Morning has broken, and so has Emilio. He laments his recent runway spanking by Heidi and Michael Kors. He feels bad that Jesse is no longer among the contestants, but then shrugs it off. In the women’s room Mil/ya and May/la are doing the Harpo/Groucho mirror shtick again and having a shallow and totally not heart-felt love fest. Back in the men’s dorm, Ben doesn’t know whether being safe every week was a good thing or a bad thing.
Runway: Heidi reminds the designers that Jay has immunity this week, but then tells them that there will be no more immunity. Time to meet Tim on the roof. Hot hair and makeup person Phillip Careon (Carry on!) from Garnier is there to
describe the challenge. Something something, blah, blah, blah, be inspired by one of the four natural elements: water, fire, earth and air. Button bag, choose your element. Jay takes air, May/la opts for water, Jonathon air, Ben goes for water, Mil/ya takes earth. Anthony takes fire, as does Amy and Seth Aaron gets the last air. $150 at Mood, thirty minutes to sketch.
Ben, despite having chosen his own element, is unhappy with water, because, he says, it is too fluid. So he decides to find inspiration in the things that live in the water, namely, the cuddly, designer-friendly Great White Shark. Emilio says that his model is a woman of color, so he will work with her skin tones to focus on earth. Anthony is blahblahblahing about failure is not an option. May/la also chooses to be inspired by creatures that live in water. Her inspiration is the mythical siren, or as she calls it, the vixen of the sea. Not to be confused with Chicken of the Sea. Which is not, as we all learned from J.Simp, not actually chicken.
Jonathon is going to create his own textile; cutting away layers of fabric and making a garment that he says is going to be “a swirl of uncontrollable laughter.” Which is what MizShoes is surrounded with when she hears that self-indulgent & pretentious drivel. Not to be outdone, Jay is making a tornado of bold shapes. Anthony finally comes to the point, which is that he has been profoundly affected by the self-inflicted arson of his pastor’s house and so does not see fire as hot and red, but as smoldering ashes and dirty smoke. Pretty! Seth Aaron lives in Manhattan, so to him, air is the night sky, dark and full of stars and wind. (Uh, MizShoes lived in Manhattan back in the day and the only time she ever saw stars was during the big blackout of ’76, but whatever.) Finally, Amy is going to make a controlled explosion inside of a structure (she had fire, by the way). Mil/ya tonelessly drones that this challenge’s concepts are too vague. We. Are. All. Un-settled. Beep.
Ben and Jonathon are tired of being safe, so Ben is going to take a gamble. Jonathon confides to the cameras that the other designers don’t think he’s a threat, but that he is going to win it all. Seth Aaron is working with black leather. Amy is creating “a unique silhouette”, that she recognizes may not be well received. Hair and product placement and we have to hear that tripe about Jonathon and his envelope of laughter. Seth Aaron wants his model’s hair to be both aerodynamic and gravity defying.
Tim comes for his walkabout and we hear another blahblahblah about laughter is the lighter side of air. Tim says Jonathon’s dress is stunning. It is, but do we have to hear that crap about laughter every time? I bet Stella would have slapped the laugh right out of him. Tim also loves Seth Aaron’s midnight in Manhattan, but he’s not so sure about Amy and her bowl of fire containing chaos. He is equally unsure about Ben’s Great White Shark skin suit. He is worried that it might be too subtle. Mil/ya is using the metallics of earth to create a vest, shirt and pant. Tim tells her to make it harmonious. Tim is encouraging to May/la and her water vixen.
At the model fittings, Mil/ya disses Ben’s pants, but is putting 80s shoulder pads in her vest. Anthony is doing color blocking and draping. Jonathon trash talks the other designers. May/la is time-challenged and says that so is everyone else. Ben is concerned that he may have been overly ambitious in making a pantsuit. He has no more fabric to start over. He is seen weeping and talking to his husband on the product placement telephonic device. WHOOP WHOOP LOSER EDIT!!!
