You want to hear something shocking? We don't hate this look.
Don't get us wrong, it's not stylish in any way.
And it's poorly executed, especially the pants.
But as a concept, it's pretty strong, mainly because it looks like something this hippy dippy chick would actually wear.
And you can't deny that he really transformed the wedding dress into something completely different. In fact, this entry may have been the most transformed out of all of them.
Althea:
This was also a huge transformation. Unfortunately, it was transformed into something kind of ugly.
The basic design is okay, although the hem's a little high for her.
But it's poorly executed and it just looks so sloppy on her.
Part of is the whackadoo dye job on this thing and part of it is the weird belt that doesn't go with the dress, but a big part of it has to do with those lines radiating out from her boobs. If you take a good look at her, you can see that she has a nice figure, but those lines make her look wider than she actually is.
And all that sloppy foofaraw on the back doesn't help.
Carol Hannah:
Gotta say, Dr. Whitfield knocked this one out of the park.
In fact, it should have been in the top three, easily.
She has a tendency to make these little shrug jackets that don't always go with the outfit, but this time it worked.
But it has a nice, light, breezy feel to it. It's a shame she couldn't get a better color out of the dying process because this drab gray doesn't help the look.
Still, it's probably our favorite piece from her all season.
Tim Gunn's Workroom Critique
[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com- Videos: myLifetime.com/YouTube/CherMusicForever - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]
"Age-appropriate" is a nice way of saying "dowdy."
How priceless is that facial expression? This is the face of a designer in the throes of her worst nightmare: synthetic fabrics and Cher references.
Still, even we had to admit that her solution was a good one.
And we always say with these types of challenges that the designer has to be willing to put her foot down when the demands are too far outside her comfort zone, so she gets a ton of points for that. She's one of the few in the history of the show who managed to assert herself and she may be the only one who managed to do it without being a jerk about it.
Still, we think this look was a bit over-praised by the judges.
Yes, she came up with a smart solution, but did she really transform the dress? Aside from the stitching and the belt, all she did was shorten the hem and change the straps.
And even those minor changes had problems. The hem was uneven and the line of the skirt was bordering on unflattering.
And the straps got a little wonky in the back.
Still, we have to admit it was a pretty good job, all things considered. The stitching really was a brilliant solution.
But let's face it: it was a solution to a problem partially of her own making. She needed to jazz up the dress somehow because without the stitching it would have been more obvious that she hardly changed the dress at all.
"Irina, how did you get this gorgeous color?"
"Thank you, Tim. I'm afraid I was born with it. Oh, I make sure to use a good bronzer and weekly trips to the tanning salon help, but it's all just good genes."
We'll still say it: thank God for bitchy girls who think their shit don't stink. Otherwise the show would be deadly dull.
But again, we think this dress was over praised. Yes, that color really is gorgeous, but that's about the only thing we like about this dress.
Oh, it's well-made, certainly. No problems there.
And while we personally don't like lace dresses, there's no denying that they're back on the runways lately.
But even though it fits well and is on trend, it still comes off as a somewhat dowdy dress.
It's those sleeves, kittens. We just can't get past them.
They make her boobs look like they're melting.
She's an attractive woman with a great figure and those sleeves tend to scream "coverup" to us. We think that's why the judges called it "age-appropriate." Sure, it would be a good option for an older woman who needed some fashion magic to camouflage her figure flaws, but as far as we can tell, this gal didn't have any figure flaws. Irina could have gone with a bolder cut than this and come out with something a little sexier. Instead she went from bride to mother of the bride.
Extended Judging:
And what the hell, Half Breed:
[Photos: Mike Yarish/myLifetime.com- Videos: myLifetime.com/YouTube/CherMusicForever - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]
Okay, villagers. Get out your torches and pitchforks.
It seems that the general consensus is that Epperson should not have gone home this week. We agree. However, here's where we part from the general mood: it wasn't Logan that should have gone home; it was Christopher.
Don't get us wrong; we didn't WANT Christopher gone but to our eyes his look was clearly the worst. Let's break it down.
...
Hunh. How about that. We can't break it down.
