PR8EP4: Leave Your Hat On

We begin exactly where we left off last week. Ivy is lying in the hallway and the paramedics are tending to hear. Gretchen reminds us that Ivy just collapsed--Gretchen has a way with commentary. Valerie, on the other hand, gives us a running dialogue about every issue. And, in typical Valerie-speak, ends each and every sentence she utters with a question: She lived on Diet Coke and cigarettes? I hope she can come back? I'm really worried about her? Gosh, I hope I'm not a bridesmaid in the next challenge?
Cut to the mysterious white van, pulling up in front of the Atlas apartments. Ivy gets out, goes upstairs, crawls into bed, and turns out the lights. It was simple dehydration, she tells us, and she grew inspired by the, um, fabrics[?] in the hospital and hopes to use them in the next challenge.
Personally I think they released her too soon.
CHALLENGE
Hats. Everywhere hats. Philip Treacy is apparently some big-time hat designer because everyone, and I mean everyone, wears his hats. Sarah Jessica Parker. Lady GaGa. Heidi. And, um, yep, that's everyone.
The models come down the runway in Treacy hats. Some are gorgeous; some are not. One of them is a mask. Heidi tells our designtestants that they must create an outfit worthy of The Hat. The designers are murmuring about Treacy: He's an artist.....He's a craftsman.....He's a designer....He makes hats?
Okay, that last one was me. See, the last time hats were big, at least as I remember it, was when Lucy and Ethel were in Hollywood because Ricky was starring in MGM's Don Juan. So, hats? Well, it could be interesting.
The designers get to pick the hat and they must take the model wearing the hat, so, as artists, designers and craftsmen, er, people, they all stick with the model they used last week. And most are happy with their choices, except Kristin, who got the Orchid Hat.
The designers are whisked upstairs to draw for fifteen minutes and then they are herded like cattle to Mood where they spend $1.50 on....What? $150.00? Wow, some of those dresses looked more like $1.50, but, okay.
Peach goes for the pink fabric because Peach only works in pink because pink is the color of the Barbie Dreamhouse. Mondo stands before a ginormous wall of fabrics, listening to them. The million trillion fabrics are speaking to him, and telling him that he should have picked the tinfoil hat so he could communicate better with his home planet.
But enough about hats and Mood and hospital gowns.
Let's rip....


Peach
For the love of the Baby-One-Note-Jeesus, Peach Cobbler. We've seen this before and before. You make pink dresses; pretty, cute, pink dresses. Think outside the box, woman, I am so hoping they have the Funeral Challenge this year, even though I can picture Peach's model in a hot pink veil, so....maybe not.
Peach got the feathered headdress and then made a springtime cocktail dress that was so short, Tim was worried. But, in the BEST LINE OF THE NIGHT, Peach assures Tim, It's short, but not short enough to show the good china.
Now I get it. My Mom would always say to my Dad, after dinner, that tonight they were going to use the good china, and off they went to bed. Makes sense now, and I'll be gouging that image out of my eyes for the rest of the day.
It's cute, it's safe, it's pink, it's Peach.
It's safe.

Mondo
Apparently the wackadoo fabrics had the loudest voices at Mood, because Mondo went dotty.
Big dotty on the pants and little dotty on the waistband and trim detail. And he topped it off with a shorty halter vest.
He had L'Oreal/Paris makeup people paint a moustache on his model because, as he said, she was doing men's wears. Um, Mondo, this might be Mondo-wear, but I wouldn't call it men's wear, unless the man is in the center ring taming a tiger, which would get dizzy looking at those bog spots and probably just pass out.
Because that's what I did.
Still, it's a point of view, and it worked with the wackadoo hat, and it's completely Mondo.
And safe.

Ivy
Ivy and Gretchen are the Mean Girls. Now, I get that from Gretchen, with her back-to-back-well-deserved wines [insert sarcasm here] but I don't get it from Ivy. Unless she is just plain mean.
And a bad designer.
How else do we explain taking that hot pink hat, with the, is it a flower on top?, and making a bland beige-and-white suit? I know she said she was inspired by things she saw in the hospital, and used the partition curtains as her jumping off point, but the only thing hospital about this dress is that it makes me sick.
As her beige mess came down the runway she just gleamed and gloated, and saying, I have to get over myself.
To which I reply, It's easy, Ivy, I was over you during the first week.
And, this week, Ivy got the Gretchen edit, playing the Greek Chorus, running around calling Casanova a diva, telling us that Michael C's dress is a hot mess. Of course, when she isn't bashing the other designers, and helping Gretchen with her hair, or carrying Gretchen's schoolbooks, she has a lot of work to do. But, she reminds us, she's that good.
Ivy? Honey? No, you're not.
You're just beige, er, safe.

Gretchen

Two-time winner.

And then there's this. She picked it because she has a fetish for feathers, which falls into the TMI category, but then everything about her is TMI.

Still, for some reason, she got the invisible edit this week. We didn't get too many of her asides during the design-and-create-frenzy, except for when she pulled out her old stand-by, That looks like student work, and applied it to April instead of Andy.

