The Fashion Show 6/4 Recap: Real People, Really Bad Fashion

[PhoneGrrrl]

Hello dah-lings, we’re back for another episode of The Fashion Show. Is it just me or the sing-songy way Kelly says “The Fashion Show” just plain annoying? Anyway, tonight we’re in for the intro’s promise of “real fashion for real people,” much to the dismay of the designers. You’d think they would have expected such a challenge, given Isaac’s mass-market friendly Target line, but I’m not convinced theses folks are the sharpest tools in the shed.

Colored Pencil Drawn Memories

For the Laura Brown-judged mini-challenge, the designers’ attention to detail is tested. Isaac shows them a dress he had in a recent collection. It’s a purple box-pleated affair with pleats all over. It’s pretty, but gives me flashbacks to the dry cleaning bill I got once for a box-pleated skirt, where they charged per pleat to press it. The designers stare intently at the dress and Kelly wheels the mannequin out of the room. Isaac then gives them 15 minutes to sketch…Kelly’s dress! Oooh, snap! I don’t even remember that she was wearing a dress, so I feel their pain.

After the 15 minutes are up, the designers come out with their sketches. Keith’s gotten the entire color wrong, drawing his in chartreuse, while everyone else went in the appropriate shades of purple. After Laura takes a look at the sketches, Johnny, Daniella and Lidia are called forward. Johnny’s sketch showed an “idiot savant” level of detail on the belt sketch, Daniella captured the spirit of the dress and the ruffles of the top, and Lidia drew the skirt really well. Ultimately, Laura picks Daniella as the winner; her reward will be a “substantial advantage” in the elimination challenge: she’ll get to pick one of her fellow designers to be in the bottom three. Due to past personality clashes, Merlin has reason to worry.

Real Women, Unrealistic Designers

In yet another rather pointless trudge across town, the designers meet MizRo at New York Model Management, the agency that supplies the usual models for the show. MizRo introduces them to their models for the elimination challenge—the various women seated at the desks in the office. They remind the designers that this show is all about real clothes for real women. Based upon the looks on their faces, the designers don’t take this news so well; they should never play poker. A word about the new clients/models: these are not women who are morbidly obese or anything. They range from rather slim to, at the outside, probably a size 16, which is pretty close to the national average. The designers are instructed to meet with their clients for an hour to prep and buy fabrics; the challenge is making an outfit to enhance each woman’s shape.

Reco is cool with this challenge; he makes clothes for his mother and sister, who are size 16 and 12 respectively. Keith is fine with it too; his usual client is the size of his model. Johnny, however, does not “work with real people” (at least that explains his hair) and James-Paul shuns the normal in his life. Again, that explains a lot. Angel says that models are supposed to be walking hangers, but later redeems herself a bit by being nice to her client as they discuss the client’s hip issues. Daniella is not happy with her client, as the client just wants comfortable clothes and isn’t really that forthcoming on what she likes. Haven’s client is a busty gal with a big bootie, but she loves her body and is proud of it, which makes it all the worse when Haven later complains about the woman’s size.

After consultation and shopping, it’s back to the workroom for the designers, where they begin to pad the dressmaker dummies to be the more appropriate size. Most of the designers get to work sketching, while Reco goes straight into pattern making much to everyone’s disgust. Meanwhile, Daniella has a break-down, literally crying in her hat, at the difficulty of the challenge. Angel comments that Daniella’s inexperience is showing and a real designer should be able to design for any person. Compounding Daniella’s stress is worry over whom she’ll place in the bottom three; Merlin should have been there last week, and she’s ready to put him up again. Merlin, of course, would not be happy about that, beeches!

The dynamic Team MizRo stops by to see what’s going on in the workroom. Kelly’s wearing a fetching blue suit but Isaac is sporting a button-down light blue (denim?) shirt that him look like he just escaped from a prison yard. They visit with Keith first; his model wants her hips and bust enhanced, and he shows them his sketch. Isaac tells him to keep going, while Kelly notes that he has lots of work to do. They check out Merlin’s tweed evening ensemble; Isaac doesn’t quite get Merlin’s use for tweed for a night look especially since he used sequins for a day look. What Isaac needs to grasp is that Merlin is off his nut. He’s making a tweed jacket that is supposed to enhance his client’s large chest, by apparently making it look ten times bigger. James-Paul’s client has big shoulders and likes simple clothes, which runs counter to James-Paul’s love of the complicated. Daniella tells MizRo she’s having a difficult time because her client is bigger all over. Isaac calls her out as sizeist, and the model is the average size. Daniella blames the “bigger all the way around” size of her model for her difficulty, and denies she’s being a sizeist bitch. After the consultations, MizRo dish in Gossip Hall: Daniella is possibly in over her head; they don’t understand Merlin’s outfit; and they don’t see the point of Keith’s dress.

With six hours remaining on the day, the models come in for a fitting. Keith doesn’t really have a lot done, and Reco thinks what is done looks a mess. His client thinks the skirt is too long and doesn’t appear to like the outfit that much. Merlin has made the skirt for his outfit a bit too big for his model, and Johnny’s client loves the uber-formfitting black dress with front and back floral panels. Angel’s skirt does not fit right on her model, making her legs look chunky so Angel has to start over with only five hours remaining.

Below-Average Fashion for the Average Woman

On the morning of the fashion show, the designers have a mere two hours to prepare. Angel is still working on the new skirt, but says she’ll just hearken back to her experience at Donna Karan. From the looks of her final product, Donna Karan should not be glad to be name-checked. Isaac gives the thirty-minute warning, and Keith says he is super proud of his design. Daniella hopes that her client will at least fake liking the dress for the sake of the judges. There are fit issues aplenty: Angel’s hem isn’t done so she pulls out the safety pins yet again; the chest is too big on Keith’s dress so he does some tweaking; and Merlin has made is skirt too small now and it does not look like it will stay zipped.

