Last week saw the end of our Snohomish boy Josh C, and a questionable victory for faux-Euro boy Olivier.
Here’s the trailer for this week’s episode!
This week, the drama is heightened with a the most appalling of all things – a TEAM CHALLENGE! and their team challenge is to design for stilt walkers. Weird? Oh yeah… people on stilts kind of remind me of the circus which makes me think of clowns, which automatically freak me out and make me cringe. At least the stilt walkers they’re designing for are actually professional stilt walkers, and not their poor regular models on stilts. Although, that would be HI-larious!
Teams are chosen by the much-feared Button Bag. The first team chosen in Bert and my crush Viktor (Viktor is displeased, and is kind of dickish about it…Bert is butthurt), the next team is Anthony Ryan and Laura the midwesterner (could be awesome, perhaps?), eyebrow plucker Josh McKinley is teamed up with Coloradan Julie (this could get rough), Danielle is teamed up with Cecelia, Anya is teamed up with immunity-having Olivier, Kimberley is with Becky (this could be bad…) and Bryce is with Fallene (this is sort of the low-expectation team…)
More deets, spoilers and sarcasm after the jump!
For the first time EVER, their runway show will be outside. With a public audience, with the media attending. Designers commence pooping themselves.
They’re on to the workroom to sketch up ideas – Viktor and Bert are going to be problematic. Bert’s feelings are clearly hurt from Viktor’s less than enthusiastic reception at the news of their being teamed up, and he’s refuting everything Viktor puts out.
Wait, it’s a one-day challenge? Damn… that’s fast!
Becky discovers that she and Kimberley have never even had a conversation, but concerns are swiftly allayed when they both realize their own awesomeness – Becky’s good at jackets, and Kimberly is good at pants! Match made in heaven! Bryce and Fallene’s model is crazy, punk-rock, sexy hot. She looks like a Roller Girl. More of Bert being condescending, and Viktor rolling his eyes… my crushiness is fading…
Designers finally get to go to Mood, for the first time ever. They’re all over that shop – Mood is a huge ass store, so it would be hard to run through when you’re pressed for time, and they’re running around that store like duchess satin sniffing monkeys on a bender. Laura and Anthony are getting a whole lotta RED, RED, RED and Julie and Eyebrows are frustrating each other… Julie isn’t formally trained, apparently and neither is Fallene, and as a result they’re working the nerves out of their fashion-school graduate teammates. Seriously, school is good for learning techniques, but it sure don’t make you interesting or creative.
Fabrics bought, and back to Parsons where the drama starts to unfurl as swiftly as Dull Danielle’s turquoise taffeta… airy fabrics are famously hard to work with, and when you have only one day, you better know what you’re doing. Viktor and Bert manage to agree on a silhouette, but I suspect they’ll agree on little else. Danielle is questioning Cecelia’s fitting skills (srsly? Physician heal thyself!)
Josh M expresses his frustration with his teammate Julie...
Bert appears to have my grandma’s sofa slipcover, but is complaining that the design isn’t modern. Bert is petulant and annoying, and Viktor is going all “snippy-queen”…. ah, when queens snipe at each other, nothing good can ever happen.
By the way, this show RUSSIAN DOLLS on LIfetime looks appalling. It’s like the Real Housewives of Brighton Beach, ugh.
Back to the show! Josh Eyebrows makes a solid point about Bert being a bitch because he doesn’t have immunity this week and he’s scared. Bert just seems to like complaining and being condescending. I’m really over the complaining. Bert’s insecurities emerge as bitchiness – it is endemic among our people, I know, but we must learn to control it! A learning moment was had!
Laura and Anthony’s thing is scary. It’s involving a hoop skirt (damn!) and a LOT of red fabric. Granted, a hoop is probably helpful to keep the stilt walker from getting all tangled up, but that could go horribly wrong. But, they do seem to be the only team that’s happening well.
Tim visits! Needless to say, Viktor and Bert argue in front of Tim. Boys! Quit acting up in front of company! Becky notes that the boys’ work is “ghastly”… I love that word, and will be using it more.
Seriously, I don’t want to see another preview for RUSSIAN DOLLS… it’s horrible.
Back from commercial, and it’s more of Bert and Viktor bitching. Their garment IS ghastly… Becky is right. Anthony Ryan and Laura are working a pretty brilliant shoulder situation for their red, red, red adventure. Anya and Olivier are working on something really boring. I think they’ve cancelled each other’s brilliance out. Olivier DOES know how to cut, and Anya is relatively innovative, even if she isn’t super sharp in construction.
Pressure builds as the night ends, Cecelia is dressing down Danielle, which is sort of like watching someone pimp slap a kitten. Model stilt walkers appear for fittings, and there’s a LOT of ugly in that room. Anya and Olivier’s piece is ugmo, Fallene’s bodice is jacked because she didn’t match the grain of the fabric on the bodice (kind of an entry-level mistake) which results in tears, Cecelia and Danielle make nice and hug it out.