Morning of the runway show. Mil/ya/May/la/Groucho/Harpo. The men do a huddle with a group shout out: leave as 4 return as 4. We are Sparta! In the workroom, Jay finishes before the others and helps Ben. It is a sweet moment. Tim tells the designers to use the Blowfly wall of tackiness any way they possibly can, since tastefully and thoughtfully are clearly not options. Mil/ya is nervous, or so she says, but with her total lack of emotion and affect she could just as easily be saying that her emotion chip is blown. Anthony disses Seth Aaron because he thinks that SA’s work could be intimidating to women. Jonathon is concerned for Amy and her giant bowl of contained chaos, which she has interpreted as a giant bowl of hair extensions. It really is kind of awful.
Runway (finally). The challenge was to create an innovative look inspired by one of the four natural elements. This was a broad challenge to let the designers stretch. Our judges tonight are NinaGarcia, Michael Kors and Roland Mouret, a French designer with a ridiculous accent, but thankfully, no subtitles. We are reminded that Jay holds the last immunity. And we are off.
May/la has made a short grey shift with long sleeves. There are vertical ruffles on the sleeves and at the hips meant to evoke water. It fits her model. Jay has made something all swirly and asymmetrical that looks like the baby doll dress he made for the Marie Claire cover challenge, only in darker colors. Ben’s three-piece suit is pale grey and not so pale grey and every piece is worse than the others. Anthony’s grey and black has a slit skirt up to his model’s pipik. Mil/ya has combined textures into a completely unmemorable nothing. Jonathan says that if you look up “romance” in the dictionary, you will see his floaty dress with a miniature version of Chris March’s couture challenge collar. It is pretty. Really pretty. Amy’s awful black bowl of hair is scary. Emilio has made a little green sheath with some texture to it. Seth Aaron’s coat is architectural and amazing. Despite the presence of an asymmetrical flying bustle, MizShoes is not intimidated by it at all.
Anthony, Emilio and Jay are safe. Off they go. Mil/ya is first on the block and Michael Kors says that she seems to be a one-trick pony. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. Heidi says that the only interesting piece is the vest, and that is tired and looks like mall fashion.
Seth Aaron’s version of air in black leather is “astonishing”. NinaGarcia is happy to see him being “true to himself”. The French guy says that he has reinvented trousers and that there is a top designer waiting to steal that idea. May/la’s dress is chic and perfectly beautiful, but all of her work is referential. NinaGarcia sees Nina Ricci. Amy’s contained hair extensions repulse the entire judging panel. Hence the critique: a cat in a baby sling. Michael says she looks like a barmaid serving hair. The judges all agree that May/la got caught up in her concept and forgot to self-edit.
Ben’s wild life that lives in the water is called ill fitting (it is) and the shark teeth used as buttons on the coat sleeve are “beee-zahr.” If you don’t know how to make a suit, says Heidi, you shouldn’t make a suit. NinaGarcia calls it a real mess, and Michael Kors cannot wrap his head around the seaming on the pants that looks like a jock strap. Jonathan’s air and laughter plays up his model’s pale skin. The French guy calls it fantastic. The judges all love the fabric. The styling is called best in show.
The judges caucus with the designers in the purgatory room. Seth Aaron is loved for his tailoring skills and the way his clothing speaks for him. The French guy concedes that being French, Jonathan’s romantic swirls of laughter are his favorite. Ben gets a BLECH. Amy was too ambitious and made a weird mess. Mil/ya made boring mall clothes. They think that maybe she can’t do anything other than black and white color blocking. (She can’t.)
Seth Aaron is in, to MizShoes disappointment, because he should have won. Jonathan’s the winner with his gorgeous, romantic and airy dress made of fairy laughter and unicorn sparkles. May/la and Mil/ya are both in. That leaves Ben and Amy in the bottom. Amy was out there in a bad way, but Ben thought it was a good idea to make jockstrap pants and so he is out there in an Aufsie-Daisy way. Bye-bye Ben. Next week? Teams!