PR 10 EP 12: En Garde Avant-garde!

We're nearing the end! The challenge that will determine the three that will go to The Tents! Or not. More on that later…..

It all started when Heidi told the designtestants that they would be meeting Tim in a place "far, far away," and I thought, Noooooo! A freakin' Star Wars challenge! Noooooooooooo!

Luckily it was at Oheka Castle, a mansion on Long Island with lovely gardens, Tim Gunn and Billy B, some muckety-muck from L'Oreal who told the designtestants that their challenge was to create an avant-garde look not only inspired by the castle, but by L'Oreal's new Electric Fantasie line.

Ooooh product placement!

Each designer was given a make-up theme--from Artsy Muse to Enchanting Queen--Hello Christopher, to Seductive Temptress, and, finally, Wise Mystic--from which to create their avant-garde looks. Christopher, whose name was drawn last from the Infamous Button Bag, gets to choose any one of the “ladies” and he obviously goes Enchanted Queen. He says he’ll be going head-to-head, mano a mano, with Fabio in proving who is the better Enchanted Queen and I say, as I’ve said for weeks, Christopher is the biggest Queen this year.

Now, I always like the avant-garde challenge because it either soars or falls flatter than a Zen Budhu rose motif on the runway, so I was cautiously optimistic. And honestly, after the last few weeks of showgirls and Heidi Klum's Kiddies’ Line, I bet the designtestants loved it, too.

Tim explains that avant-garde means something new and experimental—remember that—and then gives them two days! And Four.Hundred.Dollars. Christopher’s mouth hasn’t opened that wide since Leather Night at the RamRod. Just sayin’.

So, let’s rip….

DMITRY/Wise Mystic

My first thought is WTF is a wise mystic? I kept seeing an owl-looking woman with glasses, so it’s a good thing I never made it to the PR. Dmitry automatically uses the architecture of the Oheka Castle as his inspiration and decides he’ll create a suit.

My second thought is A suit is avant-garde?  Maybe if you’re Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.

Which is kinda what I got from the suit. It seemed more retro than new or experimental. Now, since Dmitry is a great tailor, or seamster, or sewer, or whatever, the suit was impeccable, but it was boring. It wasn’t avant-garde at all.  When Tim asked how the suit was avant-garde, Dmitry said he’d never made a suit like it before and it, um, had triangle sleeves. Tim said triangles weren’t enough to be “new and experimental” and reminded Dmitry that it “may be avant-garde for you...but is it avant-garde for the judges?"

No. No. And oh god what is Nina gonna say?

So, to avant-garde-it-up, Dmitry added a detachable Chippendales' collar and tie to the suit, and cut some slits in the side and, yeah, that was it. He needed to push it further, go a little wild.

Heidi loves it, and I’m kinda stunned. She says it has angles she’s never seen before—could it be? Triangle sleeves? Guest judge, actress Zoe Saldana also goes cuckoo for the sleeves but feels they got lost in all that extra detail and collars and sheer backs and slits. Kors dubbed the neckline “Vampira” which is neither “new” nor “experimental.” Nina says the details are incredible and the work is impeccable.

Dmitry wins this challenge. Seriously. Now, I have always liked Dmitry’s looks because there is always some interest, and some really great detail, but this is avant-garde? Go back to the 80s and find pictures of women wearing their suits to work and you’ll see this suit.

Okay, without the Chippendales collar and the sheer back, but still….

Dmitry, upon being told that he’ll show at Fashion Week, leaps for joy and jumps from the stage and tongue kisses Heidi, Nina and Zoe, and fist pumps Kors or….

He gives a quiet little, "Yeah!"

CHRISTOPHER/Enchanted Queen

As soon as I heard the word Queen, I knew what Christopher would do. He would make a gown because he longs for the gown. And it would be black and sexy and enchanting and, well, it looked like something that had been suggested for Charlize Theron in Snow White and The Huntsman until she nixed it.

In other words” costume.

He made his Enchanted Queen dark and evil, and we know this because he gave her a big ass and wide hips—hoping, I guess, that Kim Kardashian would be a judge. But, in his attempt to create an hourglass shape, he forgot about the top of the hourglass. His model, flat-chested as a twelve-year-old boy, could have been, should have been, padded to have a fuller bosom for that sekshi shape, a la Marilyn Monroe. But Christopher focused on beading and feathers and hips and asses and a see-it-there corset, that he neglected the top half completely. Tim says it's very 1890s in its silhouette and that doesn’t make it avant-garde and Christopher basically seems to have no idea what Tim is saying. He tilts his head like a dog who has been asked if he wants a cookie and just stands there.

His design is well-made, I’ll give him that, but it’s a costume. It doesn’t seem Enchanted as much as it seems New in town, pardner. After the judges spend a few minutes swooning over the make-up and the nail polish—product placement—they get down to business. Kors gives it the dreaded   "Goth-Victorian" and Nina says there’s too much going on. Zoe Saldana rags him on the lack of bustiness in his dress—I mean, he padded the hips and ass but left the boobs plain and unfinished? Plus, um, feathered arms? Seriously? I’ll give him credit that they looked good when the model had her hands on her hips, but when she walked, and the arms came down, she had, as Kors rightly said, hairy forearms.

And all through their critique not once did they call it avant-garde.

