conclusion she must have reached after she got dressed that morning, as she herself is wearing another orange blouse, this time paired with what looks like black shorts. So, yeah.
Then there's the battle of the puppy wee wee pads. This really separates the designers with innovation from those who have possibly never seen the show before.
Viktor is able to transform these humble pee pads into something less urinary and more visionary (I'm sorry, that was terrible), while Bryce is...not. It's just awful from start to finish and, if anything, his "wee wee pad dress" only made Viktor's look all the stronger by comparison.
If only Joshua Christensen had had similar instincts about which parts of his design he should keep and which he should scrap. When Tim visited him in the workroom, he had a striking belt made out of a cat scratch post, probably the most interesting and innovative part of his whole look. Then when his model came down the runway, she was wearing a slap-dash, boring as hell version of the belt made with what looked like scrap fabric and a dog leash. What happened, Josh?
I can't help but wonder if Josh C's bizarre last-minute choices had something to do with his self-proclaimed best bud in the competition, Joshua McKinley. We did see Mr. More-Is-Better advising the Mormon Josh not to use a clutch or "any accessories" on his model as it would "take away from his look." Was that honest advice? It doesn't sound like advice Josh M. would take himself, so it does make me wonder how sincere it was (especially since Josh C went home this week for being too boring!). But sadly, Josh Christensen seems to have been born without guile. He cannot lie. He cannot detect lies. He cannot form opinions stronger than, "I hope they like it" and "Please let me be so-so today!" Even that goal was ultimately out of his reach. Oh well.
Other designers were completely IN LOVE with their choice of raw materials. If I had been in the workroom listening to Anthony Ryan brag about his flippin' bird seed and how he was SO unconventional because he did something NO ONE ELSE did, I probably would have punched him in his one remaining testicle (for further description of this, please see Laura Bennett's blog this week). At the end of the day he made a dress from muslin and embellished it with bird seeds. It was nice and, to be fair, probably my favourite look of the day, but it wasn't GENIUS on a level no one could have possibly DREAMED OF, like Anthony would have you believe.
For the most part I agreed with the judges' decisions in every aspect except possibly their reaction to Olivier's dress. I don't get Olivier. At all. I want to like him because he's young and pretty and has a sweet accent (which we learned this week is straight up FAKE since he was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and only moved to London when he was sixteen, before moving to Milan for college!). I want to like the fact that he has a muted colour palette and a subtle sense of style. After all, I'm a big fan of that Colonial British colour palette circa 1870-1920: the mix of whites, creams and neutrals matched with preppy but somewhat sporty tailoring. I loved everything they wore in Legends of the Fall or Out of Africa, for instance.
But Olivier doesn't come across that way to me. His clothes (including the ones he wears himself) just seem like he bought them at Good Will from the estate of some old lady with bad taste. They're frumpy, weird-fitting, and combine neutrals in a way that makes them look cheap instead of expensive. This week his dress was slightly more interesting because of the use of the unconventional materials, but it still made his model look about 10 dress sizes bigger and 10 years older than she is. But what do I know? Maybe his model is just a 38-year-old woman who wears a size 12. Good for her. She got a job as a runway model on a popular TV show. The future is now!
I think the most interesting part of these unconventional materials challenges is the way in which so many designers will bend, warp and manipulate the weird materials until they look like something exactly like what they sent down the runway the previous week.
Here are some examples:
Anthony's almost-winning birdseed dress. It's pretty great and it deserves to be praised. Luckily, I don't need to praise it because Anthony already did it for me every single time he opened his mouth. We get it, Anthony! You're very impressed with yourself. Well, at least he didn't talk about his genitals as much this week.
I'm a little worried about Anya because it looks like she just recreated her look from last week using different materials. Hopefully she has more to show than colourful, strappy halter tops with charcoal bottoms.
When I first saw Betsy Ross's design I thought it was pretty great, but that's probably just because it reminded me of a pride flag. I'm hoping she does more dresses that remind me of flags so I can keep calling her Betsy Ross.
Jesus, Bert, were you even TRYING? I think I made this exact dress for my Barbie when I was six. And I'm pretty sure mine was better.
When I saw Bryce's design come down the runway, I assumed he had chosen a large leather belt from the accessories wall. But now that I'm looking at it...is that the model's midriff?? If so, it is NOT flattering. If not, then, uh, why would he choose a big bulky belt that is EXACTLY THE SAME COLOUR AS THE MODEL'S SKIN? He should have gone home just for that!
Cecilia's dress is...wait, what the hell is that thing in the middle of it? Is it a belt? Is it just randomly placed zippers? I can't believe she made a dress out of DOG FOOD and still managed to make me focus only on the ugliness of her accessories. Is that good? As in, oh hey, the dog food isn't the ugliest part of the look, so that's something...
Sure, last week Danielle put her model in a weird, unflattering bronzy-brown top and ill-fitting, ugly bluish shorts, but this week it's TOTALLY different. This week it's a skirt.
Here Fallene shows off her hatred of the colour orange, despite the fact that it's all she seems to own. At least own your decisions, Fallene! If Gordon Ramsay were a judge on this show he'd have kicked you off for not defending this dress.
Joshua Christensen's model always looks so ANGRY. And poorly dressed.
Joshua McKinley's over use of accessories didn't bother me as much as it bothered the judges but I wasn't keen on the flounciness of the top, especially at that length. I was afraid we were going to see bottom boob at any minute.
Julie claimed her look was "military inspired"--if by "military" she means "boy scout uniform that had to be cut up and woven to make an emergency raft only to discover that they had an inflatable raft the whole time so you can just go ahead and put your uniform back on now."
Kimberly's look is...sorry, that's her name, right? Kimberly? I keep waiting for her to stop being forgettable but these runway looks of hers are NOT helping the cause.
Eh. It's okay. The styling's about as good as it could be, considering the dress is only okay. I kind of wish Laura Kathleen had found a way to make her doggie cone skirt work. She might have been in the bottom three but she definitely would not have gone home for being boring.
If "underwhelming" was a colour, it would be whatever colour Olivier and his model are wearing at any given moment.
I think Viktor should have been a more serious contender for the win. I think he had the best technique and the best styling. Maybe this dress didn't have as much "wow factor" as some of the others, but it also didn't have as much "ugly factor" as most of them either.
The judges didn't have any trouble deciding who was in the top and who was in the bottom this week, although they did argue quite a bit over which boring dress was the MOST boring. Also I thought Heidi and Nina were going to come to blows over the winning dress. Heidi preferred Anthony's bird seed dress but, as usual, Nina got her way and Olivier WON!
I think the contestants are lucky it wasn't a double (or triple) elimination this week, because all of the bottom three were in serious jeopardy. The best moment of the episode was when the guest judge reprimanded Fallene for her boring choices, saying a "ballgown covered in kitty toys" would have been better. "I could have done that," said Fallene, pretending she had considered it at all. "But I was pretty sure that would get me sent home." To which Michael Kors snapped, "And you think this is going well?" But in the end it was poor sweet (read: dumb) Joshua Christensen who was OUT, having proven himself too boring (and dumb) to continue on. I'm sure when someone explains to him what happened, he'll be devastated.
NEXT WEEK: The group challenge FINALLY! Well, it's teams of two, but that might be even better. I want to see these people start to fight!!
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