The Fashion Show Express Lane Recaplet: The Expiration Date is from 1969...

Let me apologize in advance, gelflings, for how sparse and non-committal this is going to be. I’m still enjoying The Fashion Show, but when I woke up this morning I was thinking less along the lines of Iman’s delightful evilness and Calvin’s continued abuse of the English language, and more along the lines of how Ryan Murphy needs to take a refresher course in the concept of “show, don’t tell,” and wondering why it is that it’s bullying when one kid is mean to Kurt, but totally awesome when a roomful of kids and the teacher spends every week telling Rachel that she’s awful and a hobbit and no one likes her (and similarly, how it’s fun and sassy when Kurt and Mercedes talk about how great they are and cut other people down, but yet another sign of a fatally disgusting personality when Rachel does it).

And then I’ve got some other stuff on my mind, like the hideous weather and the fact that I’ve got two fairly exciting events coming up in the next few days, AND the Top Chef All Stars premiere tonight, and a Christmas party, and my cat’s getting spayed (which I’m feeling less angsty about just now since she just leaped onto the keyboard and yanked off the k and comma keys with her outstretched claws), and how I’m refusing to succumb to this stomach flu or food poisoning or something that’s lurking in the background of my gut until Sunday at the earliest.

But let’s talk about the show that the two of you are actually here to talk about

1. For this week’s challenges, they get a note telling them to meet Iman at the Museum of Natural History. Calvin wonders “what they have us do? Seeing dinosaur? Maybe cosmology in stars and juniverse and something?” On arrival, David the straight man remarks on how much he likes the “big vagina” statue. Dude, we get it. But Iman tells them that the vagina is a time capsule and they’ll be creating a look inspired by one of the other time capsules arranged around it. Fortunately, these look like suitcases rather than vaginas, otherwise David might’ve died of happiness from the vaginal overload.

When we get more details on the challenge a few minutes later, we learn that it must be a look that is inspired by the year represented by their time capsule. But it also has to be futuristic and fashion forward. Oh, and it has to involve plaid.

The longer this show goes on, the more convinced I am that the challenges are planned by Iman and Bowie’s daughter playing some fashion version of Mad Libs with her little friends. “An inspiration. An adjective. Another adjective. And a ridiculous design constraint.” How else do you explain “inspired by the body . .. oh, and convertible” or “inspired by a specific year in the past, and futuristic, and plaid”?

2. Anyway, Team Emerald goes over their years. Golnessa has 1951, Jeffery has 1989 and reminds us that he was five then. Bitch. Cindy gets 1961 and Cesar gets 2001. Instead of taking this as an opportunity to celebrate the Diamondbacks win over the Yankees in the World Series, he immediately goes to 9/11. That has the potential for one depressing ass dress, man.

3. They go through the usual workroom and conversation with Isaac and shopping for fabric thing, but with the added delight of everyone bitching about plaid.

4. The show continues to emphasize the “new” team dynamics, cheerfully ignoring the fact that they’ve now been with their new teams for as many challenges as they were with their original teams. Cesar steps up and takes charge on team Emerald, while Team name embraces Calvin, who is “not so bad” in Eduardo’s glowing estimation.

5. Emerald decides their collection looks “wrong” with only four looks, and Cesar decides to make a fifth. On Nami, they think everyone’s look is good except Rolando’s. He revamps his look because he doesn’t want to let the house down.

6. There’s a lot of time devoted in this episode to David and Dominique’s giggling heterosexuality. It’s …I just don’t care. They’re not cute enough to make it cute or repulsive enough to make it repulsive.


7. Fashion show. Nami’s collection goes first. It’s a lot of grey and without any real stylistic cohesion, running the gamut from Dominique’s outsized homage to 1994 via Kurt Cobain to a slovenly thing that Calvin claims was inspired by Audrey Hepburn. Bitch, please. David’s ‘80’s jumpsuit is the only thing I like, and given how much I hate jumpsuits and ‘80’s referential fashion, that’s something. Also, as we’ll learn later, it’s evidence that I’m apparently living in opposite land this week.

8. After some backstage panic where Golnessa’s zipper breaks and Cesar worries about his model making the quickchange from his first dress to the last one, Emerald’s show goes on. It’s quite nice – Jeffery’s dress is lovely, and I actually enjoy all of the garments, even thought the dress under Cindy’s coat is negligible and Cesar’s 2nd look is a touch on the napkiny side. It’s much more of a collection than Emerald’s.

9. After gushing about how close this week’s competition was, Iman congratulates House of Emerald. Finally. She and Isaac rave about Golnessa and Jeffery’s dresses, and congratulate Cesar for having the daring to make two dresses. Jeffery is this week’s winner.

10. So Nami finds themselves on the runway for the first time (except for Calvin). They love Eduardo and Dominique’s looks. They like the skirt on Calvin’s, but Iman likens the top to a “homemaker under the influence.” They criticize Rolando’s and are confused by David’s Michael Jackson meets his grandmother inspiration. Catastrophically, he’s unable to defend his look and say why he should stay. Dominique tearfully encourages him from the sidelines , and he bursts forth with some additional yammering about his grandmother.

11. So clearly it comes down to David, who’s “silhouette was so unspecific that it was an offense to your model’s figure,” and who, even more offensively, couldn’t defend his vision. But Rolando ignored the “sessuality” of 1969 and made a boring an conservative outfit. So Rolando is out. Yay. I was sick of looking at his weird little Avatar face anyway.