PR 17, Ep 2: The Future is No

As the designtestants enter the workroom they are confronted by a fog machine and several alien-looking figures they are stunned to discover are actual living, breathing models … albeit it wings and horns and skin pieces that ruffle.

Oh my. Turns out alien-models are all wearing body modification from A. Human, created by Simon Huck, who joins Karlie to tell the models about this week’s challenge: create a look that showcases a ‘body-mod’ that is five minutes into the future. Five minutes means don’t take me to Blade Runner, y’all, I just wanna go to right after lunch, okur?

Karlie tells the designtestants they will be split up into five teams of three, and suddenly they all start choosing their own teams! Silly designers, this is the PR, and you don’t get that option. Karlie pulls out Button Bag 2.0—not the old velvet bag from the Gunn Days, but a new square acrylic bag—and she gives out the teams:

Team Back Scaffolding is Bishme, Lela and Venny; Team Light Necklace is Jamall, Rakan and Sonia; Team Shoulder Horns is Garo, Hester, and Nadine; Team Neck Ruffles is Afa, Sebastian, and Tessa; and Team Neck Feathers is Kovid, Renee, and Frankie.

Get ready, we’re going back to the future … so let’s rip:

THE SAFES

Team Back Scaffolding

Bishme, Lela and Venny

Bishme’s look is hard and structural, much like the scaffolding, while Lela’s look is lady-like flounce; Venny gives us what looks like more a throwback jumpsuit. Nothing stands out, which is why they’re safe.

Team Light Necklace 

Jamall, Rakan and Sonia

Jammal places a down comforter on his model and tried to cover her shoes with fabric, but did it so badly that judge Brandon Maxwell nearly fell off his chair. Rakan’s looks is Glamour Potato Sack chic, while Sonia seems to have gone the asymmetrical garden party route. Again, while it’s meh, it’s not so bad as to warrant a shot on the bottom.

Team Shoulder Horns

Garo, Hester, and Nadine

Garo’s look is giving me slutty blue devil with misplaced horns. Hester’s look screams bad fairytale punk bitch. Nadine is all ruffles and slightly dominatrix. This mismatch really dodged the bullet; they’re also safe.

THE TOPS

Team Neck Ruffles

Afa, Sebastian, and Tessa

Tessa. Who has immunity after last week’s win, decides she’s in charge and Afa—short for affable?—and Sebastian—so dreamy—are going along with it.

Tessa vetoes Afa’s sequins because she doesn’t like them, and then designs a skirt that she doesn’t know how to construct, so she has Sebastian give her a tutorial. Garo dishes that Tessa doesn’t have the technical skill or the speed she needs to execute, and at the end of the day, Sebastian hardly has a look at all; well, he had a design that seemed to scream vagina, until Tessa nixed that.

On Day two, Sebastian is all about Sebastian because he has to completely start over and not help Tessa … except for making a little handbag for her model.

Christian, who was worried that their idea of cohesion was a color palette and nude wool, likes what he sees and tells them he’s excited.

WHAT THEY SAID

Afa: She looks like she’s floating.

Sebastian: I’m thinking my outfit is totally different!

Tessa: I’m feeling so positive, I’m bummed I have immunity.

WHAT I SAID

Afa’s look is sexy and kinda floating, and has a cape!

Sebastian’s look is stunning, and new and cool, and about five minutes from now.

Tessa’s look, well, the flouncy top, is nice, but it’s made cooler by the pants Sebastian tutored her on, and the handbag Sebastian made for her.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

Elaine and Brandon love that Tessa took charge, calling her not a bossy woman but a boss woman; however, they weren’t feeling her design. Elaine said she fell short from last week, and Brandon has issues with the mitering in the blouse. They did love the bag … Sebastian’s bag! Nina loved Tessa’s Sebastian’s skirt, and she loved Afa’s design because Nina loves a good pant, and Elaine loved his tailoring skills. Both Karlie and Brandon are obsessed with Afa’s foot covers, which is a dig at Jamall. But it’s Sebastian’s look that has the judges going wild; Elaine loved the fluidity, while Nina loved that the dress seemed attached to the models skin; she called it phenomenal.

