PR 13 Ep 2: This Episode Rated WTF

So the designtestants wake up in their fabulous NYC city cramped apartments to find a jumbo popcorn and some 3D glasses waiting for them! What does it mean? A day off for a movie? A red carpet dress? Designing for an A-list celebrity? A costume challenge?

None of the above; it’s the Unconventional Challenge and the designtestants must, in teams of three … oh god, a team challenge so soon … creative a cohesive mini-collection using objects from movies, movie theatres, movie concessions, movie props, movie sets, movie stars.

Movie, movie, movie … move, you have one day to do this and that includes the fights and the tears so, let’s rip …. 

SAFE: Angela, Fade and Sean [left to right]

Okay, so Angela, while mousy and depressed and always on the verge of tears, doesn’t play well with others. When Sean and Fade come up with the idea of movie villains, Angela wants to make an angel with paper flowers because, oh who the hell knows. And when Tim sees it, he tells her that her look, and especially the flowers, is a d-i-saster and needs a rethink. So Angela cuts out square snowflakes instead of flowers, and throws them on some muslin with a few black accents and done!

Fade, however, decided to go for a more wide-hipped approach using straws and some black stuff possibly scraped off the movie theater floor. It’s intriguing, but the top seems ill-fitting, the waist seems out of place, and, I dunno about these things, but is that a skirt of tampons? Not my favorite.

Sean, though, went all straws on us and created what good have gone yeti, but turned out to be a gorgeous, fringe-y, flirty dress. Had it not been for Angela’s kindergarten aesthetic, this team might have won.

The judges pointed out that, because of Angela’s cut-and-paste job, their team was just safe, but would have gone Tops if she’d done anything, anything, else. Angela pouted and wept and cried and wondered why the judges hate her.

SAFE: Char, Kini, Mitchell [left to right]

They were kind of the invisible team, I guess because of the lack of workroom drama and the lack of style. Creating three cocktails dresses in a theme of blue is not really cohesion, but that’s what they did.

Char’s look was made of tickets — though I cannot think of a movie theater that gives raffle-style tickets any more. It was cute and fun, but not much else.

Kini redeemed himself from last week’s grandma look with a Salute to Kitchen Sink Scrubbies Going to Prom!

Now, I am no The Mitchell fan, but at least he took some really unconventional choices with the CDs and all the sparkles—leave it to the ‘mo to go glitz and glam. I liked his usage of materials but it was just a basic Forever 21 dress that shimmered.

SAFE: Alexander, Emily Samantha [left to right]

Alexander’s look was my least favorite of the three, mainly because it didn’t use any of Samantha’s CD-seashell technique. But it was also stiff and a little too can-can for me.

Emily’s look, while incorporating the CDs, was a little too seaweed hemline for me, and the wide hips just seemed odd.

Samantha’s bodice, however, was the best thing in the entire show, with the CDs cut to look like seashells, but still moving. And the bubble skirt out of film strips was a good fun choice. 

Again, had this not been a team challenge Samantha might have been in the top.

BOTTOM: Carrie, Hernan, Sandhya [left to right]

Whenever there is a team challenge there is always one team that doesn’t get it and this time it was this Hot Mess trio. In the workroom they decided just to each create their own looks — Sandhya’s choice — and then make them cohesive through a story.

Naturally, because Sandhya had immunity, Carrie and Hernan were pissed off that she wouldn’t listen and even more angry when Tim came in and called their looks messy and costume-y and ugly and then he slapped all three of them.

That last part may have been edited out of the broadcast you saw, but I get the unedited version in my head.

So, after the slapping, they decide that, to make it all more cohesive, they will all use the exact same materials — film strips and nothing else — for their looks. As Julia said to the shop girl in Pretty Woman, “Big mistake. Huge.” And, while they sew film strips into dresses, Hernan decides that there cohesive look is based on The Golden Age of Hollywood because they used film and gold.

Big mistake. Huge.

Also huge was the Sandhya crying because, as she said, her team wouldn’t listen to her. What she failed to mention was that she wasn’t listening to them either.

WHAT THEY SAID

Carrie: “When the lights hit the film strips on my garment it looks so pretty”

Hernan: “She looks so chic and sophisticated. The dress fit perfectly.”

Sandhya: “For how bad we started, the clothes look well-done”

WHAT I SAID

It’s the same silhouette with different hemlines and tops.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Heidi wondered what we all thought: that not one of the three designers ever looked at their dresses and realized they were all the same??? She called them three girls from a music video — from the 70s no doubt — not a fashion show, and while she acknowledged that Sandhya’s was the worst, she’d be safe; she said she’d choose Hernan over Carrie.

