Then they troop to the roof of the Gotham apartments to share a toast with Frau Seal and Tim Gunn. The designers then do some weird dancing.
The designers go home to work on their collections. After some time passes, Tim pays each a "surprise" visit.
New York rent is so high, Christian basically lives and works in a closet. How he coped with all of those feathers in such a tight space is beyond me. Speaking of feathers, he showed Tim a pair of feathered skinny pants that were just atrocious. Tim kindly called it "a lot of look" but also "costumey." He advised Ferocia to "bring an editing eye" to the process. In other words, leave the crap at home. Ferocia can't fit any other humans in his apartment, so he is forced to show Tim photos of his sister and mother.
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Tim then goes to see what Jillian has been up to. She researched 15th Century armor for her collection, causing Tim to rave over the detail work on one of her jackets. Then he disses her palette as being "a cloudy day." Despite that, she takes Tim home to meet her family on Long Island, where we get to see real humans rather than photographs.
Tim takes a break from the cold weather and flies to LA to see Rami. Instead of family, he introduces two friends to us. Like we care. But he also speaks warmly of his family, including his late mother (who looks a lot like Jillian with her chin chopped off) and his wonderful stepmother.
Rami has a large studio that Tim calls "phenomenal." C'mon Tim, ye of the $1.50 word can't find an adjective better than that currently overused one? You may as well have said, "awesome." His advice on the Joan of Arc-influenced collection: "pull it back a bit." How weird is it that Rami used a similar inspiration to Jillian's (Joan of Arc = 15th Century Armor)? Is it because he thought that her resemblance to his mother had a deeper meaning?
Finally, Tim flies back to wintry New York to see Chris, whose collection was about "beauty with a quirk," and was "95% fashion with 5% costume thrown in." Tim gags at the concept of the human hair that adorned several outfits. Why is it that the fur of dead animals is ok, but donated human hair from live specimens isn't? Hair extensions on a head is fine, but on a skirt it's not? If it were goat hair, it would only have raised half an eyebrow. At this point, Tim decides to go all didactic on Chris's ass and tells a little story about the monkey house at the zoo: When you walk in you think, "OMG this place stinks. After twenty minutes, it's not too bad. After an hour, it doesn't smell at all." Chris has apparently been living in the monkey house.
Then for no good reason, they visit a friend of Chris' who lives in an apartment filled floor-to-ceiling with tacky, gilded, rococo crap. He's the gay version of a crazy cat lady, but without the cats. The amount of dust in the place has to be...phenomenal.
Cut to Fashion Week. The four designers are once again forced to live together and immediately Jillian and Christian begin bickering like children. "Are you going to be nice to me?" "Are YOU going to be nice to ME?" Ok, kids, time for bed.
The next morning is Rami and Chris three-piece challenge and with the help of the squabbling children, they fit their models, send them through hair and makeup, and nervously bite their fingernails as they wait for the axe to fall.
During the judging, both designers got mixed comments. "Top Designer" Michael Kors liked that Chris "thought outside the box," but also deemed his velvet-and-black-safety-pin dress a "velvet condom." Nina appreciated Rami's tailored aspects, but thought his blue jacket was too much, as did Kors.
It almost seems that Rami got more negative feedback...yet he won.
What they didn't show us.
Chris' designs were just too costumey for the judges, and I guess they were for an American designer. But go look at the recent collections of Christian Lacroix (especially couture), Viktor & Rolf, any top European designer, and you'll see costume out the wazoo. Americans are just too conservative, fashion-wise.
And this season is still boring.
