It’s down to eight designers, and we’ve reached the HP Intel Make-Your-Own-Textile challenge. And, Mondo is here! Yay! We get to see a flashback to when Mondo won this challenge during his own season, when he came out as HIV positive on the runway. I had forgotten what a truly remarkable, moving, and empowering moment that was. I want a gif of the magical moment when, at the end, he says, “I feel free,” with a teary, joyful smile. That three word sentence has the possibility of coming off so cornball, except when it comes from the mouth of someone who really means it. Then it’s the best three word sentence in the world.
But back to reality! Tim tells the designers their pattern will be inspired by their cultural heritage, to which everyone nods in serious affirmation. Except for Christopher, who says that he doesn’t know much about his cultural heritage, and who already seems to be facing this challenge with a blank, disappointed look on his face. While half of me worries I’m being too judgmental, the other half of me is really irked by this, because it seems like such a typical white male thing to say. Everyone has a heritage — everyone! You don’t have to have grown up in a different country, as Elena and Dmitry did, to have heritage. You don’t even have to know a lot about your family history, if you’re not close to your family. Your heritage is what you make your family: it could be the place you grew up, the people who supported you, the parts of your background that shaped you. Just because your profile fits the majority doesn’t mean you don’t have heritage.
So, there’s my rant for the day! Tim has also told the designers they will have special guests bringing them something to help with their cultural inspiration. The door opens, a lady starts to walk in. I yell, “MOMMIES!” A second later, Sonjia yells, “MOMMY!” Yay! As if my emotional hackles weren’t already in a mess from Mondo Memories, we then witness lots of hugging and crying. Here’s a bunch of pictures because there’s not much I like better than hugging.
While the majority of visitors are moms, there’s also sisters, best friends, and in Fabio’s case, boyfriends. Fabio is so excited to see his boyfriend that I just want to ruffle their hair and squeeze them both. The visitors have brought another HP laptop — holy crap, how much HP swag is in this room right now! — full of photographs from the designers’ childhoods, just to up the “awww” factor of this whole scene even more. One of my favorite duos is Elena and her mom, who stands almost a full head shorter than her daughter. Their hugs are perfect. Elena says that this was exactly what she needed to help relieve her stress; that she’s “not normally a bitch.” She feels so light and happy afterwards that she literally skips and jumps around Mood, which is one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
As for people’s actual patterns, everyone’s looks unique, which is a good thing. Christopher continues to be a whiney-pants by saying that he “hates” prints and doesn’t work with them. After hearing 10 seasons worth of this repetitive whine from designers, I’ve deduced there are two ways to deal with confronting a design aesthetic you’re not used to. You say, “Hm, OK, this isn’t really my thing, so this is going to be a challenge, but I just have to do my best.” Or you take Christopher’s route and say, “Ugh, I hate this, ugh, life is so hard,” and spend the whole episode pouting and sighing. I’m sick of this latter route, designers. Make better choices.
Speaking of choices, there are some other decidedly bad ones going on around the room, the most striking of which is Ven. For Ven’s “pattern,” he has drawn a pink hibiscus flower. And that’s it. That’s his pattern. Boom.
First of all, I almost screamed out loud when I saw that he was drawing a flower. Again. Second of all, you have this fancy ass HP design program where you can draw so many interesting patterns and do so many things! He talks about how his Indian heritage is very colorful. Awesome. So, show me a lot of different colors! I just don’t even know.
Beyond my chagrin with the pattern itself, Tim then comes in and says that the way he’s arranging the flowers on the dress looks like a bunch of maxi pads. He says it’s like “an homage to a menstrual cycle.” Oh man. Weirdly, Ven isn’t thrilled to hear this. He starts over.
From the extremely literal to the slightly more abstractly literal, Fabio’s design is an explosion of lines which he explains to his horrified male counterparts as being penis and vaginas. He says that it’s the creation of life, the crashing and colliding of genders. The only thing is that I can’t tell, from the way he describes it, if that’s what he actually meant for it to be, or not. Either way, yep, yep, that is definitely a penis and vagina.