The Adorable Zac Posen™ said the shapes were a mess and the whole thing looked rough, and that‘s when Carrie complained that they had so little time, and Tim made them start all over and Sandhya. He said the use of film strip looked like leftovers from an editing room floor.

Nina, leave it to Nina, told Sandhya she was lucky she had immunity because her look was the worst … it was awful … it looked sloppy … it was ugly … it looked bad and brought the entire awful collection to a new low. When Heidi joked about Nina being harsh, she snapped back that she was angry because she expected more from the woman who won the first week.

Guest judge, fashion blogger, Garance Doré said the ideas and designs were too literal and just don’t work.

WHAT HAPPENED

There was finger-pointing at Sandhya because she was inflexible; there was finger-pointing at Angela because of her ‘delicate touch.”

Carrie suggested Sandhya go home and Hernan pushed Angela in front of the Parson’s Express Bus, but in the end, the judges decided Carrie should go and she left so sweetly and gracefully.

“This is bullsh*t.” She ranted and raged in the  waiting room basically saying, without saying it, that the judges should have booted Sandhya even with immunity because she, Carrie, has so much more to show and she should be at Fashion Week and, where the hell is Tim to send her packing?

Carrie. Auf’d.

TOP: Amanda, Korina and Kristine [left to right]

Okay, they seemed to work well together, I’ll give them that. They all wanted to go 60s sci-fi with a modern edge; think Barbarella is the Fifth Element in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or something.

But Amanda knows that when it comes to unconventional challenges, the judges want to see things that don’t look like fabric, i.e. unconventional … huh … is that where the name comes from, Amanda Obvious?

At the critique, Tim liked their looks but did feel that each of them had taken on quite a bit of work they might never finish. So the gals scaled back some, and used green and black and white and the color story and, yeah. That’s that; I didn’t like their looks one bit, so I don’t know what to say.

WHAT THEY SAID

Amanda: “I looooove our team’s vibe; sixties but modern.”

Korina: “It’s definitely what I wanted to say. I loved that we picked the green … and went graphic.”

Kristine: “I think it’s edgy and it’s dramatic, but yet still kind of fantasy.”

WHAT I SAID

Amanda’s look, while walking, reminded me of the nut-and-bolts-and strings that Emilio put over a bikini a few years back. String doesn’t make a dress. That said, seeing the still photo from the PR page, it does look much better … but if it only looks good standing still … ?

Korina’s look was duct tape and masking tape and VHS tape. How is that fashion? I mean, I could tape a girl into a dress but is it worthy of a win?

Kristine’s look was, again, I thought, a mess. The macramé top looked cheap and ill-fitting, and while I liked the color and the letters, I didn’t get a reason for it. I mean, maybe use to letters to say something? This team was not my favorite by a long shot.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

The Adorable Zac Posen™ — who may lose his adorability points for this critique—called Kristine’s look great, and loved the use of text and font and transparency. Heidi did think this collection was the most cohesive and especially loved Amanda’s look—made of string, cording, wiring, nuts, bolts and straws.

Nina loved the use of color and the fact that there were three different silhouettes represented, while Garance Doré loved Amanda’s because it moved.

WHAT HAPPENED

Well, Kristine said Amanda should win, and Korina said Amanda should win and Amanda “aw shucked”: about how well they worked together and wouldn’t even mention the other’s designs.

So, Amanda got the win.

MY TAKE

I giggled some at the way the designtestants reacted when told they’d be paired in teams of three. What did they think when the producers set them up in groups of three and then had them sit in different parts of the theater? This is PR, people, take nothing for granted.

I did not like Amanda-Korina-Kristine at all and mainly because of the way Amanda’s looked when it moved. Strings over muslin is not a design. I think a better choice — and another team that used color — might have been, gulp, MitchCharKini.

And if Angela uttered the words ‘delicate touch’ one more time I would have delicately touched my TV with my foot. She kept saying she wanted to show the judges her … ‘dt’ … but failed to realize this was an unconventional team challenge and not a show the judges your … Girl bettah listen or girl be going home … or the psych ward.

Carrie's rant about going home was over the top. Sure, maybe Sandhya’s look was worse, but she had immunity and you don’t give immunity and then say you want a do-over.

I’m hoping that every week doesn’t turn into a Bash Sandhya Week because I don’t need the tears and I hope every week doesn’t turn in a Angela Doesn’t Pay Attention Week because I’ll punch my flatscreen.

I loathe Amanda’s aw-shucks-iness. It seems so insincere when you know she thinks that because she’s already done the PR—and badly—that she should win. She shouldn’t.

Sean is adorable, that accent makes me weak in the knees; and I’ll give props to The Mitchell for giving Sandhya a hug since he was so bitchy about her last week.

What did YOU think?