I think maybe it's because, last week, Student Work Andy kicked her Bohemian ass.

Still, Gretchen tells us that April will be going home soon.

But, if I were Gretchen, I'd be a little worried.

This mishmash of an outfit screamed trainwreck into a barn full of chickens. The sheer little Robin Hood get-up with the black leather sash, and those god-awful leggings. Or were they boots? Leggings and boots? Some kind of horrendous model skin defect?

Looks like student work to me.

But it got a pass from the judges.

Casanova

Casanova wanted to quit this week because he doesn't like what the judges say to him. I don't know why he doesn't like it, he doesn't listen to them, and acts as though he doesn't understand them.

Casanova wants to design. He doesn't want to make Party Supply Clothes or Dresses For Hats. He's a couturier, a Grand couturier, from the 1980s.

But he loved his design, until Tim came by and said it looked old-fashioned, and that perhaps every woman already has a 1988 Donna Karan in their closet. And if they don't, they don't want it now.

That sends Casanova over the edge. He stammered something about how he cannot afford mistake...he's not like a cat with seven lives. I was thinking of reminding him that cats have nine lives, and then I remember his two DOA dresses on the runway, and he's right. He's got just seven lives left.

And this boring thing is just Fashion Life Support. It's monotonous; it needs a heart monitor; it needs air pumped into its lungs; it is just enough to keep you alive and no more.

I thought he should have been Bottom Three, because No Design to me is worse than Bad Design.

Andy

Student Work Andy. Immunity Andy. Fabulous Andy.

As soon as he saw his hat, he thought of royalty, and he really created a completely royal look. I can see Princess Dina wearing a hat like this with a dress like that. I can see the Duchess of York wearing a hat like that with a dress like that and then trying to sell them to cover her massive debt.

To me, Andy is the one to beat this year. I have loved everything he's sent down the runway. They are all complete looks.

Plus, and this I really like, Andy doesn't really talk smack about the other designers.

He's there to design.

He's not Tim or Heid or Kors or Nina. Or, goddes forbid, Gretchen and Ivy.

Andy gets a pass, because he has immunity, I think, but this dress should have been nearer the top.

AJ

His look is pretty and safe. It's a little Upper East Side garden party. Chic. Pretty. Yeah, that's all I got.

But I did like Tim's critique of the dress: The woman who can afford a Treacy hat can afford a polka dot dress where the dots line up.

Me-ow. Loved it.

Liked the dress.

Safe.

That's all.

Christopher

Boy, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I was partially wrong on this dress because I was blinded by Chris' dazzling smile, sweet demeanor, and that t-shirt he was wearing.

Focus!

But even Tim loved his design, loved how Chris explained it it. Loved how Chris said the jacket/vest would flow and float down the runway. But Chris is worried that he's too safe, that's he's doing just enough to get by. He wanted a Wow moment and he got it.

Bottom Three.

I was shocked. He was shocked. The other designers, who thought he would win, were shocked.

But I'll give it to the judges. They were right.

The look is very cool, although both Michael Kors and I called the leggings tragic. But the fabric is too heavy. It didn't flow or float, it lumbered. It was drapes as dress and that never works unless you're Carol Burnett, or one of my co-worker--but enough about that.

He defended it as best he could, calling it Parisian, and staying away from the Kor's-comeback-inducing Pirate Chic comment he made earlier. Heidi really doesn't like it, especially with the hat, which is all angles, and the dress is heavy curves. Nina called it stiff, and overly designed, and said the heaviness of the outfit fights with the lightness of the hat.

Philip Treacy doesn't see the connection between his hat and Cris' outfit.

But, Philip, he's cute, right?

I was a'scurred that Cute Chris would get the boot. The judges loathed his work, but in the end, he was only third worst outfit.

April

April got the modern, futuristic hat, and decided it looked like sportswear....on Mars.
So she made separates.
A jacket, and two pairs of underwear worn under one pair of Pamper Quilted.
Seriously, April. Gretchen may have been right--except that she isn't because I loathe her--this looks a little Student Work.
The idea was nice, the color choices, too. And, as a silhouette, it complimented the hat.
But I cannot get beyond the diaper.
Seriously April.
You never once looked at that and thought Diaper?
I know you said you'd wear them if you had a smaller ass, and there are a lot of things I'd wear, but I wouldn't call them fashionable.
And what's with the short black zipper up the crack of the models droopy diapered ass?
Seriously April.
And you said you had no regrets. Oh, I think you do.
Kors liked the vibe, but said the execution [diapers] was wrong. Nina liked the top, but kept shielding the bottom from her gaze. But I think Philip Treacy said it best when he called it weak.
Seriously April.
You are so lucky there was weaker crap on the runway, or you would have been crappin' your pants on the way home.

