The Challenge
The designers were taken to a park in which Mood had set up a number of fabrics. They had a short time to pick up their favorites, than a second short time period to narrow that down to five fabrics. The actual challenge? Make a dress showing "who they are" as a designer.
Dresses by Designer
In alphabetical order.
Amy has a short dress in neutral colours. The bodice is off-white and sheer, with an odd bust treatment on the right that looks like a seashell... it's not working for me. If both had been done that way I might've liked it better. The skirt is in a black and pale grey diamond pattern, actually almost a jester pattern, and... I guess you'd call it a bubble skirt, although there's some odd draping going on that's a little different from what I usually see. I'm not fond of it at all. The styling is a little severe, too.
Anna has a cute halter-top dress in yellow and peach. The yellow fabric has a slightly metallic quality to it. The bodice would have a very deep V but was filled in with a squared-off peach inset. The belt is in the same peach, and doesn't quite sit at the right place for an empire dress but is higher than the actual model's waist. The bottom hem is done almost in a pants-like fashion with a visible several inches between seam and bottom of dress. It's pretty much just okay. Cute, but nothing special.
Anthony has used a sorta interesting black fabric with bright flowers on it, but I don't like what he's made it into. The left hip has this part that almost looks like it's falling apart, but instead is a deliberate loop that looks like... well, I think Michael Kors said you could put a whole bottle of champagne in there, and he's right. The rest of the dress is an inoffensive halter dress with a tight high waistband; the back has a single strap coming down from the halter neck which is a bit jarring, and otherwise exposes her whole back. Overall it would probably be fine if not for that side thing. I don't like the shoes he picked, but the bracelets are kinda nice.
Ben has made a cute mid-thigh dress with a scoop neck and a slightly high waistband. He's done a pointy shoulder treatment that looks a bit like armor, and some t-shirt length sleeves. The fabric is a copper tone, and most of it has an almost corduroy (but softer) look, though there's some flat matte bits. I think it does a good job of showing his comic-book influence, and it's styled really well.
Christiane has made a... well, the underlying part is a bright blue satin one-shouldered dress, but she's put additional swaths of draped fabric in a multi-coloured print across the shoulder, one breast, under the other breast, and across the waist in the back, plus a piece that looks tacked on over the right side of the skirt. It looks, really, like she started to build a second dress over the first, and didn't finish. It does not work for me at all. Ironically, the styling does, even the chunky bracelet.
Emilio has made this really interesting pattern on his dress by using two fabrics: a wine coloured solid and a red fabric with white circles on it that contain red dots. On the Wilma bodice the wine fabric dominates and has strips of the other fabric across it, except in the back, where there are simply two straps in the wine fabric coming down from the right shoulder. On the skirt, it's the opposite. There's a visible zipper in matching colours. Overall I find it very interesting, if not really to my tastes. The hair on his model is severely pulled back and I don't like that or the shoes.
Janeane Marie—or as she was known in this episode, the crying woman—scrapped her dress almost last minute and made a new one which... looks a lot like that's what happened. The skirt is an inoffensive above-the-knee thing that looks almost like office-wear. The top has a wide scoop neck and short sleeves, and is in a sheer black fabric that has been layered over the middle front to be opaque... the shape's okay, but it looks sloppy. Also, the shoes she paired with it are awful, though the rest of the styling's okay.
Jay Nicolas has attacked his model with fabric tumors. The dress itself is okay. The bodice is a little skimpy but constructed well; it uses a subtle leafy pattern that's been pleated and placed mainly in diagonals except over the bust itself. The skirt is in a brown, uh... there's a word for this pattern but it's escaping me. Close-set stripe weave thingie. It has what looks to be very round pockets. But then he put these noodle tumors in the center and near the pocket opening, and all across the back, and those? Those I don't like.His model has bed-head swept into an updo. The shoes are good, though.
Jesse has used a brown tweedy fabric to make what would be a business suit if not for the entirely bare shoulders and the short sleeves. It looks like it's judged edged in tomato red, but actually the top part is a jacket that the model removes at the end to reveal a... top. The sleeves of both the top and jacket are only partial; it kinda looks like if you made a short-sleeve top and then cut a diamond out of the sleevse and another out of the front and back parts. I don't like the colours paired together and the jacket kinda fits funkily. Styling's okay but could use some jewelry or something.
