First Jim and Pam's Wedding and Then This

The opening montage of obligatory primping & comments like "It's going to be sad from now on....people aren't leaving for lack of talent" is particularly great this week. For why? Someone was frying bacon. Mmmmmm. Bacon.

Irina goes into rhapsodies about how she's all that. We are over her. So is Logan, apparently.

Btw, The Neighbor's daughter, Cake, was out the other night and her bartender was none other than Logan. (And there are a bunch of reasons why you should NOT read anything at all into that because you shouldn't). She was texting us during their conversation...mostly to iterate and reiterate how "hot" he really is. And he is hot. But what is the deal with his snood? Me no likey.

Heidi, who is wearing some sort of weird top that looks like scrubs, tells the designers that this week they will have "new models" and out traipse a bunch of women in wedding dresses. The designers are all kerfuffled about a wedding dress challenge but wait, there's more. All the women are divorcees and the challenge is to recreate their wedding dresses into something more suited to their new lives. ("I just threw mine out," says The Neighbor).

Beginning with Irina, the designers choose and in every case they pick the dresses that have the most yardage to work with. This necessarily leaves the simplest dresses for last. Althea regards the 2 remaining women and says, "You are ladies with attitudes and that makes up for lack of yardage". Shirin is last, with a mere slip of a dress to work with and she's freaked.

The Neighbor opines, "What are they worrying about? They don't know what they get to add". True that.

The Gunn enters the workroom, adjusting his cuffs and looking sartorial to announce that this is the last challenge that comes with immunity. After adding this is a 1 day challenge he sends in the models. Poor Shirin. Not only does she not have much fabric, her model is obsessed with the notion of some sort of "Cher 'Half Breed'" look with feathers and other Bob Mackie weirdness. Shirin suggests that will be hard to do with "2 yards of fabric".

The designers do get a little wiggle room. They have $25 to spend at Mood for other trims and bits.

There is a lot of focus on Shirin this episode and Nicholas barely appears. While it is nice to not have to listen to him, the fact that he is not spotlighted tells me we're stuck with him yet another week. Dammit.

While Irina gushes about the "empowering" nature of the challenge, Gordana has a little melt-down. She's been divorced and this challenge touches her broken place. She needs to call her kids and cry because she misses them.

A lot of designers are dying their fabric but Shirin can't because it's synthetic and won't hold the dye.

The Gunn's WalkAround

Christopher has fashioned a belt that looks quite cute but as for the rest of his look The Gunn says, "I'm worried". He gushes over the "gorgeous color" of Irina's dress; she crows about this since what she dyed was "100% acetate". At the mention of the word The Gunn throws up a little in his mouth.

The Gunn tells Epperson that his dress looks "lab coat-y" and questions Logan with "What's the look?" and adds that there is "too much textile". Alternatively, he is thrilled with the color of Gordana's dress and urges her to take her look "as far as you can".

He's at his most Gunnian when he counsels Shirin. Acknowledging that she is working with "an effervescent divorcee", he tells her that she must keep the final product about her and that the divorcee will have to accept that. Then she cries a little while he cuddles her. Awwww. "Clear the table!" he says. "Just play likes it's a big paper doll. You have to be liberated!"

As he leaves the workroom he mentions something about how the original dress must be integral to the new look and Epperson freaks out. He clearly takes 'integral" to mean "literal" and he starts completely re-working the dress. (Hi. Did he not see that everyone else was shortening and dying and reshaping?)

Gordana makes a comment about how this challenge is like divorce..."taking apart the life you have been living and creating something new". She's kinda profound.

Shirin has resolved her issues and decides to create interest with decorative stitching. (MAB suggested that she could have done some sort of two-piece something with just a flash of midriff that would have been an homage to Cher without losing Shirin's sense of sophistication but we're just happy that Shirin has crawled out of her creative hole).

The models come in and we note that Christopher's client looks like a tranny.

Nicholas-the-Not-Great notes that he is "not proud" of what he's made and we like that but we still know that he's not leaving. His client is thrilled with his look and gushes, "I want to have your child". He blanches and nearly passes out and she adds, "Not really". As if, Nicholas.

The real models teach the divorcees how to walk. That's amusing.

The Runway
The judges are Kors, some chick who works for Jimmy Choo and Zanna what's her nose from Marie Claire. I think she's the one who killed Nina.

The runway show is, almost to a designer, pretty darned terrible. Seriously. Our comments range from "eeeww" to "not great". Carol Hannah's was cute, we love the bolero. Gordana's is way, way cool but otherwise they all suck. We're torn about what is the most sucky. Christopher's is a horrible bubble dress (that makes MAB's friend Moochie start singing the theme from "The Jetsons") and Epperson's makes MAB sing "Eight maids a milking". (You didn't know PR could be so musical, did you?)

Gordana is praised for her look. She used the lining of the original dress, dyed it and created something "edgy and chic at the same time". The judges love the asymmetry and just about everything else about the dress. Shirin gets big snaps for creating something that suits her client and for being "smart" about managing the crazy expectations of the client. Irina gets gushes like "brilliant", "chic color", "unbelievable", "fantastic". Slow down judges. Her head is big enough, thankyouverymuch. And also, for what it's worth, The Neighbor and I think this dress is quite dreadful and would be well suited to a mother-of-the-bride. We really don't like it at all. Which is why we aren't judges.

In the bottom we have Christopher, Epperson and Logan. Christopher tells the judges that his client wants to be (is?) an actress and he created something for her to wear to an industry function. "Don't wear that to an industry function," says Kors, "Don't". There's too much volume and the dress is basically a "metallic Hefty bag". Epperson and Logan are both slammed for the same flaw, summed up ably by Heidi (and she should know) as "Oktoberfest". Epperson says his dress (also described as something to be worn by a "pirate wench") was for his client to wear on a first date. "He's leaving," snarks Kors. And since "Oktoberfest" isn't slam enough, Logan also is told that his look is "a tragedy".

Whoo hooo! Gordana is the winner for having "rocked the challenge" and beautifully blending chic with edgy.After some very sweaty moments, Epperson receives the auf. He has learned a lot from this experience, he tells us. He limits himself and he won't do that anymore. Good for him. I feel ready to make some predictions about the top 3. I expect both Althea and Irina to make it. It's the 3rd spot that's a toss up. Both Shirin and Carol Hannah are contenders, as is Christopher (this week's mis-step aside). Logan is a possibility and Gordana is totally the wild card. What I do know, deep in my soul, is that Nicholas can't possibly last any longer. Fingers crossed until next week.