PR 16 Ep 1: Size Finally Does Matter

Well, here we are at the PR’s Sweet Sixteen ... have I been doing this for sixteen years? No, whoosh, I have not ...but I’ve been doing it a while, and I love it because of the creativity of the designtestants and how they get to where they’re headed from a wee sketch and an idea.

As always, we meet—some of—the designers as they wait for Heidi and Tim; and while I gave my opinion last week based on how they think of themselves, now I’ll describe as to how I feel about how they act ...

I loathe the twins ... Shaved Shawn and Claire Hair. Pompous gasbags and, I’ll say this, they spent five months designing a look for Katy Perry and yet they haven’t done anything else for her? Maybe that speaks volumes ... indeed. You’’ get that reference later. Deyonté is deliciously sweet and ... straight? What the what? And then we have Puerto Rican Margarita and since I love a margarita, I love this sassy one, too.  Samantha showed up and ... Kentaro was next, describing his aesthetic as piano and Japan ...interesting. Amy Bond is a design professor and, well, design professors never do well on the PR so ... Batani is fabulousness in Afro-Centric clothing but she calls herself a Quiet Storm which could mean trouble. 

Michael ... did not speak, so we’ll move on to sassy Kenya, who told Tim she was a “short bald girl from Atlanta.” I like her.  Kudzanai is hip and cool while Aaron is the king, or the queen, of androgyny and unisex fashion. Brandon is adorable—and straight ... what the heck is going on here ... who will Zac Posen flirt with—but second guesses himself a lot, while ChaCha is a cartoon squirrel and I don’t like cartoon squirrels, thankyouverymuch. Ayana and Sentell—who is adorable and, maybe, a Friend of Dorothy and a former dancer—got minimal screen time.

So, that’s the designtestants, and not the first challenge: to create a red carpet look that plays to each designer’s point-of-view. They have $300, ten minutes—I kid, they have one day—and a twist ... this season the models are all different body shapes and sizes—thanks to a push from Tim Gunn—and so the designtestants aren’t creating for clothes-hangers but for real women, sizes 2 to 22.

Let’s rip ...

THE SAFES

ROW 1

Aaron did a riff on a tuxedo with the pants for the top and shirt for the bottom. It looked a little amateurish to me.

Amy created a look I loved because the model wore a cape that she took off and turned into a long skirt; sleek, sexy and surprising. Me like a lot.

Ayana is Muslim and wants to prove that modesty can be sexy and this liquid look does exactly that. Meow.

Claire Hair’s look is sweet and cute and seems well made, but it’s kind of a ‘Meh,’ and not just because I don’t like her.

ROW 2

Kentaro’s look was cool, but then I realized what made it cool were the black tentacles dripping off the top; without them, this is really nothing.

Kudzanai created something new, that I liked for being so different, but it doesn’t say red carpet ... unless Penney’s is doing scarlet flooring in all their stores now.

Margarita’s look was there to party, but someone should have removed the pink scrunchies from the model’s shoulders first.

Michael told Tim he liked a tacky vibe, but this is just dull.

ROW 3

Samantha’s look is Ladies Who Lunch ... At Appleby’s.

Sentell’s look was cool and screamed Oscar’s Red Carpet ... 2097!

TOPS AND BOTTOMS

CHACHA

He likes bright colors and shiny things and kittens and bunnies and acting the fool.

He also told his model she had a big butt and then later called her fat—until Sentell, and the others, schooled him on that. But, he said he wanted to focus on her shape, and her ass and make that statement.

Did he?

WHAT HE SAID

Oh my god! She’s so cute!

WHAT I SAID

She’s wearing the sack the potatoes come in at the My Little Pony Supermarket.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Heidi Klum called it “dance recital, child, scrunchy” and none of those things, even by themselves, are good and Zac Posen was even less impressed; for him it was “clown, unicorn, child.” Nina Garcia—J’adore her—said only the model’s back was showcased and that ChaCha did what he wanted without any thought of his client; she said he had “no respect for the model’s figure.” She also wondered if he ran out of fabric. Guest Judge Olivia Munn asked the model if she liked the dress and the model shrugged and muttered, ‘Yes.’ That says everything. But then she wondered if maybe ChaCha was being ironic and Nina slayed her with ...

You’re giving him too much credit.

DEYONTÈ

Deyonté does this, red carpet looks, so he’s sure to be a winner ... he said he would created a look for Cannes ... and then he picked a bold floral print and said it would shine ... and then Tim said he hated large scale prints ... until he saw this one.

Deyonté draped the floral print so that the lower was the focus and created a really beautiful dress that Safe Amy called a miss and Shaved Shawn said she would never see at Cannes.

Oh, jealousy is ugly on you, Shawn, but then ...

WHAT HE SAID

She’s selling it.

WHAT I SAID

It was fun and floral and flirty and, yeah, she sold it.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Nina Garcia said the placement of the floral print was perfect, and that Deyonté has an eye for prints. Zac Posen called it exuberant and regal and a Michelle Obama moment, meaning, while others may have gone low in their critiques, Deyonté went high. Now, Olivia Munn wasn’t a fan of the print, but did think the dress looked good, while Heidi also said she worried about print, but not this one.

