Runway Jury: Career Opportunities
DANIEL'S "HIGH-END" is the new Jennifer's "surrealism."
Guest Judge Usefuleness-O-meter: 10
"I have very high-end taste": 5
The designers are going to create a look for a "high-powered and glamorous professional woman." Who doesn't exist. Blayne hopes it's not Hillary Clinton. I hope it is, because that would be a real high-powered glamorous woman and not one who's six feet tall, beautiful, actress-thin and played by Brooke Shields.
For it is a challenge to create an outfit for Brooke's character to wear on NBC's "Lipstick Jungle." So what they're making isn't office-to-dinner clothes but TV-show costumes. Just say it, show. And stop pushing the horrible "Lipstick Jungle" on us; I'm still smarting from the cancellation of the far superior "Cashmere Mafia."
Anyway, Tim Gunn trots Brooke out and Stella looks as if someone hit her with a frying pan. Especially since she had high hopes for the challenge, to wit: "I would like to design for Sharon Osbourne, Queen of Rock. She's a businesswoman."
And that, producers, is what's called a good idea.
I hope this challenge doesn't involve incorporating the lame red sash Brooke's wearing as a belt — are we still on the Olympics challenge?
PETARD, PARTY OF ONE
They pitch Brooke. Let's break this down.
Blayne: "I wanted to give her something a little but different, like maybe a Bermuda short?"
Brooke: "You know, it's not a bad idea."
Remember that exchange.
Leanne's wearing a gray sweatshirt with fancy ruffled business on the front — weird, but she's going to ace the gym-to-cocktail challenge.
Brooke chooses Keith, Korto, Jerell, Kelli, Terri and Blayne, based on their sketches.
The teams are Keith and Kenley, Blayne and Leanne, Terri and Suede, Korto and Joe, Kelli and Daniel, Jerell and Stella. And the claws are out immediately. Kelli interviews, "If I chose Stella, and she couldn't pull off the construction, I didn't want her to have to go home." Oh, delicious. Irony sharpens its knives.
At Mood, rolls and rolls of drama unfurl across the cutting table. Daniel questions Kelli's fabric choices, because his are "a little more high-end" (drink!). To be fair, she repeatedly asks his opinion, and he whines, "It's pretty." Passive, yet passive-aggressive.
MYSTERY SEWING MACHINE THEATER
Kelli and Daniel's skirt is effed up and Daniel, right, is a huge baby about remaking a damn pencil skirt. God, the man has the energy level of a banana slug.
Kenley's both shrill and bossy, and Tim Gunn practically wrestles a hideous flowered fabric away from her so that Keith's pretty fabric can prevail. Poor Keith — by the time they leave Mood, he looks like one of those cartoon characters who gets pounded on the head so repeatedly it kind of accordion-folds into a little five-inch-high creature.
Korto and Daniel have made a bright orange Mongolian war jacket. Interesting.
Suede and Terri have problems. He clearly feels in over his head and worries that they don't have enough fabric. She's a bitch about making him redo the top, and gives kind of a repulsive interview that involves not wanting to mother him and conjures up an image I want to claw out of my brain.
Watching Suede without the red curtain of rage that descends over my eyes when he speaks of himself in the third person, it seems that he's actually kind of sweet. He's never vicious about the others in interviews, and he was right to bring his concerns to Terri about cutting the fabric for the top, especially considering they were very low on fabric.
Kenley shit-stirs, whispering, "They're arguing!" like "They're doin' it!" And while Suede sews and re-sews, sings out, "How's your shirt, Suede?" Terri, leaving the room: "Horrible." Man, there are too many queens in this place, and they're all women.
Well, not all. Korto and Joe get into it, and she handles it super excellently, because he doesn't want to confront her over the bagginess of the jacket, and she wonders what it means that he'll only speak up in front of Tim or a judge. How do we know this? Because Tim questions the proportions and color of the Mongolian monstrosity, and Joe promptly goes into bobblehead spaniel mode. "You're so right, Mr. Gunn. You're so intelligent, sir. Why, a fool could see this jacket is whack. May I shake your hand sir? It's an honor." Korto feels understandably sandbagged.
Tim Gunn's presence, in fact, is like a magical elixir. Not only has he waved an ugly wand over the jacket Joe had no problem with, but his magic sparkles of approval for the top Terri hated five minutes before have turned her into an arrogant psycho. She swans around in it extolling her genius, prompting Jerell to sneer.
