Everyone's pretty scared now that they look around and see that the remaining designers are all pretty good. Insecurities are on full display when Irina bashes Althea's suit from last week in an interview (again) and Nicolas rips on Johnny and Irina. Tim Gunn levels the playing field when he reveals that this week, the designers have to make garments out of newspapers. Because... sure. "Um, yyyeah," Nicolas says, and I totally agree. They all grab huge stacks and rolls of newsprint, and haul it back to the workroom. They are also given paints, markers and dyes, and allowed to use muslin as an infrastructure. Tim delivers an awesome little history lecture on paper clothing and gives them until midnight to work on their designs.
Naturally, many of them freak out, but several of them seem to have interesting ideas for unique designs. Much folding, ripping and painting goes on. Personalities we have not yet seen begin to emerge in this time of tension. Irina's kind of a witch and Shirin never shuts up.
Tim's early reviews include positive reinforcement for Gordana and Christopher, and woeful concerns for Johnny. Of course, this causes Johnny to wad up his dress and throw it away with four hours left, meaning he will have to start all over. The models arrive and Johnny does his standard routine, spiraling and whining. He gets depressed about his design and blames the iron for ruining it even though everyone saw him throw it away, himself. The other designers seem completely over him.
In spite of all the ridiculousness, many of the dresses ended up being quite cool. The judges once again love Althea's work and also like Irina's trenchcoat and Christopher's ballgown. Things get ugly when Johnny tries to bust his lies on the runway about his original dress, and Nicolas cannot hold his tongue. It doesn't do either of them any favors, because the judges hate both their designs and they go together into the bottom two. In the end, Irina is named the winner, and Johnny gets the boot.
The real competition has begun, now that the nutty people and the less-capable designers have been sent home. I do miss Malvin, frankly. I still think his austing was unfortunate.
It is the morning of a new challenge and everyone is getting ready. Carol Hannah is putting on her eye makeup... with a chimney brush. She unfortunately styles herself every day to look like she just woke up from being out drinking all night, and while that is certainly sexy on occasion, if you do it every day it comes off a bit... how shall I say it? Essence of Tara Reid. We don't want that, CH. She says that they all realize that they are narrowing down to the designers who really "have it together." But, she adds, "someone has to go home, so that's a little bit scary." Meanwhile, my beloved Gordana diligently irons her clothes and hope that the challenge doesn't have some weird twist to it.
In the men's bedroom, Johnny sings a little song of insecurity about how he will never be in the bottom three again. He says in an interview that being in the bottom three is probably the most icky feeling he's ever felt. He says that he's really focused now. "I really want to get to Bryant Park," he says. "So, I'm just trying to get my job done." Good idea.
Althea is hoping she can show the judges that her win last week was not a fluke, and that she is really talented. The judges may already know this, but Irina, for one, does not agree. "Althea ends up winning," she snarks in an interview, complete with eye-rolling, "and I was in utter shock." She says she'd be the first to congratulate anyone who wins if she feels like their win was well-earned, but "that wasn't." Irina, you sly dog. Waiting until episode five to carve out the Bitch Niche. Interesting.
Maybe she's been working on it a lot behind the scenes, though, because it seems Nicolas, for one, has put on her on his People Who Do Not Deserve To Be Here list. At the top of that list, however, is Johnny.
At the runway, Heidi appears in high-waisted pants and a black-and-white striped t-shirt, looking kind of overly casual. But, as usual, the outfit is themed. This week, she says, the answers "will all be in black and white." Everyone gasps like they know exactly what she is talking about which obviously none of them do. "Because we're in L.A.," Logan says in an interview, "my thoughts instantly go to like, old Hollywood black-and-white movies." You wish, gorgeous. Instead, they are met by the always-educational Tim Gunn, who takes them on a little trip to the L.A. Times. Exciting! Indeed, seeing a newspaper press will soon be tantamount to visiting a museum, considering the current state of journalism, so this is pretty cool. Tim introduces Booth Moore, "the celebrated fashion critic" of the L.A. Times. She tells them that for their challenge, they'll be bringing all their experience to bear at a practical level and using pages from the newspaper to create their look. "Our material is newspaper," Nicolas interviews. "Ummm, yyyeah. I'm speechless." Imagine the most "whatever" 14-year-old girl saying that in her most "whatever" attitude, and you might have the tone right.