Gunnar’s print-story seems to be the saddest one, as he explains that his childhood was spent being pretty brutally bullied. His pattern then consists of a black bird on its way out of a cage. Or something like that. There’s a hand involved. I don’t know; he describes it a little differently each time. But it’s clear it means a lot to him.
After the first day in the workroom, the designers return to Atlas where their loved ones are preparing dinner for them. It seems like almost all the designers are having a party in one room, while strangely, Ven and Christopher are having an intimate gathering in another.
But family fun time aside, let’s get to the runway. Our guest judges are Mondo as well as Anya, winner from last season, which makes sense as she always used prints fabulously. Essentially, our guest judges are The Hottest Project Runway Peeps Ever.
Like a lot of challenges, some of my favorite looks got stuck right in the middle, like Elena’s. In the workroom I had no idea what hers would end up looking like, but when it walked out, it was surprisingly badass. The jacket looks comfortable and cool, and with the short skirt and the pink pumps, surprisingly sexy. The print was kind of kooky, but at least it was bright and different.
On the top, we have Sonjia, Melissa, and Dmitry. After getting flack for only ever doing dresses, Dmitry went for separates, and the judges freaked out over his jacket.
They also loved Sonjia’s pants, as do I. Big printed pants can either be a hot mess or really strangely awesome, and these fit that second category for me.
On the bottom, we had Christopher, Ven, and Gunnar. After Tim’s critique, Ven changed his dress to somehow look even worse. And guess what! He did the rose thing in the skirt again! At least Heidi gave him a whole lot of crap about it, even going to the extent of calling Tim in to get his opinion during their Judge Chat. Michael Kors called him a “fabric florist at this point.” Sometimes you really have a way with words, Michael Kors.
Let’s also take a quick moment to absorb the beauty of Mondo, showin’ off some leg, next to Nina Garcia.
Beautiful.
They also really tear into Gunnar’s jacket, which I agree doesn’t look good. It looks too boxy and heavy and just not attractive. I do give him props though for defending his print, which the judges say is too dark and depressing. To which Gunnar says, yeah, that’s sort of the point. That’s my heritage. We don’t always need to buy optimism. Word, Gunnar.
In the end, I don’t know if I agree with either the winner or the loser, and this is one of those episodes where I really question how exactly the judging process works.
The winner is Dmitry, and I really, really like Dmitry and am happy he has a moment to shine. But I feel like he won because he made a really awesome jacket. And this wasn’t the Make An Awesome Jacket challenge; it was the print challenge. And Sonjia without a doubt used her print better.
When it came to the bottom two, it was between Gunnar and Ven. And they went with Gunnar.
I agree that Gunnar should have the skill set to make a kickass jacket, and it’s a problem if he doesn’t. But when it comes down to creativity and overall look, Ven’s was just awful. Like, that is a really bad dress, y’all. And for the print challenge, a really horrible print. How could that not have lost? But the whole time I knew he wouldn’t lose, because he’s Ven.
Sigh.
In addition, after they announced that Gunnar was out and Ven was safe, Ven gave this awkward speech about how he can indeed push himself and he wasn’t going to play it safe and yadda yadda. I always find these kind of pleas pointless because telling the judges you’re going to be awesome isn’t going to help you win; just showing it by making awesome clothes will. The judges will notice. Secondly, the dude next to you just lost! You give a thankful nod, give a hug or a shoulder pat to the loser, and walk silently off the stage. That’s how you do it, people!
Gunnar, for his part, showed his surprising classiness again in his departure, and seemed to leave grateful and glad. As a bonus, we got to hear Elena call him “Gunnsy-poo.”
What did you think of this year’s print challenge? Who do you think are in the running at this point to be in the top three?
