“Swimsuits are the easiest thing in the world to make. It’s like taking a dump: You just pull your pants down, take a dump, and wipe your ass,” Cesar said in last night’s episode of The Fashion Show. Turns out, when that’s your attitude, your swimsuits are likely to come out looking like a dump and/or ass. In fact, both houses presented collections that were so ass-bad — as in, much worse-looking than usual — that Iman told them after their shows, “It takes a lot to make me wince, but you both managed to do so.” She added, “Tonight it’s about choosing which house was worse.” Though no one said it last night, one of the biggest problems with this shows is shaping up to be the staging. Just because the designers have the option to put on laser light shows and scatter patio furniture on their runways doesn’t mean they should! Look at Marc Jacobs, a master of fashion-show staging: If you’re going to do something different, make it abstract and don’t let it distract from the clothes. The things these designers have been doing only make all their clothes look that much cheaper.
The challenge begins when the designers are told to take a train to New Jersey. Iman actually meets them at the train station there and tells them they must use items found in the lost and found to make looks for a weekend getaway. We wonder if the items in that room were actual lost-and-found items — because what if someone was planning to come the next day to retrieve their sunglasses, and next thing they know some adult design student is using them in some monstrosity of an outfit for a television show? Can you imagine how much it would hurt to see something you loved — or even something you didn’t care about but that used to belong to you — turned into ugly palazzo pants or a terrible handbag or an even worse bustier top? But this is Bravo, and one person’s fashion tragedy must turn into another person’s fashion tragedy for the amusement of America.
This week the teams change when Jeffrey goes over to the House of Nami, which he instantly says is better and more creative than the House of Emerald. David has to leave his crush Dominique and go over to the House of Emerald in exchange. “We’ve been together since day one, and I’ve had that feeling in my stomach that doesn’t want to go away,” he says of the flames that burn violently inside him for her.
Back in the work room, the House of Nami decides to make looks for a girl spending a weekend visiting a friend in New York. The House of Emerald decides to make looks for a girl spending a weekend in the Hamptons. Harper’s Bazaar’s Laura Brown, who counsels the designers instead of Isaac this week in order to offer the perspective of not only an editor but also a stylish woman who buys clothes, warns Cesar immediately about his swimsuits. She says the orange is a very difficult color to wear and that he’s better off just working with blue. Cesar, who is a know-it-all, chooses to ignore her advice and make the orange disaster anyway. “Laura’s a blonde girl, but hello, not all white girls go to the Hamptons. Black girls go there, too,” he sasses. He then channels his pissiness into making an ugly outfit consisting of printed palazzo pants and a bustier top in two different patterns. Cindy, who misses her partner Golnessa, who got kicked off last week, thinks it all looks like crap but doesn’t know how to tell Cesar, who won’t listen to anyone but himself.
Over on the House of Nami, Dominique decides to make a shift dress out of an umbrella. This freaks out Laura, who tells her to go for it but be careful, because, well, no woman wants to wear an umbrella. She winds up with the best dress by far, Iman tells her, and wins the challenge, choosing the prize of immunity for next week instead of the additional $500 to spend on materials. Iman asks her who the worst person on her team is, and she immediately elects Calvin because she thinks his clothes are ugly and she can’t stand him as a human being. He now has to face the judges’ panel, despite being on the winning house. “If you really were so good, and you’re so fast, surely you would have won something by now,” Iman tells him, his heavage disturbingly prominent under the stage lights. But ultimately, depressingly, he did not design the worst outfit of the week, or even the second-worst — Cesar and David are in the bottom two. The judges decide Cesar has more potential to improve than David, whose last few looks have been a total mess. So he has to leave his flame Dominique behind and strike out back into the normal world. See all the looks from last night’s episode with critiques in the slideshow.