Everyone goes bananas gathering as much paper as they can in three minutes. The papers are separated on palates by sections -- news, calendar, business, sports, and image -- and then there are huge rolls of blank newsprint as well. Ra'Mon interviews that he already has a point of view, based off a strip of color he sees in a stack of papers. How they avoid getting filthy, I don't know. Irina wonders in an interview why everyone was going so inane grabbing endless stacks of paper. "I mean, you're dressing a human, not an elephant," she says. Finally, they drag their extremely heavy bags of paper to the workroom, exhausted. Carol Hannah tells us that they can create any garment out of the paper, "anything from a bikini to a wedding dress." Tim offers a little more guidance. The designers will have dyes, paintbrushes and markers if they want to add to their designs with those, and they can use muslin as an "infrastructure" for the paper, as long as it does not show. Fabulously, Tim now gives a little lecture on the distinguished history of paper clothing. The first paper dress was created in 1968, he says, and made headline news. "There was quite a fervor for paper clothing," he says. Here is a little more -- it really is interesting. He says they are to consider this history when creating their clothing, but "rebrand" the idea to make it relevant for 2009. The twist? They only have until midnight to finish it.
Everyone gets ripping. In the short time they've known each other, Christopher has obviously been heavily influenced by Nicolas, because his idea is to create a rigid bodice with a full skirt of hundreds of feathers made of paper. They don't show it, but you know the Feather Prince must be proud.
Althea is nervous, saying that though she can make anything out of any fabric, she has no idea what shapes are good when made from paper. "It's like, seriously, starting from like, the bottom," she says, "and trying to work your fashion sense into it." She says she wants to experiment, because she doesn't really know how to do it. I just like Althea. She really loves designing, and it shows.
Carol Hannah has an ambitious plan to make a ball gown, including a very full skirt of dyed paper. She starts early on the dyeing to make sure it is dry in time, but is not really pleased with how the color is looking. Meanwhile, Nicolas is flipping out a little. He has never worked with paper before, apparently, and it's throwing him, big time. Irina, in contrast, seems full of confidence. She appears to be making a dress and intends to paint it to where it looks just like fabric.
At her station, tiny Shirin has decided to paper mâché a bodice and create "some crazy, origami-esque skirt" to go with it. Well, she got the crazy part, down. She's over there talking to herself, singing, using weird voices... maybe she was sniffing too much of the paper mâché glue? Everyone seems to be pretty irritated by it. "I don't think I've ever really met a small woman like that," Logan says, cheerfully, in an interview, "that makes so much noise." Nicolas is not quite so charmed. "I know we're kind of the same age," he says, "but it just makes me feel like, I'm 40 around her. She turns into this 11-year-old kid who will just not shut up." We see Shirin asking the whole, stressed-out group if any of them have named their mannequins. "Be quiet, you know?" Nicolas says to the camera. "Just sit there and do your work." Teeny bird people have a lot of energy, y'all. It is how they survive in the wild. They have to move fast while the rest of us lumber around them.
Speaking of birds, Johnny's inspiration is also origami. He smugly tells Christopher that his idea is to put together a wrap dress and have large origami birds on the shoulder that appear to be holding it up. Now, I realize as I type that that the weird part sounds like the shoulder birds, but actually the birds look like they might end up being cool. It's the dress that's a tragedy. Nicolas interviews that as he watches Johnny drape it, it just looks more and more awful -- especially when Johnny decides to paint it red. "This is just some wrinkled up paper," Nicolas says in an interview, "with pig's blood all over it." Based on what we can see, I have to agree. The paper is super-wrinkled, and the shape is not cleanly defined at all. And, yes, the dye is a mess. Nicolas, however, has little room to talk. He has like, a single triangle of paper on the shoulder of his mannequin. Look to your own house, FP.