Kristin

She was stuck with the orchid hat and began complaining immediately. Everyone else got these avant garde, futuristic hats and she got...flowers. And, as she has told us time and again, Kristin don't do literal, so she would have to think outside the box on this one.
Box? Box. Vagina!
The Orchid is sexy, and romantic, and looks like a Big Vagina. Or so she announces to a sewing room full of homos who run screaming fort the exit. But, by Vah-Jay-Jay, I think she's got it.
Gretchen, however, thinks she's sloppy. Gretchen if I haven't said it before, is a bitch. Casanova, also a bitch, says that Kristin knows how to make a big mess, but not a dress.
And this time he may be right. See, then we have Kristin questioning the taste level of the designer who won; the woman who based her deign on a vagina, is questioning the taste level of someone else?
Tim comes by and calls the neckline fussy and Kristin cuts it off. She tells Tim she wants to make a Shrug, and Tim literally shrieks.
So, however, did I.
Kristin, however, thinks she could be on top. And she could, if we started at the bottom.
Kors agrees with Kristin's assessment that the orchid is a sexy flower, but the dress is definitely not. The black is wrong, too heavy, and just because you tucked in pieces of pink doesn't make it honor the hat. Nina says it looks like Kristin had no plan, and Philip thought the dress, like the orchid, should have been more fragile.
Like a vagina.
Kristin is Auf'd.

Valerie?

Valerie didn't get a hat so much as she got a mask? I don't know why, or how they call it a hat but they do? But she decides it very David Bowie? Very Labyrinth? And so she'll make it red, with zippers?
I questioned Valerie's style when I noticed her wearing the tape measure headband in the workroom? She is wearing it while she tells Tim she wants the zippers as a non-functioning design element? But, Tim, like me, is worried they won't work?
Valerie sends so much time, apparently measuring her cranium, that she is running around the workroom? She has a lot to do? She has to hem the dress? That takes time?
The dress hits the runway and looks a little like a red tablecloth? With zippers? And the white jacket, to me, is odd?
But who am I? The judges love it?
They decide it isn't too literal or too costumey? So, it isn't a literal tablecloth? Okay? Heidi likes that it's hard and soft and sexy? Heidi likes it hard and soft and sexy? Kors likes the handkerchief--oh...so that's what it is--hem? Nina says it's mischievous?
Philip, like me, doesn't get it? It doesn't relate to his hat?
But Valerie manages another Top Three finish?
With an ugly always-a-bridesmaid-never-the-bride-dress?

Michael D.

He liked the architecture of the hat, and I must says, I thought this was one of the coolest hats up there. It looked architectural and organic--in fact he called it warrior-farmer on the runway.
I will also admit that when he said in week one that he was a knitwear designer I thought we'd see nothing but knits, from a knit-wit. And we've seen a lot, but not this week.
That fabric on the top looks like cardboard; and it works with the hat. In fact, everyone was so intrigued by the fabric--most sneering at it--that Michael almost forgot to make a skirt. So he grabs a piece of tube fabric, wrings it tight and irons it. I thought he's lost his warrior-farmer mind.
But the skirt was very cool, with it textural wrinkles and the way it flowed. I thought it was a bit too long, but then when you have a leggy model everything is too long.
Philip loved the original shape of the outfit, and everyone--take that sneering designers--loved the fabric. There wasn't a thing they didn't like about this outfit.
But then it only got Top Two.

Michael Costello

He got the I miss my son edit, so I was sure he was going home.
He got the Oh no, I hate my dress so I need to start over edit and I was positive he was going home.
He got the Snarky comments from other [losing] designers edit so I thought he'd pack his knives and go, after killing everyone on the show.
But that didn't happen.
He did hate his design, and he did start over with just a few hours left, but he completely switched up his design and used an altogether different fabric, and, well, as we say on The Runway, he made it work.
Even with the snark thrown at him.
Nit-wit-Knit-Wear, Michael Drummond says Michael C has a lot to learn. He didn't even bring a ruler with him? WTF? In Drummond-speak: There are so many ways to skin a cat, but you should probably bring a knife. Cat murder, Drummond? You don't know who you're dealing with.
Casanova says Michael C's dress looks like a dress you'd find in every Puerto Rican girls closet; and I imagine Casanova has one, too, for those fiesta nights on the island.
I thought the dress looked a little like an octopus, but then his hat looked like some sort of undersea creature, too, so it worked.,
The judges like how he matched the tones of the dress to the hat without being too literal.
Literal is bad.
Kors called it Goddess of the Sea, but I called it that first. Well, I said octopussy, but I meant goddess. Nina loved the color and the styling. It was dubbed effortless and cohesive and Philip Treacy really liked it.
Which is probably why it won.

Meanwhile, in the Stew Room:
Those safe designers are shocked that Michael C's dress is in the top, and even more shocked that Chris' dress is in the bottom.
But when Chris gets a save, all the designers scream with joy as he comes back, screaming, DON'T USE TAFFETA! My personal mantra that has served me well lo these many years.
When Michael C wins, he gets polite applause. And smack talk.
Ivy, of the bland hospital dress is in shock that he won and she and her best BFF Gretchen were just safe! Gretchen calls Michael C a replicator and not a visionary, which i think means he's a blind alien?
Peach and April are shocked he won.
Seriously April. People are shocked you didn't lose.
Michael D called Michael C's dress two handkerchiefs and cording.
The bitches are out.
Let the games begin.
Quelle drama.