Kelli: "I'm still nervous, but I am happy that were not sending a nude model down the runway.
My Heterosexual Viewing Companion: "I'm not."
LET'S START THE SHOW
While Joe talks about how Korto saved the jacket (she didn't; it's still got crazy sleeves and is belted like a bathrobe and now has graduated maybe from being a Mongolian war jacket to the jacket you wear to the post-war dance and Mongolian barbecue) and what "ultimately came out is perfect," the model turns around to reveal a dull nude shift with a deliberately but still horrible-looking twisted, half-droopy bodice. Don't do that to your war princess, guys! It gets cold in Mongolia.
Kelli and Daniel's black suit with short-sleeved jacket is a little custom strip-o-gram, the one you hire when Jeff in accounting gets a promotion, but it gets far worse with a leopard-print with a black panel, blue notes. It looks like the fabric representation of Kelli's arm in her pet print — the murky blue-toned tattoo and the cheap animal-print.
Kerrel and Stella's flowy animal-print skirt, taupe satin top and wide mustard leather belt with a built-in zebra-striped overbelt is so gorgeous Brooke wrinkles her nose at Jerell. He kind of bares his teeth back at her, but still, I smell a connection.
Keith and Kenley have been drama-ing it up so bad I almost forgot how concerned I am about that high waist on their chocolate chiffon skirt made of Keith's friends, little fabric circles. The top is a pretty, wafty flower-print that Kenley rightly un-South Beached, band a medium-width belt makes a nice transition. It's very pretty, but the high waist really bothers me. Brooke doesn't have model-size boobs, so she's going to look bulky up top with that belt going right around her ribcage.
Terri and Suede's look is way too casual for day and not festive enough for night. The top is a cha-cha-shouldered tunic in a busy print; it's layered over nice black slacks and cinched with a gross striped belt. It doesn't look expensive, appropriate, or as if it took two people to design and sew. Half a person, maybe.
OK, Brooke asked for Layne and his "short." His and Leanne's sewing is hinky (see: gofugyourself.celebuzz.com; "polterwang"), the shorts are roadwork putty-gray, and it's topped with a button-down shirt unbuttoned but tucked into the pants, with a blue tank top underneath. Unless your job entails running out to the post office and your night activities consist of a little light gardening, no.
How great is Brooke Shields? I questioned her guest-spot on the show but she's diplomatic, incisive and bitchy as needed. For a craptastic challenge, this episode had one of the best judging segments ever.
The judges rip Kelli and Daniel. A disgusted Brooke says, "It just looks so much cheaper than I though it could look," and, after Daniel blathers about his "high-end, impeccable" taste, Neegahcia delivers the coup de grace: "You can't get taste if you don't have it." Snap, sister! Go home to your Wesley and cry in his shorts, sweaty-faced freak.
Brooke is kind to Blayne and admits that, while she chose a Bermuda short design, the execution was casual and not sophisticated enough. Blayne uses the "I'm so out-there defense."
Blayne: "You guys know that I'm a little crazier ..."
Brooke: "I just met you."
To his credit, when asked to choose between himself and Leanne, who's wearing — OH GOD WHAT IS SHE WEARING? (that thing, right) — Blayne throws himself under that bus that's always barelling toward reality-show contestants, particularly on Bravo.
Kelli and her annoying voice are out. They're both "angry" but "everything happens for a reason." The reason being you suck. If you don't believe me, check out her incomparably bitter exit interview on bravotv.com.
Line of the night: Kelli: "The zipper was all swabbley."
Next week: Chris March, dressed in full Valkyrie drag, charges the designers with running up a little subtle something for drag queens. Fan my feathers, finally!
Photos courtesy Bravo
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Addison Road
OK, whew. I was glad someone else noticed Kenley was kind of being a bitch.
Daniel, man, always has that deer in headlights look. And once again, he scrapes by by sucking, but not sucking as bad as someone else. I'm also convinced he can't actually sew a skirt, since I think this is the third time he's messed it up.
By PMMJ , Posted August 14, 2008 2:14 PMI remain convinced that Daniel is an anime/manga character come to life...slightly odd-looking, huge bug-eyes, spouting ridiculous dialog.....
By Dr. artman , Posted August 15, 2008 9:02 AM