THE BOTTOMS

Team Neck Feathers

Kovid, Renee, and Frankie

I worry about this team, because you have a top from last week in Renee, and a bottom crier in Frankie, and Kovid, who seems to march, sing and dance to his own drummer, whenever he wants. Their idea of cohesion is to say that a client has asked a stylist to present her with three looks to show off her cheat feathers. That kinda suggests anything but cohesion, eh?

Frankie wants to make a backwards coat that you wear “straitjacket style” and Renee, while concerned, stays silent. Frankie then switches from fitted pants to a skirt and Renee stays silent. Kovid likes strong women and wants to create an armored looking jumpsuit, while Renee goes bustier and pants, and stays silent.

Silent equals out, gurl..

Day Two, and Kovid is floundering; he has tossed away the idea of an armored jumpsuit, and has instead made and ill-fitting top and not bottom half to his look. Christian is worried, Kovid is worried; Kovid is crying. Christian also wonders why his team isn’t supporting him and offering advice, and the Frankie reminds everyone that they told Kovid to make a simple circle skirt and suddenly Kovid remembers.

WHAT THEY SAID

Frankie: This is not my best work.

Kovid: It is not a garment that reflects the best of [my] capabilities.

Renee: It’s ill-fitted at the top.

WHAT I SAID

Oh, Frankie, er, Captain Obvious.

Kovid. Kovid. Kovid. How’d it get so disco 70s?

Dear Renee: if by ill-fitted you mean the model cannot move her arms, then, yeah, I feel you.

WHAT THE JUDGES SAID

When the judges—who labeled all three looks not futuristic, but old clubwear—ask about their inspiration, Renee gives them Frankie’s story of the wealthy woman who needs a party dress and has her stylist go out and pull some options: Brandon instantly suggests the stylist be fired.

Elaine notes that this is Frankie’s second time in the bottom, and reminds her that last week a designer went home for a basic black dress, and that’s what Frankie presented this week. Cue ominous drumming. Karlie thought Frankie’s was slightly better without the jacket. Nina called Kovid’s lack of execution bad, and warned him not to cry; Elaine said it was the worst of the worst … bad bridesmaid.  Elaine thinks Renee’s bolero jacket, cut open to show off the chest wings, is constricting her model, and looks a little bad Halloween store; Nina agrees, saying Renee clipped her model’s wings, and that she’s gone from hero to zero; this is the jacket that Karlie called straitjacket, while Brandon calls out the bad execution.

Sebastian is the clear winner, not only because his look is stunning, but because of how he helped saved his teammate’s looks … well, just Tessa’s.

On the Bottom side, Renee is safe, so it comes down to Bad Bridesmaid or Basic Black Boring … and Basic Black Boring goes home again!

At least Frankie didn’t cry.

I liked the challenge, even if some of the body modifications were scary …back scaffolding!

Karlie is growing on me, and so are the new judges. Still, thank god for Nina!

Also, I do like Little Mister Siriano.

I thought it funny that Tessa thinks she’s the best. Uh huh. Ask Sebastian for help again.

Hester is a mess. And a poser. Less time on your idiotic hats and glasses and more time picking the right fabrics and following through please. I mean, she must have changed her mind a dozen times on the tulle, and that alone almost sunk her team.

LINES OF THE NIGHT

Bishme, after Garo comes in from the terrace and says it’s cold outside:

“I put lotion on my knees so they don’t get ashy. That’s black cold.”

Garo, on one of his teammates:

“Hester can be a little high-strung … there’ll be some babysitting in my future.”

A little high-strung?

Christian Siriano, as the designers pick fabrics at Mood:

“Swatching? We have time for swatching?  No, we don’t.”

Sebastian is delicioso. That accent. Oy, I am a sucker for an accent. And Venny is just totes adorbs.

Afa is straight? I seriously thought he was Team Homo and then he gets the video call from his wife and new baby??!?

I loved that, after Hester scrapped the tulle and cried for more fabric, and Nadine gave into her, that Hester goes back to the tulle but has, as Nadine put it, played “Freddy Kreuger” with the fabric and now she can’t use it.

Next week, it’s all Prints Not Charming.

What did YOU think?