Finally, it is show time. Keith shows a red satin sleeveless dress with a kind of twisted sweetheart bust line, a skirt that opens a bit in the front, and has a black beaded belt. The whole affair looks very lumpy and too big for his rather thin model and fails at creating curves. Johnny’s very tight fitting tank dress is primarily black but has a floral pattern inserts down the front and back that traces the model’s curves and actually does enhance her bust and minimize her hips. Anna shows a dark dress with a cap sleeve, decorated with dark purple and blue stripes down the front and at the waist. It is supposed to elongate the model and combat her larger hips and bust but it draws attention to her hips because of the ill fit. To Anna’s credit, she knows the fit is off and wishes she had time for another fitting. Daniella presents a dark, well-fitted sheath dress with a long, dark jacket over it that has a stand-up collar. It kind of looks like a retro-50’s businesswoman’s suit, but it does deal with the model’s curves and larger bust.

Haven created a bright pink dress with black and white herringbone detail at the waist and collar. The collar is what’s weird—the dress has a V-neckline but then comes up around her neck like some kind of free-floating turtleneck thing. The fit is pretty good though, and the model works the runway, obviously loving how she looks. James-Paul’s outfit isn’t nearly as successful. He shows a huge, poorly fitting white jacket over a black skirt that does nothing to combat the “big shoulders” problem the client has. Lidia presents a pretty sleeveless grey dress with some pink satin at the cowl/V-neckline and back. It’s got a cute oversized safety pin detail on the belt and works well to enhance the model’s tallness and long arms.

Merlin shows a rather large tweed jacket and the tightest skirt possible made of panels of satin in brown and burnt orange shades. It does nothing to flatter the model’s large chest and hips. Angel’s purple top and skirt, with a tied black belt, does not fit the model nor help with her alleged problems of being short-waisted and bulky. The top is okay, but the skirt is a mess construction-wise and is too long. Finally, Reco shows a fitted grey vest and skirt, with a piping detail to enhance his model’s figure. She also is wearing a dark pink/red top with a ruffle detail down the front. It is perfect for the petite client with a large bust and I want it for my wardrobe.

After the show, the designers once again face the judges on the Triangle of Doom. Joining Isaac, Kelly, and Fern is stylist Rebecca Weinberg. Isaac starts by saying that it doesn’t appear that the designers really grasped the challenge of designing clothes to celebrate the women’s bodies. The two looks that got the majority of the audience votes were Reco’s and Daneilla’s outfits. Reco’s model really loves the ensemble and thinks it’s a great balance of feminine while being appropriate for work. Fern is impressed with the ruffles and panel detailing on the skirt. Daneilla’s dress was a hit with two-thirds of the audience. Rebecca is impressed because this model has a more difficult body shape to fit and Daniella pulled it off. Isaac is happy that someone used boning in the dress. Daniella wins the challenge, with her allegedly navy and black jacket/dress combo. If anyone knows which one was navy, please let me know.

Daniella is called over to stand by the judges to make her pick for the bottom three; she chooses AnnaAngel’s design for poor construction and accentuating the problem areas rather than minimizing them. Keith’s and Merlin’s designs finish out the bottom three. Merlin’s skirt is so tight on his model, she can barely get on the stage.

Isaac thinks all of these designs really missed the mark. Angel’s safety pins and poor seaming are called out; Rebecca says the whole dress is sloppy and droopy. Isaac adds that the dress makes her model’s hips look bigger. Keith’s outfit is described as boring and childish, and Isaac is of the opinion that Keith had the easiest client to work with and all he had to do was add curves. Fern has issues with how big the dress is on the thin model. Keith defends the dress, saying that he was forced into rescue mode because it didn’t turn out right. Merlin’s dress was hated by 78% of the audience; Isaac says the length of the skirt was entirely crazy and it is so tight it gives the model a mid-section pooch. Plus he doesn’t get why Merlin made his busty model look bustier. Merlin mumbles something about doing something for him in his design and can make anything.

In Gossip Hall, the judges deliberate. Isaac thinks they all missed the mark. Rebecca thinks Merlin’s design is sloppy and Isaac doesn’t get why he made the model’s chest look bigger. Fern defends Merlin a bit, noting that at least he has ideas, while Keith’s design was just unforgivably bad for creating puckering instead of curves. Rebecca thinks Angel’s design was simply lifeless; Isaac notes that she usually produces something amusing or becoming, but the dress was awful. Fern is perplexed why Angel just didn’t take ten minutes to save the dress, as that’s all it would have taken in her opinion.

Back out on the stage, Merlin is safe for showing passion even though his design was lacking. Angel’s design didn’t cover her client’s flaws and created new ones while Keith just designed something average, rather than designing for the average woman. Keith is out and Angel is safe, but admonished to clarify and simplify her designs.

As Keith takes his leave, he says that his design was not the weakest, Angel’s was. He would have liked to stay longer, but thinks he did okay in the competition. And with that, Keith and his unicorn t-shirts leave The Fashion Show.

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[raisinthesun]

Daniella is called over to stand by the judges to make her pick for the bottom three; she chooses Anna’s design for poor construction and accentuating the problem areas rather than minimizing themaniella is

Acutally it was Angel that she put in the bottom 3 oops i see you had her correct in the rest of the recap. Simple typo

Funny recap as always

[PhoneGrrrl]

Dang it! I'll fix it. Anna always looks stoned to me, and maybe that wore off on my writing!

[Lizard]

I appreciate these recaps. The show is on so late. I usually don't get to see it until it is rerunning on another day.