Tim arrives at the workroom to find various craziness in progress. Ra'Mon has been inspired by cubism and origami and is folding and refolding things based on color patterns he's picked up in the paper itself. He's excited by the challenge, but nervous about what he'll end up with. Louise has decided, she says in an interview, to decoupage a dress made of headlines she's torn out of the paper. Oh, Louise. This is not third grade. Doesn't that sound like an elementary school project? Come on, girl.
Tim checks in with Gordana, who says she is creating two garments. She shows him her sketches, one of which is a sheath dress that she says will talk about what's going on in the world today. Apparently she intends to convey this by painting the words "time to change" on it. Okay. Tim very kindly says he has great respect for the idea, and gets that it's about a political statement. However, he says, looking at the sketch, the design is very ho-hum. The thing is, Gordana has already created another garment -- a sleeveless dress with short, full skirt in two layers. It appears she's folded the whole thing out of pages that contained a lot of color, and has used those colors to create a fabric design. It's so well crafted, she did not even use muslin for an infrastructure. "I love you," Tim says. Heee. The ultimate compliment. If Tim Gunn said that to me I would burst into tears. Gordana is very grateful and takes his advice to put her energy into the dress she's already working on, rather then the sheath. "What a great way to start," Tim says to himself, and heads off to see Althea.
Althea is working on something with shoulder pads. She's also painted a large piece of paper red and is thinking of draping it somehow... I can't get a clear picture of what she's trying to do, but it doesn't matter, because Tim doesn't like it, anyway. He says that yes, she has immunity, but that still, he's disappointed in what she's planning. He encourages her, instead, to look at the paper upside down, so that it will look to her like abstract shapes and forms. I would love to have heard exactly why he said that -- like, what he was saying it response to. It obviously turned on a light bulb for her, because she says it is really good advice.
At her table, Irina is at a crossroads. She had started on one dress that she abandoned because of the way the paint dried on it, changing its shape. It looks like an apron, so she was wise to do so, but then she's not really feeling the second dress she's making, either. She wanted to do a trench coat, she tells Tim, but she's afraid that without the muslin to go underneath it, it won't look right. I don't know why she's worried about it, since they are allowed to use muslin. Maybe she already used all of hers on her two other designs. In any case, Tim reminds her that the much-celebrated paper raincoat of the 1960s was made without muslin and was a huge hit.
Not a hit in any capacity is the total wreck Johnny is perpetrating on his mannequin. Whatever he was trying to do with the dress is not happening, at least not yet. Tim is beyond concerned, he's "woeful." He says it looks like a craft project, gone awry, like a bunch of kindergarteners did it. He is so right. It looks like a fingerpainting I did when I was in preschool that my mother still has. It is of a frantically smeared red blob that I apparently insisted was to be titled "Red Dog." Johnny, instead of saying he'll iron it or work harder on it or whatever, says he guesses he'll just start something else, then. He feebly tries to explain the one cool part -- that he plans on making it look like the origami birds are holding up the dress. "Yeah, well," Tim Gunn says, "it may look like the birds attacked the dress." Before Tim can even walk away, Johnny pulls the dress off the mannequin, wads it up and throws it, freethrow-style, into the trash. (He misses.) He's got four and half hours left and he's going to totally start over?! Dude, just FIX it. I guess since it's paper, he could possibly start over and come up with something? Actually, now that I typed that out, I feel like it would be harder to start over with paper. Whatever, he's a loon.
We see Nicolas evilly cackling in the background, but his time is coming. Actually, Tim thinks he has a good trajectory going on his design, but thinks he should work to avoid looking costume-y. I can't get a really good look at the dress, yet, but it almost looks like he is going for a red, white and blue design the way he has folded the paper. Somehow I doubt Nicolas is working on a patriotic design.
The naïve, but seriously adorable Christopher is hard at work on his design. "I wanted, like, a showstopper," he tells Tim. "Good God!" Tim responds, and says he does think Christopher will have a showstopper, if only he has time to get it made. Christopher excitedly details his plan, but Tim stops him. "The last thing you need to do is talk to me," he says. "So, DO it! I can't wait to see this." Before leaving, he adds to all the designers that he is impressed and inspired by their work and cannot wait to see the finished products.
