Okay, one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to lay off the sweets. This challenge did NOT help!!
So, what was with Heidi’s makeup at the beginning? I swear, that was the first time in recorded history that she just did not look good!!
And Ricky’s hat reminded me of a jockstrap. (Don’t tell him I said that. He’d probably cry.)
I never like that flat, red lipstick.
Jillian’s outfit would have gone really well with a pair of edible underwear.
Oh, and there goes Ricky, leaking out of his eye-holes in the previews. He ought to get sponsorship from Kleenex. Seriously, put their name right across every one of his ugly hats.
I think Ricky was crying over the way Victorya’s model clomped down the runway.
Yeah, was that ever a bad judgment call, making her walk that way.
I’m so sorry that it was Elisa who went and not Sweet Pea, if for no other reason than the entertainment value. I find Sweet Pea boring, not just in her designs but als in her personality. That said, Elisa’s dress was totally fug and, in that respect, it was a good auf’ing. Kors’ comment, “She has shower caps on her arms!” was pretty accurate. You knew when she told all about her head being cracked open, she was gone. 
Loved Rami’s dress and he deserved the win. If they had given it to their little favorite Jillian I would have screamed. Can that girl do no wrong in their opinion? The bodice was nice but the skirt was not all that. Last week, she used NONE of the required materials, and they overlooked it… this week, she uses the edible materials, and that’s considered so laudable. Hmmm.
Chris’ dress was also cool as hell. He did a very nice job and I liked it much more than Jillian’s. Kit’s was punk rock and I liked it.
Is Christian’s model really that great? I think she’s been picked first several times and they are all drooling after her. Also, Christian cracks me up, I have to say, despite his utter bitchiness and conceit. He’s growing on me for unintentional comic relief.
Ricky’s was a big ol’ Hershey Kiss.
I thought this challenge was the best one this season, and I do’t usually like the commercial tie-in challenges.
One thing that is really beginning to concern me is that some of the criteria that the designers are given at the beginning of the challenge don’t seem to be taken into account in the judging. Three examples:
In this challenge, the designers were told that the dresses were supposed to actually be wearable. We can expect a pretty generous interperetation of “wearable” in a case like this, but I’d think that it would mean that the dress could survive more than a trip down the runway. Jillian’s definitely wasn’t wearable in any meaningful sense of the word. According to Tim Gunn, the Twizzlers got squishy from the heat of her hands. Can you imagine what would happen if you actually tried to wear that thing to a cocktail party?
In the last challenge, they were supposed to use the women’s old clothes to make new ones. The fact that they were given the $10 to spend at Mood suggests that it would be okay to use some new elements, but that the bulk of the material should actually come from the old clothes. Otherwise, it would just be a design something for “everyday women” on an ultra-tight budget challenge! Again, Jillian violated the criteria. Again, she had a top-three finish.
In the “3 outdated trends” challenge, they said that each of the three outfits should incorporate each of the three trends. Again, we could expect the judges to be generous in terms of accepting reasonable explanations of how each of the trends was represented, but some of the teams seemed to blow off this requirement entirely.
Now I’m not saying that Jillian (or anyone else) necessarily deserved to be auf’d for blowing off the criteria, but some of these actions are in the gray area between “playing fair” and “cheating.” Okay, this sort of thing will happen in a contest like this one, but it just seems to be happening over and over this season.
Where does the blame lie? Well, in any contest, the players are expected to play by the rules, but the referees are there to enforce the rules and make judgement calls. So while the designers in question are at fault to some degree, I think the blame lies with the judges and also possibly with Tim. The judges, especially the three regulars, should know exactly what the expectations were, and mark people down severely for not following them, up to and including aufing them. If they want to give someone a bit of a pass for having a good result anyway–or at least a good rationalization of why they didn’t follow the rules–fine. It’s all subjective. But they shouldn’t be giving top-three finishes to these folks. And who knows what we don’t actually see in the final edit, but why isn’t Tim saying “hey, that looks good, but it doesn’t follow the rules” when he goes in to see what everybody’s doing? That would give people a chance to fix the problem, but of course, having to go back and re-do stuff is a big disadvantage. I think that’s fair.
But ultimately, I just hope that this problem is recognized and dealt with in some fashion. It compromises the competition. And for me, it means that some of the designers will have the “asterisk next to their name.”
Speaking of eye candy… I still find it hard to believe Kevin is really and truly straight. I think it was in the beginning when Tim came around to wake them all up, I was thinking “What a waste of fur!”
More seriously, I think the **only ** thing that saved Sweet P’s butt was that she used something related to Hershey’s Kisses for the skirt - what was it? The pull tabs in bulk sheet form?
Ok, I’m feeling catty.
Originally I though Elisa was an annoying freakazoid, but later I came to like her as someone a little too into the new agey bullcrap but essentially harmless and amusing. Unfortunately, she couldn’t put together good, together garments.
When I saw that long monologue about her daughter and her accident, I knew she was a goner. Was it uncharitable of me to be to be highly unsurprised to find out she had suffered a massive head injury?
I’m glad Sweet P survived another week, but I fear that she’s not got too much time left. I find her to be a genuinely warm and, well, sweet person who I like. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to have the chops to take it to Bryant Park.
Damn, that Rami can make some great stuff. And mostly out of paper, too.
