Episode Report Card Miss Alli: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT When did "capelets" become all the rage?
By Miss Alli | Season 2 | Episode 6 | Aired on 10.13.2004
And now, the designer segments. The men meet with a red-haired woman in a flowery peasant top and a woman with short, stark, black hair in a flat bob. Wes says they were looking for a designer who wasn't "too out there" but was still "fresh." Someone tall, and yet short. Someone rich, and yet poor. Someone...well, you get the idea. They also meet with a woman in lacy purple sleeves who works with vintage denim, and then with a woman enamored of her own "edge" who goes by the name of Ilse. After Ilse makes the rather unpromising point that her stuff "almost looks like art, but it's not" (in fairness, I have seen many things actually labeled "art" that I would describe similarly), John tells us that he was the one who made the final call that they'd pick Ilse as their designer. The women chat with the short-bob lady, who tells them that her look is kind of "Audrey Hepburn," with the peasant-top lady, and then with a man who says that the trick is to be the low-end product in a high-end store. His name is Darren, and Maria likes him because he "knows the industry from A to Z." Which is 25 letters more than the women know, since they're pretty much limited to "U" for "Unprofessional."
Later, as the women discuss the designers, Maria brings up Darren, and Elizabeth raises the entirely fair point that she thinks they have to be careful about repeating the last task, where they picked the less expensive product and then tried to get the price up. Maria is hearing none of it. "Darren is the right choice," she says. "I just want to say it one last time, and it's over. We're done." Wow. She didn't like dictatorial leadership from Baldford or Pamela. How odd that she would immediately think that it was all right for her. It's just crazy how that works, isn't it? Ivana smirks. Elizabeth next brings up the point that they really need to be aiming at the buyers, and not necessarily at "the masses." Again, Elizabeth is right, and again, Maria acts like she's patiently tolerating her. In fact, Maria interviews that Elizabeth was sent off with Jen M. to talk to the buyers, just to get her out of the way. Maria's lack of understanding of the importance of those meetings is unsurprising, but kind of hilariously telling. She really is a complete idiot. It may not hurt her this week, but this stuff is all backing up. Nobody in this game, ever, has been as lucky as Maria -- the week she completely booted the toothpaste task single-handedly, it turned out to be Gang Up On Stacie week; the week she screwed up as the presenter, it was Trump Hoses Pamela week...eventually, she's actually going to be held responsible for her behavior, and once that happens? Yeah. She won't be around a lot longer.
Anyway, Maria is so devoted to working super-hard that her first move as PM is to take girls she's friends with and the designer out to lunch so they can sit around eating and talking about clothes. Button noses to the grindstone, everybody! Ivana's wild contribution is that they could do pants -- and also crop pants! Wait a minute. Now, it's 2004, right? And Ivana's big idea is...crop pants? Whaaatever. ["Hey, I bet Stacy liked it. Yeah, I said it." -- Sars] Sandy contributes her big idea, which is that she thinks there should be a "sexy button-down." Well, they're practically designing the clothes themselves, so how great is that? Sandy then interviews that they "made it very clear" to their designer that they wanted clothes that they themselves would buy and wear. And at that moment, I actually said to my TV out loud, in the designer's voice, "So, you're saying...skanky, then?" Ivana claims in an interview that they "designed [their] entire collection" over lunch. Do you suppose she really thinks that saying "crop pants" is designing clothes? What a twit, seriously. The designer is designing the clothes, sweetheart. You're just standing around nodding. Not quite the same thing. I hate it when people do that -- act like they can waltz in and do, over lunch, what somebody else has studied for years. It's insulting, it's presumptuous, and it makes you flat-out dumb. She also congratulates Maria on "getting Elizabeth out of [their] hair." This little knot of bitches -- Maria, Ivana, Stacy, and Sandy -- is awfully full of itself for a group that has yet to chalk up a victory in its last four tries. I mean, what makes Ivana think Maria knows how to do anything? If Maria were so brilliant -- if any of them were -- would they have four consecutive losses? No. No, they would not. Anyway, they eat. Or pick at their food, or whatever.