Auf Wiedersehen 2

No WTFery this time, kittens.

Poor guy. He really is very likeable and it was endearing how appreciative he was to still be there this late in the game, but let's face it: the writing was on the wall a long time ago.

We give him credit for choosing an inspiration way off the beaten path, but it kind of reinforced the idea in our heads that he doesn't have great instincts and he's amazingly unself-aware as a designer.

He's at his best when he's doing romantic, conventionally beautiful clothing. He's not, so far as we can tell, a conceptual designer. He was standing in front of one of the world's finest art collections. He could have picked almost any artwork in that museum and it would have been a good fit for his aesthetic. Instead, he picked the most challenging and least-like-himself inspiration he could find. Not that we're arguing he should have played it safe, but he really should have played to his strengths.

Model: Katie Sticksel

When this first came out, we momentarily thought, "No volume. Good for him." We were ready to applaud him for trying out a new silhouette.

But then we saw how the bottom half moved and we realized why he does voluminous skirts so much: because he doesn't really know how to do otherwise. A skirt with a slimmer silhouette requires a sense of flow and movement and this heavy thing just hung on her as she walked down the runway.

The top is very cute but he's done the exact same top several times this season. It was just more of the same. The corset waist just looked incongruous to us. It didn't really add any thing to the look.

And we have to say, while the execution wasn't bad exactly, it wasn't "set the world on fire" good either. Anyone who's ever watched the show knows that the final challenge is basically an audition for Bryant Park and it's the one moment where all the stops really needed to be pulled out.

Even if all the elements came together and worked perfectly, it's still not a terribly ambitious design.

Nor is it a particularly pretty dress. That skirt fabric, besides being too heavy, was just plain ugly.

In season 2, Andrae famously made a dress inspired by dirty gutter water. What made that dress so memorable is that he took something ugly and turned it into something beautiful. The fountain wasn't exactly ugly, but it did pose roughly the same challenge. This needed to be a uniquely beautiful dress and it just wasn't. It was kind of sad and stiff and depressing.

We really do think he's a sweetheart and we hope he's learned a lot from this experience. There's definitely a lot of potential there, but in our opinion, he either needs to go to school or he needs to intern for a design house to learn some of the basics. It was cute in the beginning when he admitted he didn't know what smocking is, but after weeks of demonstrating that he doesn't know how to edit or interpret, he's proven to us that he needs guidance in order to move on.

Extended Judging:


Tim Gunn's Workroom Critique:


Exit Interview:




[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com - Videos: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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