Jillian annoys me for no particular reason, and she got the “it’ll be a total disaster” edit, but the Twizzlers outfit looked fabulous. I give her high props for actually using the candy, not just the pillows and such.
I liked Chris’s Hershey’s/Twizzler stripe thing, and the judges properly recognized that he really restrained himself. Some week not to far from now he won’t and then he’ll be auf.
That little Christian really needs to shut the fuck up until he’s proven he has the chops. His dress with candy wrappers glued all over it wasn’t a garment of ethereal beauty but just a damn dress with candy wrappers glued all over it, and a boring one at that. Sure he’s quick, but he’s going to get himself shanked with an oversize needle if he doesn’t stop taunting the others after he’s done.
Kit looks cute put together, but she’s a friggin disaster rolling out of bed.
I’m focusing a bit on Kevin because I vaguely know him (he was a sometime bartender at a restaurant I go to), but does it seem that he’s getting more of the asides and interview spots than the others? Maybe he just gives better commentary than some of the others. Having met him, I’m pretty sure he’s straight, but I wish he’d shut up about it (though no doubt the producers will broadcast it every time he says it).
Just put Victorya out of our misery already. Personally and professionally, I’m ready to see the whiny bitch go.
I think Elisa was a totally annoying airhead. How did she even get on the show when she wouldn’t (or couldn’t?) use a sewing machine? And SPITTING on the fabric to mark it? One quails to think what she would have used if her many psychotropic medications gave her dry mouth. . . .at any rate, seriously happy to see her hit the road. Maybe she can finally get the help she needs. Or not.
I am intrigued by Sweet Pea. She is covered with tattoos and used to be a member of an all-female biker gang. Now she seems sweet and kind of benign and empty. Did all the passion get used up, or is she just not good on camera?
Rami is fantastic, you’re right. But Gillian is such a drama queen.
Speaking of queens, that Christian girl just has to get a grip. I want to sit on her and shave that dead rabid possum off her head. Then I want to dress her in something that would hide that pipe cleaner body. To be fair she is very young, but puhleeze. (I also think she’s very talented, but time will tell.)
Forget the name of that other guy, the one with the puffy eyes who looks like Renee Zellweiger on steroids. (Have we ever seen him and Renee together? Hmm. . … ) He seems to have a lot of talent, but I still want to smack him and tell him to stop pouting and looking all beestung.
Maybe I’m the only one on the planet but I like Victorya and her work. I feel she has a very clear vision, even though sometimes I don’t like what she produces.
I’m also in the minority, apparently, in thinking Heidi never ever looks good. There’s always something just off about her. As if she’s on the verge of fainting or throwing up or just recovering from the flu or something.
Gosh, I guess I am too!
I have been annoyed as well by people not following the rules, and not getting “marked down” for it. I can see why they wouldn’t want to auf someone for it (especially if their design is good…the idea is to have the best designers at the end, you know?) But I definitely think no one should be allowed to win a challenge if they don’t follow the rules!
I read the Tim Gunn blog that Green Bean linked to, and it was very interesting that he kind of re-defined “wearable” as “believeable.” That puts a whole new spin on it, and I wish they would explain that more on the show. If what they mean by that is that the dress has to look like a dress that someone would actually wear if it was made out of more practical materials, that is much much different from being a dress that someone would actually put on and wear as is. For instance, the Twizzler dress obviously couldn’t be worn the way it was, but if it was re-maid with braided cord or something substituted for the Twizzlers, it would be pretty cool, and something a person could/would wear. By that definition, I’d say that dress WAS “wearable.” But that is very vague when you are actually watching the show.
Christian’s dress reminded me of the coffee filter dress that Michael made in the first challenge last season. But not in a good way. Michael’s dress was amazing, but it just didn’t work being done with tiny brown crinkly candy wrappers. My husband thought it looked like the dress was covered in roaches! Yikes!
Give it a week, it will be. Bugs just love chocolatey-peanutty crumbs. 
Psst. Christian is a guy. Granted that he behaves likes a teenaged girl with the catty gossip and outsized ego but he is technically a guy.
I was sorry to see Elisa go. I’ve liked her from the first crazy dress. I would have gone with Sweet P instead. She’s nice but has not yet struck me as particularly talented. Ricky finally made something that didn’t look like ass.
I thought the top three did a superb job. Rami’s was very interesting visually. Jillian should think about colors other than red but I liked her end result even though the bustier looked ill fitted. Chris did the best job with the lettering aspect of some of the materials they were given. He made it work well whereas Victorya made it look just silly.
Wait a minute. You mean “guy” as in male? Do you have any evidence for this, or are you whooshing us?
Gillian strikes me as a 70’s era ballerina.
Your interpretation makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks.
You made me literally laugh out loud.
Someone on Project Rungay called Jillian’s dressing style pure Shields and Yarnell. I think that’s an apt description.
I wonder if Christian is a transsexual because there’s something uber feminine about him. Every time the show him I think something like, “There’s that girl with the guy’s name. Oh, wait, he is a guy. Um…isn’t he? I mean, I’m seeing girl here but they keep using male pronouns with him.”
I, too, would like to know Sweet Pea’s story. With a name like that, she ought to be more quirky than she is.
You’re welcome! 
Christian is only “male” in the genetic testing sense. The pronoun “she” is much more on point. But thanks for telling me - like I didn’t get it from the fact they’ve put her in with the other people who have outties.