BATANI

She’s all about color and pattern and print and texture, so she scoops up yard after yard of gray fabric ... and, yes, gray is a color, but not what one would call vibrant.

Tim worried that Batani was focusing too much on the appliqués and she assured him she was not; but then she didn’t like the way the fabric bunched up at the model’s waist so she layered appliqués all over it, around it, and down the crack of her ass like a doily tail.

WHAT SHE SAID

I should have hand-stitched the appliqués ....

WHAT I SAID

There is no life in the look or in this girl ... the gray apron is especially disturbing.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Nina Garcia wanted to know why she would camouflage the model’s figure with appliqués rather than celebrate it. Zac Posen loved how Batani was dressed but saw none of that exuberance or joy in her design, while Heidi couldn’t help but think that the appliquéd tail was hiding something ... and it was: Batani’s seam split and the embellishment was meant to cover the mistake. Olivia Munn called Heidi “CIA Heidi”.

BRANDON

Oh, does he need some self-confidence. I mean, if he muttered one more time about not knowing women’s wear and women’s shapes and plus-sized model’s I was gonna throw a plus-sized fit. And he complained and whined so much I seriously thought he was going to walk off the show, he was so self-defeating.

But he sucked it up and he listened to what his model liked and wanted and then put his own POV—hip-hop culture—on it.

WHAT HE SAID

She is really struttin’ it.

WHAT I SAID

At first I wasn’t a fan, but the way the model felt in the look made me like it a whole lot more.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Nina Garcia called it fabulous, strong and sassy, and loved that Brandon designed for his model ... and pointed that out to Batani ... while Olivia Munn wanted to wear it, and loved the sleeve detail with the ties. Zac Posen loved the asymmetry and the sophistication, and wanted to see more ... of Brandon? ... while Heidi noted that it was current ... a good thing for the PR ... and that it had an attitude.

SHAWN

I loathe her; the way she speaks in those clipped tones, the way she acts, and the fact that she truly believes that because Katy Perry wore one of her designs that she’s all that and a bag of chips; she’s not.

But she wants edgy, so she creates a sleek asymmetrical white top with a floor-length sleeve and a similar floor-length waist detail, to be worn with ... wait for it ... shiny silver leather gym shorts.

WHAT SHE SAID

I am in awe. The movement of the sleeve and the drape are in harmony. I am a winner.

WHAT I SAID

She’s a hooker in a bad part of town.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Guest Judge Olivia Munn said she’s try it on, know she couldn’t pull it off, and then let someone else have it for the red carpet. Heidi was not pleased, calling it unbalanced; she liked the sleek top but the shorts ... ? Even Heidi Klum, who has made many questionable choices for the red carpet, is a ‘No’. Zac Posen suggested that a white skirt might have been better, but let’s give Nina Garcia—and this is why I love her—the last word:

To paraphrase Carolina Herrera, ‘You cannot be Best Dressed and not be wearing any clothes.’

KENYA

I like Kenya’s vibe, but I worry about her fabric choices: white on a red carpet, no matter the look, kinda said bridal. But she turned up the sexy with a tight bodice, and a tight skirt, and a fabulous mermaid bottom that, to be picky, made it hard for the model to take a full step.

WHAT SHE SAID

She looks amazing, and the silhouette’s perfect.

WHAT I SAID

Slinky, sexy, and virginal ... how does that work? Very well, apparently.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Heidi called the look ambitious, though she questioned the fabric and it’s not being sturdy enough to keep the bodice up; she felt it was too see-thru. Zac Posen loved it, and called it sleek, sexy and white hot, and loved the construction; he also noted to Shaved Shawn that if she’d made a white skirt for her mess of a dress, she might have been a contender alongside Kenya. Nina Garcia loved the way the dress fit like a glove, while Olivia Munn loved the youthful quality of the pockets.

Well, clearly Deyonté, Kenya and Brandon were Top Three and Deyonté’s choice of fabric and cutting and execution gave him the edge to win the first week.

That left ChaCha Batani and Shawn in the Bottom Three and while I wanted Shaved Shawn to go, just to please my ears, it was clear that ChaCha should be Auf’d.

I was glad ChaCha left ... I was worried producers would keep him because he’s so odd; Batani may have blown it big time ... Never Lie To Heidi ... but she has a style I’d like to see more than kittens and ponies and clowns.

And, I wanted Amy to be Top Three because I loved the innovation and sexiness of her look as it transformed on the runway; she may be a Dark Horse.

As I said over and over again during the show—leading Carlos to finally say Enough!—was, I loathe the Twins ... from the way they speak to the way they talk about themselves to, dare I say, the word choices ... Indeed.

I need more of Sentell without his shirt because I caught a glimpse of the Dancer Body and I want more. I hope Brandon get’s some balls because he might just go far. I love Ayana’s aesthetic of modesty though I hope we won’t see the covered head every single week.

And the Line of the Night goes to Nina Garcia, who, when looking at Shaved Shawn’s Hooker Looker, didn’t so much speak and mouth the word ...

Yeah

... while shaking her head and sighing.

Next week ... an Unconventional Challenge ... and those are always a clusterf**k ... in a good way.

What did YOU think?