Korto explains her coat — and wonder of wonders. The panel all loves it. Rachel Zoe would “walk out the door” in it. Laura Bennett smiles beneficently. Kors calls it elegant and well edited. “Restrained drama... well done” he adds. I’m puzzled, as I think the coat is ugly; but there’s an upside. I bet Terri isn’t laughing quite so hard as she listens to all this backstage. Then again Korto hadn’t seemed too bothered by Terri’s prior derision. Again, Korto has escaped a civil war with her life. She’s probably not too bothered by sophomoric mind games.
Leanne describes her cocktail dress. She constructed it from car seats. “I cut up little bits of seat belt, and then I fringed them out,” she says in regard to the ruffly line across the top. Michael Kors judges the silhouette “fabulous” and loves the proportion and style. “Crafted beautifully,” he adds. Rachel Zoe thinks Leanne could take this dress “straight to Paris.” No one comments on the underpants-stuffing we saw earlier. I've seen judges dock designers in the past for construction issues they surely couldn't have known unless someone told them, so that's lucky for Leanne they didn't know about her last-minute sleight of hand, or didn't mind. Perhaps the strength of her overall design and construction made a small issue like stuffing the unmentionables not worth a mention.
The panel dislikes Stella’s creation: they don’t think the skirt and vest go together. It lacks a shape. Kors says the vest looks more like Stella’s usual “gig” but the skirt seems an attempt to be “more ladylike”. I think the panel is struggling to find things wrong this week: None of the finished garments actually seem terrible. As the competition wears on (pun half intended), it’s more a question of who is fabulous and who isn’t. “This does look a little random,” Kors finishes, and Stella actually thanks him. Well, for a cave girl, she is polite.
Keith is asked to explain his design next. Again he lets loose a word vomit monologue that is both lengthy and vague. The judges look a bit bored; his model looks unhappy. Rachel Zoe has the model turn around and in closeup, the design falls apart. Rachel points out what looks like a hole in the design. Not only does it look like the thick belt sloppily covers a gaping hole at the middle, but there is a confusing addition of black netting across her back. So from the front this is a dull workaday outfit; from the back it looks slapped together, with a bit of leather and fishnet thrown in randomly. No wonder if Keith sounded grouchy this challenge. Perhaps he felt as uninspired as his design clearly looks. “There’s no concept - there’s no idea,” Laura Bennett surmises. Keith snaps at her that she should see his “other stuff” and how he has felt unappreciated as a designer. Michael Kors steps in and says, “I don’t think that you should think we’re trying to reign you in - you reigned yourself in.” Keith whines about the “dowdy chicken” comment his last design received. Kors seems annoyed and basically says if Keith plans to be a designer he’d better learn to let comments roll off his back.
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