Okay… I know I’m late with the whole recapping thing but NOT having a job to go to anymore seems to have turned into me NOT having a lot of time to do things other then go to the shop.. take care of the house.. and the kids.. and do my mother’s biddings… you get the idea.
Anyway.. I’m going to catch up in one post so forgive me if I don’t get every detail in.
EPISODE 2 – GOODBYE MALVIN
So Rebecca Romijn :: I don’t think I spelled that right but am in too much of a blogging mood to Google in so again.. forgive me :: was the star guest. At the time of filming :: remember the whole legal snafu? :: Rebecca was very, VERY pregnant with twin girls she later named Charlie and Dolly.
Ok.. we won’t go there on the names.
The challenge was to create maternity wear. It could be day wear, sport wear, evening wear.. didn’t matter. It just had to fit over the faux “baby bump” that was issued for the models to wear on the runway.
Understandably, most of the designers had never designed for a pregnant woman although Qristyl does designed for fuller sized woman and Epperson is married with children. My thought at the time was that if I was a male designer of woman’s clothes and my woman was pregnant with my kid then I would definitely design something for her.. so my expectations of him were high.
Since I watched this episode a week ago, I can’t go into all the details about who designed what. Maybe that’s a good thing because what is forgotten can’t apparently be that good, right?
I do remember thinking that most of the designs were “safe” .. or what you would think that someone in Rebecca’s position would wear. The one’s the I do remember were either in the top or the bottom with two exceptions…
Epperson created a jumpsuit that I thought would have been remarked on more. I’m not a fan of jumpsuits but that’s probably because I don’t have the shape to carry it off. I thought that it was a unique idea.. something not so usual but also thought that if I was a pregnant woman who has to pee a lot then a jumpsuit may not be the best way to go.
Irina also had a design that I would have liked to have heard the judges thoughts on.. it was a little swingy number but it a beautiful shade of tiffany blue with satiny accents. I thought it was adorable but maybe it was too “safe” for the judges.
Shirin won the challenge :: GO TEAM SHIRIN :: by designing a dress in a wine color with a matching coat. The coat had a really cool floral print lining and the gathering the accent the belly was not only very well done but also very flattering to the shape. Clearly, this girl has chops.
The other design that the judges liked was Louise’s lingerie-ish dress. Her style presented the initial design as being a little too not :: ahem :: safe to wear in public but she recognized that and modified it to be a little sexy number that allowed for a burgeoning body. She’s as quirky as hell but knows what she’s doing.
Now.. as for the bottom two, Malvin with his weird conceptional road to design came up with a design that was influenced by.. a chicken? Nesting? I forget.. but it was basically a black feather :: yes.. even though Nikolas is the self professed Prince of Feathers, Malvin beat him in using them :: top with a burlap sling that went across one shoulder and cradled the baby bump. I think the bottoms were just a pair of black pants or something. Don’t remember.
At any rate… I know his design left the judges with their chins on their knees but you know what? I really didn’t think it was all that bad. Maybe without the feathers, though.
Mitchell.. well.. what can you say about Mitchell? After the disaster of Episode 1, he was conscience of not baring too much so he came up with a casual design of a t-shirt and shorts. I think if he was able to pull it off, he would have redeemed himself in the eyes of the judges and even.. possibly.. been in the top but alas.. poor Mitchell fucked it up.
It looked sloppy.. the shorts were HUGE.. but even if ill-fitting, there’s no excuse to not have been sewn well. Hell.. I can hem a pair of pants better then what he did on the hem of those shorts!
Even though Malvin’s design was bizarre, I thought he executed it way better. But alas, he was sent home and Mitchell spared.
EPISODE 3 – GOODBYE MITCHELL
OMG.. it’s about time they got rid of Mitchell! You know.. it got to the point where it was like, “… why the hell is he even ON this show?” and I could just imagine all the designers who tried out and were NOT picked wanting to prick their voodoo doll of Tim Gunn even deeper.
Okay.. so this was the first time that the designers were paired into teams with the challenge being to create a “surfer girl” look that still told their point of view. They also threw in a last minute challenge of creating an avante garde look that complemented the surfer look.
Gotta love those “last minute” challenges.
The team leaders were:
Shirin who picked Carol Hannah as a team mate
Qristyl who picked Epperson as a team mate
Mitchell who picked Ra’mon as a team mate
Logan picked Christopher
Johnny had Irina :: not in the literal sense.. get your mind out of the gutter! ::
Louise went with Althea… or maybe visa-versa. Don’t remember who was team captain.
At any rate.. it doesn’t take long to realize that Epperson and Qristyl were going to clash harder then the titans.
Right away, Epperson was all over Qristyl.. from fabric choices.. to sewing techniques and Qristyl jumped on the defensive. Maybe Epperson didn’t mean to be so critical.. maybe he just wanted to do well in the challenge.. maybe Qristyl shouldn’t have been so defensive.. who knows. The only think that I do know is when you’re working in a team, it’s sometimes a lose/lose situation. If Epperson deferred to Qristyl as the team leader, the judges would have said he should have spoken up.. In this case, Qristyl was reamed for not speaking up enough.
At any rate.. their design wasn’t that horrible. Classic “beach” printed sun dress with a nice fitting bodice and skirt was made well but not something that you couldn’t already find somewhere in a store already. Their second look sucked. The chocolate brown one piece bathing suit did not fit right and it’s covering wrap was nothing but a robe with big poofy :: think Princess Di’s wedding gown :: sleeves. One side brown.. the other side green.
The other drama-fest going on was between Mitchell and Ra’mon.
I guess Mitchell kind of knew that he dodged a bullet last week so when it came time to pick a team mate, he choice Ra’mon. I believe he even said at the top of the show that he thought Ra’mon would carry him through the challenge.
Carry him? The boy did more then carry him. Ra’mon did EVERYTHING for their designs. He actually created 3 looks. The surfer look was really pretty. It was a flowy dress comprised of different dark hued sea colors. The second look was this skin tight Catwoman-y brown wet suit jump suit kind of thing. But at the last minute.. and I do mean LAST MINUTE.. he created another dress out of neon green neopryne :: spelling? :: that was TOO neon so he started to hand dye it with only about a half hour before the models were due on the runway.
Poor Ra’mon was over-extended.. over-wrought.. and more then over-surprised when the judged named him and Mitchell in the top two. I’m glad he threw Mitchell under the bus. He should have ran him over again in reverse because Mitchell didn’t do anything but a sew a bathing suit that you couldn’t even see.
The judges were just as shocked. So shocked that they FINALLY sent Mitchell packing.
Here’s pictures of the winning design. I’ll be honest, when I saw it on television I was dumbstruck as to how all the judges went ga-ga over it but seeing the pictures, it doesn’t look THAT bad.. let me know what you think:
LIVING ME 101 