Why? Because it's tip-to-toe AWFUL. There is literally nothing else to be said about this dress.
The proportions are terrible and unflattering.
And while we don't have an issue with the textured metallic idea (Prada did it well for spring '09), this attempt at it simply did not work.
Which brings us to our main issue: Christopher was apparently perfectly fine with this look. He said as much when he declared that this dress really represented who he was as a designer. We always have a problem when contestants can't admit that what they're sending down the runway looks like shit. It either speaks of a willful blindness based on ego or it speaks of a designer who has no tools to self-assess their work. We tend to think it's the latter since Christopher hasn't really demonstrated a drop of egotism.
Now don't go assuming that just because we think Christopher should have gone home that we also think Logan produced anything better. He didn't. It was a very tight race to the bottom.
The client said she didn't like to show her legs and Logan quite reasonably decided that pants were the way to go. He'd have been better off figuring out a way to make a gown that didn't look like her wedding gown.
Unfortunately, he got a deal on that wool and that was all she wrote for this look.
Here is the one nice thing we can say: we like the closures. Other than that, the whole look is a disaster.
Once again we have a pair of manpants on a woman. You know, one of these days they need to do a challenge where skirts are not allowed just to put the designers through their paces. They can add that sleeves are required.
It amazes us that he tried to do that ruffle thing on the neckline since Louise got auf'd last week with a dress that had a very similar detail on it. And just look at those "cups," which aren't really cups at all; just fabric shoved in to the vest.
And can we just say that if you're going to do one of those "Saint Pauli Girl" vests that go under the boobs like that, it really only works on slim women with small boobs. This client has a perfectly nice figure but she doesn't have the figure for a boob vest. Most women don't.
And finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't point out the ridiculous cuffs.
It's to his credit that he, unlike Christopher, knew that he was showing a piece of crap. Here's why we think he eeked out a spot slightly above Christopher: if you made some minor tweeks to the design and if it was perfectly executed, it wouldn't be all that bad a look. We really can't say the same about Christopher's at all.
Now, a lot of people are assuming that Logan was kept in for his looks and youth. We can't speak to the truth of that, but we can offer a slightly different tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Take it as a discussion point because we have no idea whether there's any truth to it.
He was kept in the game in the hope that his looks would lead to a storyline. He seems like a nice enough guy, but he's not exactly setting the screen on fire with his personality. Instead, we've been hammered over and over again with sound bites that all the girls think he's hot. Which, again, nothing against the guy, but he's "only" an attractive young guy. He's cute, but he's not world class or anything. Because these are all discrete, relatively low-key tossed off comments, we tend to think that, aside from Fatma's Fatal Obsession, most of the other girls don't really think much of it. Logan's hot; the sky is blue; water is wet. But because it's been thrown at us so many times, we can't help but wonder if Bunim/Murray are trying to desperately to create a Real World-esque romance subplot between Logan and one of the girls and THAT'S why they're still keeping him around. Discuss.
Thankfully, we never forget.
You want to hear something shocking? We don't hate this look.
Don't get us wrong, it's not stylish in any way.
And it's poorly executed, especially the pants.
But as a concept, it's pretty strong, mainly because it looks like something this hippy dippy chick would actually wear.
And you can't deny that he really transformed the wedding dress into something completely different. In fact, this entry may have been the most transformed out of all of them.
This was also a huge transformation. Unfortunately, it was transformed into something kind of ugly.
The basic design is okay, although the hem's a little high for her.
But it's poorly executed and it just looks so sloppy on her.
Part of is the whackadoo dye job on this thing and part of it is the weird belt that doesn't go with the dress, but a big part of it has to do with those lines radiating out from her boobs. If you take a good look at her, you can see that she has a nice figure, but those lines make her look wider than she actually is.
And all that sloppy foofaraw on the back doesn't help.
Gotta say, Dr. Whitfield knocked this one out of the park.
In fact, it should have been in the top three, easily.
She has a tendency to make these little shrug jackets that don't always go with the outfit, but this time it worked.
But it has a nice, light, breezy feel to it. It's a shame she couldn't get a better color out of the dying process because this drab gray doesn't help the look.