MELISSA/Artsy Muse

New. And experimental.

To Melissa, whom I like, that meant yet another high-neck. It’s her signature, if you will, and about as overused as a Ven Rose, As Dmitry said, of Ven, Melissa is kind of a “one-trick monkey.”

Her dress was artsy, I’ll give her that, and she stayed away from her Goth-aesthetic and love of black, so she get props there, too. But it wasn’t new. It was a tank, with a leather shirt over it, and a leather vest over that and a big skirt with a coral lining.

Avant-WTF?

As usual, Tim worried about Melissa and her time management.  She usually gets very ambitious and runs around at the last second, leaving Tim holding the door sand saying, “Melissa? We have to go. NOW!”

Uncle Tim doesn’t like to be kept waiting. It’s rude, y’all.

Not one judge mentions the Melissa-high-neck-shorty-jacket combo that we’ve seen more than once this season. But Kors j’adores it. He finds the idea of separates thrilling. Nina chimes in with nothing but love for the seen-it-before vest and collar, though she thinks the skirt is too long. [Sidenote: why, whenever they have the avant-garde challenge, does that translate into mile long skirts?] Heidi is not following; she doesn’t know which design is uglier, Melissa's or Fabio's.

Ouch.

Saldana likes it. That’s all.

And Melissa’s in, too.

FABIO/Enchanted Queen

Fabio, for me, is the most avant-garde of the bunch. He thinks outside the box—after he’s scoured the box for leftovers for his lunch. Plus, Fabio’s nice and polite. Even when the judges haven’t liked his work, he always thanks them for their input. I like Fabio; he’s grown on me this season, and I want him at The Tents.

And he’s the only one who seems to have created a story for his Enchanted Queen; she’s all hard on the outside, structured and tough, but sheer and vulnerable on the inside.

Unfortunately, the outside is a really butt ugly coat and the inside will have the model wearing booty shorts. Oy!

Tim stood back and went through his entire repertoire of Tim Gunn Expressions without uttering a word, and Fabio knew he was doomed. Finally Tim said it wasn’t avant-garde enough, if at all, and Fabio went back to the drawing board.

And flipped it upside down, baby, Remembering that he used to wear button down shirts as pants, he decided to turn the jacket and make it, not reversible, but upside-down-reversible.

New. And experimental. Avant-freaking-garde.

But, his "Enchanted Queen" wasn’t the hit I thought it would be. The jacket got raves, but the rest of the outfit seemed to be a miss. Kors doesn’t like big palazzo pants; who knew? Heidi, as we’ve learned, hated it, while Zoe Saldana loved the jacket but was worried about the rest; it didn’t show off the model’s body very well, if all. Nina wanted the jacket, and if Nina wants it, well, it’s in.

And so was Fabio, the last one to make it to The Tents. And I’m glad, because, while the other designers seem to have a show already planned, Fabio’s will be something unexpected, I think.

SONJIA/Seductive Temptress

Sonjia lost her beautiful gold fabric and I thought for sure she’d get the Extra Trip To Mood Treatment, but No. She would have to make do with what she brought back. So, no gold; the Seduction will be in green.

Green. With envy, I think, since no one else lost fabrics.

And Tim turns Sonjia green when he tells her that she hasn’t been living up to her potential all season long. Yeow!  And then, upon seeing her green—and is she folding it Origami style like Ven?—and nude dress he says it’s a little school project-slash-figure skating.

Again. Yeow!

And it was. Kors dubbed it "A costume Nancy Kerrigan would wear to skate through a Banquet Hall." And Zoe Saldana took that vision and said the top looked like a couple of green napkins that the model grabbed to cover herself up. Then Kors took that idea and ran with it, saying it looked like a “banquet blew up all over her!”

Ye-followed quickly by-ow!

Heidi loves the color and the concept, and says it’s a red carpet dress; yes, if the red carpet leads to banquet room #1 at the Akron Best Western. Her only critique—and I said this to Carlos as we watched—was that the sheer fabric didn’t match the model’s skin tone so the nudity illusion didn’t happen. Nina didn’t like the green; it wasn’t seductive. And she was right. It wasn’t a slinky green as much as it was a Lime Jell-O Green.

And it wasn’t avant-garde at all, which is I think why Sonjia wasn’t given that last slot. While I liked her as the season began, she has been up and down all the time, in both her designs and her moods—though she’s no Elena in the mood swing department. I thought as the season began that I wanted her at the tents, but as we went along I became a little less impressed.

Sonjia, while she won’t show at The Tents on TV, was one of the eight designers in the Fake Show so the producers could hide the Real Show; she did get to The Tents, but not as a Finalist.

MY TAKE

I’ve liked this season. There has been some real talent this year, but a lot of folks are calling it a dull year. Dull, I’m guessing, because of the lack of bullies, a la Gretchen and Joshua.

No one fainted. No ambulance was called.

There wasn’t a lot of screaming.

And, there, right at the end of the episode, we learn that the Final Four will not all show at The Tents; they will present their looks to the judges and only Three get the Real Show Within The Fake Show trip to Fashion Week.

For me, I want Dmitry, Fabio and Melissa.

Christopher would be all right, but he annoys me, and that’s enough to get Auf’d at my house.

What did YOU think?