Well, it is 8:30. Johnny says in an interview that after he threw the dress away, he had all these squares of paper he had cut for the origami birds, so he decided to do something with them The squares are obviously cut from the same ad or photo in multiple papers, so they seem to be identical. He says he's just praying something good comes out of it. Why didn't he just stick with his original idea? It was cool enough, right? I mean, it just looked like the dress he made at first was not working out, mostly because of the paint job he gave it.
Meanwhile, Irina has abandoned her two awful dresses, as well, and is working on her original idea of a shawl collar trench coat. She had been too afraid to do it, she says in an interview, until Tim mentioned the famous paper coat of the '60s. "I thought, you know what? If it was made, then it's possible, and I could do it," she says. All well and good, but, isn't the point that she was supposed to have the confidence and creativity to take that chance in the first place? Anyway, what she's making seems pretty cool. I don't know how she's getting it to hang so nicely, but the coat is a very flattering shape, so far, on the mannequin.
Nicolas is continuing his work on his dress, which he says is inspired by the punk kids he knew in the '90s. So far, it looks pretty cool, from the split-second we see it. It does have stripes, but it does not look quite so patriotic as I thought before. Much ironing, slicing and pasting continues to go on around the workroom. Althea is using a repeating image of a building she found in one section of the paper to build her dress. It already looks great.
Johnny, as you might have guessed, is circling the drain. He doesn't like what he's got left to work with, and why he won't just change his plan again, I don't know, because he's right -- it looks awful. It's like tiled squares of the same photograph glued together with a belt of folded over paper? Awful.
The models arrive to be fitted. All of them seem really excited by the challenge and much OMG-ing goes on on all sides. Irina is now recognizing the challenge of making this belted paper coat moveable enough for her model to walk in and not rip it. Shirin's geometric, pleated skirt is really heavy, she says in an interview, and she is worried the bodice she's making for it will not hold it up. Why not just make them separate pieces?
No time to wonder about that, though, because the single-piano-note of doom is foretelling Johnny's rapid descent into emotional hostage-taking. His victim tonight is Emarie, his poor model. Bless this chick's heart, I don't know how she is handling it. Johnny is feeling all disappointed in himself, and throws away the only cool part of his design that remains -- the big origami birds. Instead of working on a solution to any of this mess, he flops down in a chair and whines to Emarie about how much he hates everything. And instead of fabricating something new to replace the junk he's glued together, he fabricates a tale of doom about how a steamer had ruined the dress when he tried to iron it. When I first watched this, I could not BELIEVE that he was lying about the first dress. Yet, on second viewing, I think maybe it isn't clear which dress he's talking about at this moment. However, he seems to be moving ahead with the second dress, so surely he means the first one. Plus, the look on Nicolas's face as he sits nearby and eavesdrops is pure "bitch, please!" Nicolas, in an interview: "He just starts spewing this whole sob story how the whole thing was ruined by a steamer... we didn't even have a steamer in the sewing room that day!" The FP is outraged, y'all! His feathered hair is flying. Shirin, also, is appalled. "Basically," she interviews, "Johnny tore up his first dress just because Tim Gunn came and said it was pretty bad." If the show's producers are editing these stories and reactions to make it sound to the viewers like Johnny is lying, when he is not, that is pathetic. However, since Johnny seems pretty confused about reality, himself, I feel like yes, he's a big ol' lying liar. Who tells lies. And who wouldn't take responsibility for his own shit if you paid him. He dramatically sighs that he'll figure it out, he guesses, and the models all head out the door.
The designers now have like, two hours left, and everyone continues to work hard. Except Johnny, natch. "Towards the end of the night, I'm really tired," he says in an interview, "and I hate what I've done, so... I start doing a crossword puzzle." I get really excited for a second because, hey, this guy is talented, and how awesome would it be for him to rip everything apart and suddenly throw together a brilliant crossword-inspired ensemble. I was born into a family of mad crossworders, and would love to see such a creation. Have y'all seen that movie, Wordplay, speaking of crosswords? Total nerd brilliance.