Up at 4:30 a.m. - Viktor and Bert are making nice…sort of. Fallene is still out of faith in herself. Maybe working with Bryce is just so intense she can’t deal. They don’t have time to re-work the bodice, and Bryce just takes over the design, making a tube top. a TUBE TOP! Here’s my thought on tube tops – never, ever work a tube top. Unless it’s 1978 and you’re wearing a sequined one whilst roller skating, no one should ever wear one. Since that time will never happen again (mercifully) just don’t! Otherwise you look like you should be an extra in Deliverance 2, or some such thing where women only talk if they have a handrolled cigarette stuck to their frosty pink lips, while standing on the front porch of her doublewide yelling at the kids not to play in the culvert. You may not know what a culvert is. Look it up… Gah! Where was I? Oh yeah, DOWN WITH TUBE TOPS!
The pressure of it being a one-day challenge is starting to kick in. Last minute adjustments and embellishing. Fallene, having abdicated all responsibility for the dress, decides to make a weird little hat. And it’s weird. Tim comes in and lays down the timeline for everyone – they have a scant 90 minutes to get them through the Garnier-Fructis-Loreal-Brother-Piperlime Hair Makeup Accessory world, and be runway ready. They do have to get themselves down to the outdoor runway! Cecelia and Danielle’s model has this crazy fallen beehive situation on her head – it looks like she started out with an awesome, full-on Ronnie Spector bouffant, but hit the bar a few too many times, fell asleep in a cab, and let the hive crash down…
Off to Battery Park! Fallene is crying again, at a near panic, for not having done anything for their dress. Don’t forget your weird little hat!
Let’s see the runway, already! It’s all the usual suspects, with special guest judge Kim Kardashian. This must have been the episode that was being filmed earlier when Mr. Strangeways reported that those two worlds combined.
Runway begins:
Julie and Josh McKinley have the craziest-ass thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like double-knit madness pants you’d only imagine on a peyote high.
Viktor and Bert’s piece looks really old. Bert earns no points by saying in VO that he was “encumbered” by Viktor. Not being a dick helps too, Bert. No matter what, that outfit is ugly as homemade sin.
Fallene and Bryce basically have created a black swan situation that’s just completely uninteresting. But at least they dodged the Tube Top mess by converting it into a halter. Still a yawn, though.
Becky and Kimberley’s model is walking badly in borrowed stilts… seems like a bad idea. But their piece is really slick.
Olivier and Anya’s piece is a complete yawn.
Cecelia and Danielle’s is pretty cool – they worked that silk into submission but that beehive gone bad is just awful.
Anthony and Laura’s red charmeuse pant/skirt is really pretty rad. It’s simple, which I’m sure killed Anthony, but it’s really nicely done.
Here comes the judgement train! Choo Choo!
Anya and Olivier are deemed to be in the middle for their not-particularly-interesting ensemble. Olivier had immunity anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
Who’s in the top:
Becky and Kimberly's vaguely military suit
Laura and Anthony Ryan make RED into a story...
Cecelia and Danielle's breezy ensemble with f*cked up hairdo
In the bottom:
Josh M & Julie's psychotic matador thing...
Bryce and Fallene's Black Swan Goes Horribly Awry
Bert & Viktor make one of the ugliest, most taste-free things I've ever seen.
The top three get reviewed first: Lots of love for Laura and Anthony Ryan, Danielle and Cecelia collect lots of love for their outfit but are lambasted mercilessly for their model’s hairstyle (understandably so!) by Michael and Nina thinks they’re too quiet with the brown and turquoise color choices. Kimberly and Becky collect lots of love, too for their amazing pant and jacket combo.
Now, the bottom: Predictable sniping between Bert and Viktor (I don’t think we’ve heard the last of those two) after Michael Kors shreds them for their crap fabric choice – seriously, it’s profoundly old and ugly looking. Fallene and Bryce get the shit kicked out of them for their non-look. Heidi calls it black swan, too. Kim Kardashian says something uninteresting, and Nina thinks it’s the start of an idea, and Michael Kors likes Fallene’s last-minute headpiece. Josh and Julie’s hodgepodge of ideas that were meant to read as “matador” simply come off tacky as hell. They didn’t work the proportion well to do something fun – they just made the legs long, although it is tailored impeccably.
Winner? It's Laura! I can see that, but Laura certainly doesn't need the ego boost.
Who's auf'd? It's crying Fallene. It's a shame, because she just lost her confidence, but that's all part of the challenge - not collapsing like a souffle in an earthquake when things get tough.
Until next week mein liebchen when it looks like new wackiness will ensue.