Jesus has made a cocktail-dress cum evening gown; it started out shorter but then he added fabric. Despite the reaming this took from the judges and many other viewers, I kinda like the fact that it's made of brown croc; I feel it looks interesting in a way that satin would not have. It's got a one-shoulder strap that loops around the neck. I don't love-love it, but I like it, at least until she turns around and I see the fabric
Jonathan has made an LBD, only it's a little more interesting than your standard LBD. First, there's this very wide leather belt with riveting, set just under the bustline. Above the bust, the fabric is white with an almost tiger-stripe like black pattern, and the neck and arms are outlined in a fabric that almost looks like turquoise jewelry. The back has a keyhole of sorts, also outlined, and doesn't work as well for me as the front, but it's really very interesting. I like that the bodice is not a traditional shape, almost a muscle shirt sort of thing, though it looks fancier than that. The skirt is super-short. The shoes he chose work pretty well with the dress.
Maya's does not work for me. The actual dress itself is a shift with a high square neckline and a scoop back, and is super-short (and slit in the back), made from a very subtly-patterned ivory fabric. She has this shoulder treatment—well, it extends down to the waist, really—on the right that looks like a giant light brown fungus is trying to eat her model. Sorry, but it does. There's a much subtler shoulder bit at the left that looks a lot better. I will say it appears to be made pretty well, though.
Mila has made separates. The skirt is a simple grey mid-thigh A-line of... some sort of suit fabric. The top is black with a white grid. The jacket is really interesting in shape, something almost more like a cape with interior sleeves than a regular jacket. The outside is in a blue and black patterned fabric, while the inside uses a black and white pattern; both patterns are a bit abstract. I find myself torn on this one. I really like the basic idea and the shape, but I'm not sure all those patterns work together, and the skirt is almost too plain for the rest of the outfit. Still, it decidedly makes me want to see more, which is the point of this, right?
Pamela has used an extremely bright pink to make a dress that from the front looks like it's made of triangles: Triangle sleeves; V neck; A-line skirt. I kinda like it (though I hate the styling) until she turns around and reveals the sleeves are not so much sleeves as draped fabric, with an X of string holding it together. That? That I do not like at all. Also, the styling on it is really not good, did I mention that?
Ping (Ping!) has draped fabric on her model. That's really the only way to describe it. It's not that it's not an outfit (though some would disagree); there's definitely a top, and a skirt, and a wrap or jacket. It uses a tomato red, a similar red in a plaid, a black, and a low-saturation hunter green that actually end up working together for me. It's very loose and flowy and kinda futuristic feeling rather than anything you'd expect someone to wear today. I don't like what she did with the model's hair, and the shoes are probably a little strappy for something so flowy. Overall I kinda like it, though. It's interesting.
Seth Aaron has made a little dress out of a brown plaid. The bodice has a sort of curved-v neckline and is outlined in... man I need a better fabric vocabulary. Tiny-checkered stuff, looks vaguely seatbelty due to the big metal rings under the shoulders. It's kinda interesting. The skirt has an odd, almost jumbled hemline thing going on. In the back, the straps go down to an o-ring, and then there's some more straps in the main fabric radiating out to the curvy-V back, and there's this bright red zipper going down the back. I hate that part. The rest, including the styling, I find I am sort of liking on a revisit, though my initial impression wasn't great. It's got a kinda vaguely-Asian-streetwear sorta vibe... not quite, but heading that way.
Judging
My picks for top 3: Ben, Emilio, Mila.
Judges' pick for top 3: Emilio, Seth Aaron, Ping
I think the judges and I both picked people based on two things: did they show "themselves", and was it well done? I obviously differ with them on who did it best, but really, Seth Aaron and Ping did also do a good job with that, so I really don't have a lot of problem with who they chose.
My picks for bottom 3: Christiane, Pamela, Anthony
Judges' pick for bottom 3: Anthony, Christiane, Jesus
Again, I'd say we picked on the same things here: Did they show themselves, and did we like what they showed? I picked Pamela rather than Jesus because I think Jesus showed some technical skill and that does really seem to be "his" style (as is backed up by later episodes); Pamela's struck me as way too simple. Christiane's was going in the bottom no matter who the judges were, I think. Anthony is borderline; I could see, for instance, picking Janeane instead of him.
Winner: Emilio
Based on who was in their top three, I definitely am fine with this choice. His dress showed a clear personal style and obviously took a lot of technical skill to create. I do think that even given my top three he would've been a strong possibility, though I would've had to think a while to pick between him and Mila.
Auf: Christiane
I couldn't really argue with that. I think I get what she was going for but she failed. Anthony was borderline, as I said above... one element of the dress was awful but everything else was okay. Pamela, for all that I think hers was way too simple, would not lose out to Christiane's construction even if my bottom three were the judges'. And even if you put Jesus on the same level as Christiane in terms of idea and taste, his execution was better.
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