No one in the workroom would have a hard time giving you a six-letter word for "whiney dumbass," for sure. Even Minnesota Nice Christopher says everyone is getting tired of Johnny's "attatoood." They all apparently agree that he has a lack of passion and a lack of follow-through on his designs. At least the second part of that is very clear. I don't want to like, have a meeting up in here, and I know he says he is in recovery for his own addiction, but the way he acts (on this TV show which is totally skewed and edited, so whatever, I actually know nothing about him) is typical adult child of an alcoholic behavior. Anyway.
Finally, the day is over and everyone drags themselves back to their apartments. Ra'Mon is trying to talk to Johnny and Logan about how he is enjoying the challenge of making something with paper, but Johnny has to cut in. "Tim tore my ass apart!" he says. "The first dress I did? Oh, my God!" Ra'Mon asks then if he has a whole new piece. Johnny says yes, all new, and then... again, this is upsetting because watching it for the second time, when he starts talking about the steamer and how when he was ironing "it," there was sputtering and whatever... It really is not clear that he's talking about the first dress. But then he goes on an on about it, and Logan intimates in an interview that Johnny has made up this lie about the first dress. Johnny says every time that the steamer on the iron "decided to spit." Never once does he say, "I should have checked to see if there was too much water in the iron," or anything remotely indicating that if this steamer thing really happened on either dress, that it might have been his fault. He does an impression of the steamer, even, and makes this huge noise like the thing practically exploded. And you know if that had happened, they all would have known about it the moment it occurred. Also, he's schlubbing around in bed the whole time he's telling this made-up story, picking his feet, and I cannot stand it. Why would anyone willingly be barefoot and gross on TV?
Apparently, this Johnny story is the talk of the town. In the other room, Nicolas, Christopher and Carol Hannah are having a huge laugh remembering Tim's "craft project gone awry" comments.
Morning dawns and Irina and Louise discuss the other designs as they get ready for the day. "I like Althea's, the way it's turning out," Louise says. She is not, however, wild about Nicolas's. Frankly, neither is Nicolas. He says in an interview that he is really nervous, and wonders why everyone else seems to be enjoying the challenge so much when he is hating it. Of course, the main subject of interest is still Johnny. Christopher asks his roommates, Nicolas and Epperson, what they think Johnny has under his shroud in the workroom. "I think he wants an unveiling," Nicolas says. "He always wants an unveiling." I'm confused that they seem to be saying they haven't seen his second dress, but maybe he did something else and covered it up before they all left. Randomly, Epperson adds that Johnny is doing what he's doing for a reason. Nicolas: "Yes. Comic relief." The roommates all laugh as they head out, joking about how the judges are going to tear their dresses apart, literally. In his room, Johnny comes out of the bathroom, clearly uncomfortable in his jeans, or maybe even his own skin. He says in an interview that he doesn't care what the other designers think of him. "I don't give a damn," he says. "Get over it." I am sure this is also a lie.
Everyone is finishing up in the workroom, anxious about their designs. Ra'Mon says he is especially nervous, because he did separates, which was a different approach than most of the others. Irina also has some anxieties about her coat, which is unfinished at this point. Then again, so is everyone else's design. Tim comes in and announces the models. The designers will have two hours to get their hair done and fit them in the garments. "I'll tell you," he adds, "I took a look around the room this morning. Some of you look like you're kind of stalling out. Don't let that happen, okaaaay? Rally!" With this, he sends in the models. Emarie immediately tries to lift Johnny's spirits, but it doesn't work. He's blandly taping things together while everyone else works. Gordana is thrilled with how her dress turned out. It does look really well-constructed and, as she says, you can't even tell it's made of paper. Carol Hannah, meanwhile, is finished with her dress, but it's so huge and complicated, she has to stand on a table to lift it straight off the mannequin. No idea how they'll get the model into this thing.
