At the top of the episode we see the new designers moving into their cramped digs at the Atlas apartments. They are then whisked to the roof to meet Heidi and Tim.
Instead, they share some champagne with the designers. Tim tells them this is the most diverse group EVAR. Diverse, how? I think the three African- Americans and an Asian are cancelled out by the plethora of non-ethnic females who pretty much all look alike.Heids and the Timster also tease the designers with their first challenge. The contestants are ready to roll, but they will have to wait until the next morning. The wee hours of the morning.
Tim breaks into the apartments and tells everyone to come downstairs for a little field trip!
The designers walk and walk and walk through the streets of Manhattan until they get to Gristedes, the closest location of which is 1.9 miles away. For this they got up at oh-dark-30?Gristedes, as it turns out, is the home of a very first challenge of Season 1, wherein my favorite designer from that season, Austin Scarlett, won with his cornhusk dress. Fittingly, our dapper Ms. Scarlett was the special guest judge for this episode.
In Gristedes, the designers have thirty minutes to spend $75 on innovative items they can use to produce a garment. Suede, the one-named dude with the blue-tipped mohawk thinks the challenge is "wackadoodle." Surely not a word borrowed from the Tim Gunn Lexicon.
After shopping, they lug their bags to Parsons to commence to designery.
Tim comes in partway through to offer his mentoring services.
He also chastizes the designers for choosing tablecloths and other fabric-y items from Gristedes, as the challenge focuses on innovation and the use of non-traditional materials.
Jerry scoffs at non-traditional materials.
At midnight, the designers stop working and head back to Atlas for sleep. Kelli expresses her concern about the next day's judging.
The next day, they have one hour to send the models whom they meet for the first time to TRESemme hair and L'Oreal makeup. Tim also encourages them to utilize the Bluefly accessories wall and manages to get all three major advertising sponsors airtime in one breath.
The runway show begins! The models strut their stuff and then the judges get to have their fun.
Nina is billed as "Editor -at-Large" for Elle because "No Friend of that bitch Ann Slowey" wasn't PC.After Heidi tells a handful of designers they are safe, we get to see the remainder get picked apart by the wolves. Blayne, in obvious tanning competition with Michael Kors, tells the judges about his...er...outfit.
Austin thought it was "hideous." I kinda have to agree.Stella's dress won merely a "butt-ugly" from Heidi. She thought by using plastic garbage bags, she could approximate a leather or vinyl look, but she pinched her pennies and chose a cheap generic brand that was too thin and flimsy. It seems like she spent most of the day and evening staring at the bags and complaining that she couldn't use them. A stern "make it work" from Tim finally got her to hand-sew strips together to make a dress-like thing that really looked like garbage.
Jerry's shower curtain was turned into a raincoat, under which he made a dress-like thingy, accessorizing the whole shebang with rubber boots and gloves. The judges were impressed only by it's hideousness, saying that it was "memorable, but not in a good way."
Kelli, despite her fears of Nina, pulled off an outfit that was actually innovative. She used vacuum cleaner bags splashed with dyes and bleach to create the marbled endpaper-like skirt, with a singed coffee filter bodice. The judges were impressed and awarded her the win and immunity in next week's challenge. I think the skirt is amazing, but am not fond of the coffee filters because they look a bit last-minute.
These two designs, from Jerrell and Leanne, were deemed safe. I think Jerrell's looks like Carmen Miranda after a bad car accident, and Leanne's seems to have used tissues glued to it.
Also safe was Terri's crocheted mop head ensemble, which I think was pretty brilliant, being a needlecrafter myself. Korto's paper tablecloth dress had a wonderful shape and the judges were impressed with the construction. Nina even went so far to say that she thinks it's obvious that Korto has "good taste." Personally, I find the salad to be a bit questionable, but what do I know?
This monstrosity is Blayne's "Girlicious." Did I see correctly during the runway show that it seems he signed his model's leg? Or am I imagining things? And I can't decide if that thing between her legs looks more like a diaper, or pubic hair gone wild.
Stella's garbage bag dress may have worked on Grace Jones, but not for our judges. I thought for sure her ass was grass, but they hated Jerry's horror movie nurse far more. Heidi immediately planted the kiss of death on him and he was whisked from the show.
Hmmmm...I know some bloggers would like to avoid any future encounters with that kind of personality....
