Just because I’ve been recapping this show since season 3 (yikes, I can’t believe that’s actually true) doesn’t mean I know anything about fashion.That point was driven home repeatedly watching last night’s topsy-turvy episode. One outfit the designers thought deserved to be in the top ended up in the bottom 3. Another universally panned outfit ended up winning. Cats and dogs living together – mass hysteria!
The show delivered another interesting challenge (that’s two in a row for those of you scoring at home) by having the designers create a hat inspired by and complementary to a hat by Philip Treacy. We knew Treacy was a big deal by the way every one of the contestants fawned over him. Apparently, he couldn’t have been that big a deal because the almost all the designers made their selections based on the models they liked/worked with, not Treacy’s hats.
The people we’ve come to expect to dominate the workroom segments did so again. Gretchen continued her dogged pursuit for the Most Condescending Person Award of 2011 by giving more unsolicited advice. “What John Thinks” favorite Michael C. freaked out about the fact that his fabric was puckering and generally looking fugly. All this, and we got to see the designers eating once again!
Meanwhile, our dear Casanova still had no idea what was going on. His exchange with Tim about how he had created an unbelievably safe dress that was in fashion 20 years ago was priceless. Tim agreed that it was wearable, and let a brief silence hang in the air. Throughout the history of the show reasonable (and even unreasonable) designers have filled that silence by catching on to the fact that Tim was trying to tell them that the dress was wearable…but not innovative or exciting. Casanova asked Tim if he was supposed to make something not wearable. Sigh. To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of Casanova’s cluelessness (he’s making the rest of us Puerto Ricans look bad). However, he admitted that he set out to make a safe dress – and there he was sailing safely into next week. Maybe he’s some sort of evil genius.
At the other end of the taste spectrum, Tim expressed some reservations about the random zipper in the back of Valerie’s dress (which was really a mask). In the end, he told Valerie to go with her instinct. I’m actually with Tim – I didn’t get the point of the zipper. However, I also think Valerie is one of the very best contenders this season, so if she likes something, she should probably just go with it.
The fact that she ended up in the top 3 for the third week in a row proves that she knows what she’s doing.
After a sensational runway show last week, I was actually pretty underwhelmed by this week’s offering. Even Valerie’s inclusion in the top 3 seemed odd, given that Treacy was amusingly open about his disdain for her work. Also, Mondo is lucky that he put a mustache on his model because it probably distracted the judges from how ugly the his outfit was.
The designers asked to stay for their critiques were Valerie, Michael C., Michael D., April, Kristin, and Christopher. Backstage, the designers speculated about who was in the top and who was in the bottom. And by “the designers”, I mostly mean Gretchen and Ivy. Gretchen announced that Christopher was in the top 3 because she wear everything he made – well bully for her! Meanwhile, Ivy (and some others) was sure that eventual winner Michael C. was a shoo-in for the bottom 3, and said that she and Gretchen “obviously” belonged in the top 3. This from the person who created a beige and white lady at lunch ensemble! It may be horrible to say, but after seeing her comments, I wish Ivy had stayed in the hospital and sat this challenge out.
Then again, it’s entirely possible that I’m just being fiercely protective of my boy Michael C., who has consistently said everything I’ve been thinking during the early part of this “Runway” season. Look, I realize his dress didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, and it didn’t really deserve all the fawning praise the judges gave it. However, it WAS a lovely creation, and he deserved credit for pulling that dress out of his butt after his initial soon-to-be debacle. Whether he deserved to win or not is up for debate – however, I think we can all agree he did NOT deserve all the venom he got from his competitors.
The more conventional wisdom (at least according to my girlfriend Erica) was that Michael D. was going to win for his structural dress. I thought it was well constructed, and I liked the color of his skirt, but in the end I felt like the thing came off a bit too boxy and too literal an interpretation of his model’s hat.
The even more conventional wisdom was that Christopher was going to take the win – and he found himself in the bottom 3. Did Christopher really make one of the 3 worst designs? Absolutely NOT. (Hi, Mondo!) It’s too bad because his initial idea got bogged down by those gray leggings and those boots. (He did NOT use the Piperlime Accessory Wall “thoughtfully.”)
Still, there was no way in hell Christopher was going anywhere, so the choice came down to April’s “triple panty” booty shorts, and Kristin’s orchid-inspired, sad droopy black vagina dress. The judges made the right call in sending Kristin home (no matter how much fun she allegedly brings to the workroom). The fact that April made separates and that Nina Garcia liked her top (I didn’t) seems to be what saved her. Yes, the person who put a zipper in the back of her bunched up diapers lived to see another week. (I wouldn’t have minded a double elimination.)
So what’d you think of this episode? Were the other designers too harsh on Michael C.? (It’s probably always been like that, but now we get to see it in these 90-minute episodes.) Finally, will you now refer to women’s lady parts as “the good china”?
1 comment:
I agree with u that.
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