Ra'Mon and Althea disappoint me by engaging in a little workroom gossip. "I can't tell if Irina's is good or not," Althea whispers to him, and he agrees. She says it looks "blah," and that compared to the work everyone else did, it looks easy. Across the room, Irina can't help but notice that they appear to be talking about her. In an interview, she lets loose. "Althea... I see her glancing at me with a sort of weird eye," she says. "So, I don't know what that's about, and I don't even want to know." Ugh. Catty girl jealousy? So passé. you're going to show me two gay guys bitching at each other on the runway. Oh, wait, but first you're going to show me Johnny being ridiculous on television, inappropriately telling Emarie to go "get her herre did." Siiigh.
Finally, Tim comes in with the five minute warning, telling them to pack an emergency repair kit for the runway. "Lots of tape," he says. Many of the designers seem excited about their work. Not Johnny. "If I go home on an arts and crafts project," he snips at Emarie as he tapes the dress together, "I am not going to be happy." Nicolas is so over it. "Johnny thinks very highly of himself," he says in an interview, "and the dress that he's about to send down the runway? I hope the judges tear him apart for it." Well, you know, Johnny hates Nicolas's dress, too. "Nicolas's design looks a little stupid," he says, and... he might be right. "It's definitely not punk rock. It's, I don't know: stump rock? It's dinosaur chic." Come on, girls. You're both pretty.
On the runway, the designers are met by Heidi who appears in another, more glam, black and white top and an awesome sequined skirt. I do love a sequin, people. She introduces the judges: Zoe Glassner, again; Tommy Hilfiger!; and Eva Longoria Parker. I know y'all miss Nina and Kors. I keep thinking they'll be back every week. I don't mind the guest judges, but is it altogether fair not to have any real continuity in the judging? Then again, Heidi is there every week. Hi, I'm just talking to myself.
Logan's dress is out first, and in the three seconds of quick cuts we see, I love it. We never see it again, which is upsetting, because it looks great. The teal coloring he used and just the general shape of the garment made it seem very Asian-inspired. Very classy.
Nicolas's model, Celine, strolls out , and yeah, the dress doesn't look at all punk rock. I can kind of half see where he was going -- he made the dress's straps all spiky, which might be interesting... but then again, who's to say? They show it for the merest blip of time.
Making a grand entrance is Christopher's ball gown. He really pulled it off and the full, feathered skirt is beautiful.
Ra'Mon's ensemble is and I don't get it. It looks like he made the top and bottom with the same pattern, but somehow in different colors. Wow, it would have been nice to see how any of them did any of this stuff. I mean, they made clothing out of newspaper! Show how they did it, for at least one minute, damn. One minute less of Johnny whining would have been awesome.
I love Epperson's kimono-inspired A-line dress and how his model, Matar, is showing it. Like Logan's dress, I would love to see more of it, but we never do. They'd rather show us Johnny's awful thing, which looks like something off the Flintstones. He makes sure to add in his voiceover that he is sure his original dress would have gotten a better response.
Gordana is so happy about her dress, it makes me nervous. It looks very nice, really, but not overly exciting design-wise. Also, her model is so beautiful, but it's like she disappears on the runway somehow. Certainly that dress pales in comparison to Carol Hannah's, which is totally majestic coming down the runway. She's made a strapless gown with a skirt that has this really gorgeous structure to it, but is still full and feminine. And the dyeing she did on the paper worked superbly. It is really striking.
Shirin is happy with her geometric dress, but still nervous that it is going to fall off on the runway. It is a cool design, I think. I wish I knew the name of the type of pleat she used on the skirt. I want to say envelope pleat? I don't think that's right, though. In any case, it's cool, and Shirin is happy with the overall look, especially the makeup they used on her model, which included feather eyelashes. You know Nicolas has some of those.
Irina's cute coat is out , and it looks truly chic on the runway. Her model is perfect for it, young and sophisticated looking, and the thing just really stands out. She crumpled paper into tiny balls to use all over the cowl neck and the sleeves, where fur would be on a real coat, and it looks very cute.
Althea's dress is absolutely gorgeous. The way she incorporated the image of the building over and over through the dress is amazing -- you see the image repeated, but then the whole dress somehow looks like a building. Really, it's kind of genius. "I like to design intellectually," she says in a voiceover. "I really try to make the body look good." Well, she succeeded, though I don't think there would be much that could make her model's body not look good.
Louise's dress is and... eh. It is way funkier than she normally designs and, with the added effect of Fatma's hair being in twin afro-puffs, the overall look is sort of cartoonish. She says she suspects she will either be in the bottom or safe, and I hope it is the latter, because I like her and love her model. I can't really see what is up with the top of the dress -- she seems to have made paper coils or something? But the skirt looks kind of neat, like it is made out of paper cones fashioned together in two rows. Too bad we'll never know.
It is time for judgment and DAMN, Althea is tall. I don't think I have ever seen her standing to Shirin, like she is here. I know she is wearing heels, because she often seems to wear them, but I could not help but laugh -- only because I am also six feet tall, and most of my friends are shorties. If you could see me to AB Chao? Lord. It is like Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. I can't help it, though, and neither can Althea, so you just go on, tall girl. Wear the heels!
They shake it up this week by calling the top and bottom three groups forward and leaving the safe people to sweat it out in the back row. Mean, Heidi. So, all safe: Louise, Ra'Mon, Epperson, Shirin, Logan and Carol Hannah. I am disappointed, really, because some of those pieces were really interesting and cool, and I would have liked to hear what the judges thought about them, at least. The models of the remaining six are brought out. Althea talks about the image of the building she used and the layer process she did. "I tried to contour, like, her... bum?" she giggles. Eva says she loves it. "This is a classic dress that I wear all the time," she says. "And I always accentuate my bum. 'Cause it's my asset." Oh, y'all, don't blame Eva. She has a French husband and probably has to watch Jerry Lewis all day. Tommy Hilfiger also loves it and calls it "genius," and Zoe deems it "exquisite."
They move on to Gordana, who says her goal was to make a conventional design out of an unconventional fabric. While Zoe seems to like it, Heidi drops the bomb saying it bored her. You can sort of tell she doesn't want to say it, though. Heidi says the problem really is that the dress is SO wearable and real-looking. Gordana rightfully should be mad about that. She made a real-looking dress out of newspaper for Lord's sake! She says that her mistake must have been that her understand was that they should make something wearable. Eva softens the blow by saying that the only fault with Gordana's dress was that everybody else's dress was so over-the-top amazing.
In fact, Eva was blown away by Irina's trench coat. "I think it looks Coco Chanel, meets Saint Laurent, meets Givenchy, in the '60s and '70s," Hilfiger adds, practically with tears in his eyes. He adds, though, that he does not love that they can see the Scotch tape she had to use on the back, and that he does feel it could be a little shorter. Heidi especially loves the way she scrunched the paper for the collar and sleeves. "New alternative to fur: newspaper," Hilfiger says.
They move on to Johnny, and I can smell blood. Man, when Heidi gives her "I hate your dress and I am about to eat you" smile, it is scary. She asks him how much time he spent on the dress, and he reels out his two-dress story. This time, it is clear that his sputtering steamer line is about the first dress. DUDE. I don't even understand WHY he would lie? Like, what has he got to gain by it, at all? After he tells how the whole dress was destroyed, he is quick to add that he's not making excuses, really, he's not. Man, you are making so many excuses you are INVENTING excuses to make. Heidi, however, is not in the business of letting people off hooks. She says it doesn't look like any time was spent on the dress, and does not love the way the look was styled, with the red heels and crazy heavy makeup and hair. "She looks like she's going to work," Heidi says, meaning... like she's a prostitute. Eva says she is not feeling the weird almost empire waistband/belt thing he did, nor does she like the Flintstonian triangular design at the top. Johnny reaches in to the model's cleavage and folds the point of the center triangle down. Jackass. Zoe throws him a lifeline, saying she could kind of see a pop-art vibe with the '80s hair and make-up, and was going there with him. He laughs goofily and instead of just saying thanks and SHUTTING UP, he has to "just say" something else about that mythical first dress. And since he is so crazy, he can't just say that it was better, he has to compare it to Dior, saying it draped around and wrapped back up. Nicolas cannot take it, and while yes, he should have just let Johnny hang himself with his own stupid noose, he can't help but shake his head. Heidi sees and insists on hearing the rest of the story. "It was not Dior," he says. "It was a red mess." He even relays Tim's comment about the birds attacking the dress which again, yes, he should have stayed out of it, but you know -- Johnny. Is lame. And can't shut up, either. His big sass back is "Thanks, Nicolas! Just throw me right under the bus!" He adds a pointed "Jerk!" at the end, clearly hoping for the judges to agree with him, but they appear to move on.
In perhaps a small moment of sweet revenge for Johnny, they move on to Nicolas. They don't get his dress. Hilfiger doesn't see the New York punk connection at all, and Zoe wrote down that it looked like an insect. It really sort of does, especially because the skirt portion has these two separate shell-like layers. Zoe makes it light, saying that the insect thing is "very New York," as well. You know, like roaches. Eeeek. Sorry, Nicolas.
Adoration is heaped upon Christopher for his full skirt and hard-shell bodice. Hilfiger deems it "sexy" and "a wow." Zoe particularly loves how the bodice is like armor, and the skirt is so soft and full. Christopher had even made a little feathery thing for the model's hair, and the whole thing reminds Zoe of Guinevere. The six are sent away for the judges to deliberate.
They are very pleased with Christopher's risk-taking and how his beautiful dress was different than everyone else's. Also, much love is shown to Althea, whose print-within-a-print and structured sheath showed excellent craftsmanship. Of course, they most love Irina's trench, which they feel was dramatic without being gimmicky.
Heidi has mixed feelings about Gordana being in the lowest scores. She just thought as a whole that it was a bit boring. "You know," Zoe says, "it was safe." Nobody got Nicolas's punk dress, and felt generally that it was tacky. "Punk should have been something so different," Hilfiger says. ,/P>
They move on to Johnny, whose dress they all agree was a wreck. "I have a feeling he wasn't completely telling the truth," Tommy Hilfiger says, and you have to love him for seeming kind of reluctant to even say that, because hello, Tommy Hilfiger does not need to get involved in reality show drama! Anyway, Heidi is mad. "How bad can it spit?" Heidi asks him. "Oh, Tommy doesn't iron, honey," Eva cuts in, hilariously. "He doesn't know." They then show this random clip of Hilfiger saying something like, "he'll get it together," and I really hope he is not referring to Johnny continuing in this contest, because it is unlikely he will get it together now or ever.
Back on the runway, Althea is declared in and Irina is deemed the winner of the challenge. She hugs Johnny on her way out. "It feels good," she says in her SUPERLOUD voice in an interview. "I finally won. I feel like it's past-due, in a way." Christopher is also in and leaves the runway with an awkward and cringe-inducing blown kiss to the judges. Dude, just say thanks and leave -- you are not on kiss blowing terms with these people, yet! To my relief, Heidi does a severe head turn and says Gordana is also in. Left now are only the bitter enemies Nicolas and Johnny. Heidi tells Nicolas that they saw where he was trying to go, but he really didn't get there. "It was all too arts-and-craftsy," she says. To Johnny, she lays down the law. "You gave us a lot of excuses today but, as always, we can only judge on what we see," she says. "Your dress was not well-made, and it was just a mess overall." Boom. Nicolas is in and Johnny is out.
Normally I would close there, but y'all. Y'ALL. First of all, Johnny starts crying in his interview, which would be acceptable from a normal person, but from him feels like even more bad acting. "Giving up addiction was probably easier to do than this," he says, and I would like to choke him, myself. Backstage, Tim Gunn is quivering with rage. Where he would usually at least pretend to be sad and hug the departing designer as he sends him to clean up his stuff, this time he barely even LOOKS at Johnny. Instead, he shoots his cuffs in constrained fury, and gives him a "you take care" of complete dismissal. When Johnny is gone, Tim can no longer contain his anger. "I am incredulous," he says, "of that utterly preposterous spewing of fiction that Johnny did on the runway." Many voices jump in to agree, and Nicolas says he's sorry, but he just snapped and couldn't take it anymore. "It was ridiculous," Tim adds, and who could say it better? Johnny says some other ludicrous stuff in a final interview, of course in tears, and finally, he is gone.