So the next morning, at 5:00 am, I knock on the designers’ apartment doors. I tell them to get up, get dressed, and I give them one little curious bit of sartorial advice. Which is, please, no open-toed shoes. So some people are speculating that we’re going an alligator farm. People are thinking that we’re going on some hike through the woods. There’s wild speculation that abounds. So we get into our lovely van and off we go to New Jersey through one of the tunnels. So there’s great excitement and some fear among them. But it’s kind of a gloomy day. It was drizzly and foggy and it looked like a morning when you would expect to go to an alligator farm or find dinosaurs roaming New Jersey. Maybe they do. And more speculation abounds. We’re going to Newark Airport, they’re going to be working behind a counter for an airline, researching uniforms and how well they function, they’re going to be bag handlers. It’s crazy. And then we have to wait for production to set up at our destination so we’re waiting at a fast food parking lot. So of course you can guess what they were thinking. They’re going to be working behind the counter, they’re going to be frying burgers. And actually, they were rather happy about that. [laughs] They were saying it’s a change in cuisine. And I said I don’t think you’re going to have time to eat.
So we head to Port Newark, New Jersey, which is a huge shipping port – huge ships come into it and load and unload. And we have a surprise reveal. We’re in front of this very enormous building, there is -- I didn’t see any sign, actually there may have been some but I didn’t see any and the designers didn’t see any – and there’s this large metal garage door that we’re standing in front of. And I tell them that their source for their materials is behind that door. So the door rises and we see this vast, huge place filled with recycling materials. Filled with paper, metal and plastic. And I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I do. I was expecting this place to look like a garbage dump, and in fact it was pristine in its own way. There wasn’t a single odor anywhere. The place was, I mean but for the miles of stuff, it was immaculate. And extremely well organized. And in a way I was kind of disappointed. [laughs] I wanted them to be rummaging through these huge piles of stuff and exploring and discovering what was in them. But if they wanted paper, there was a particular place they could go, if they wanted plastic, there was a particular place. Though I have to say that the diversity among these categories of materials was incredible. I mean the paper ran from huge gigantic rolls to bins filled with the holes that are punched out from a hole puncher. And I’ll get into that later. But it was filled with all sorts of things that could spark one’s imagination and there was a real creative buzz going.
So we meet with Mr. ___ from Waste Management Recycle America, which is a huge organization, it’s all over the country, and this Port Newark location I believe is their largest and things come into it from all over the Northeast and Mid Atlantic. So it’s a big central hub. And I can’t recall the exact statistic but he said something like 500 million tons of recycling – I don’t know whether that annually, or weekly or daily, but I could believe that we were looking at 500 million tons of recycling from what was inside that place. So the designers have 30 minutes to gather their things together. We have containers for them to put these things in and they can have basically as many as they want, though I think no one filled more than three.
And just back to Waste Management Recycle America – we had a very, inspiring in a way, talk by Mr. ___ about how responsible recycling is and how important it is and the social aspects of this and -- it was a good thing to hear. And it was wonderful that the designers were going to be using this material because it is recyclable. So after it’s used, it could right back to Waste Management Recycle America if we wanted it to. And I will say that all the unused materials for the challenge did go back to Waste Management. So whatever didn’t go into their garment went back to Port Newark which was a good thing.
So the designers run amok. And some run amok more than others. And there of course are the usual suspects, like Mr. Libretti, who was almost upside down in the bin of little hole punch paper things. I won’t go any further than that except to say that. It was a pretty tempting sight though. He could have gone all the way into the bin as far as I was concerned. The most interesting person to watch was Kayne. [laughs] Kayne was sitting on the cement for a while obsessing with plastic bottles and he was removing the tops only. So he was filling his bin with literally hundreds of these tops. They were all white. And he was having a great time. I just kept going over and reminding him that we have 30 minutes and, you know Kayne you’ve spent 20 minutes here already, and I asked him what are you going to do with it. And he said he was going to make a bustier. And I thought this is going to be really fantastic. It can be really great. So I was excited. I was excited about all of them, including Vincent. They were all -- I could just tell they were filled with a lot of good creative thoughts. And even Robert said “I don’t think I can create anything boring from this stuff.” So, I agreed with him, I thought it was going to be hard to do and if he did do it, maybe that would be a laudable outcome. I don’t know.
So we pack up, we wave good by to Port Newark, and before arriving back at Parson we go to an art supply store. Because the designers are going to need materials that they don’t have in the workroom because they’re using these untraditional materials. So at the art supply store they have a budget of $25 each and they can buy tape, glue, paint, sparkles and glitter, it’s completely up to them. But in order to put this together they were going to really need those art supply store materials. And it was still raining, and we cloudbursts galore, and they’re running from the van to the art supply store, and we’re hot and sticky and humid and damp, and it was awful. But it was still fun.
So when we arrive at Parsons we’ve already had a full day. I mean I’d been up longer than 5:00 am – that was when I arrived at the Atlas and got them up. And it’s already early in the afternoon, and this is a one-day challenge. They have until midnight. And I told them that the next morning we will have practically no time. I believe it was Michael Kors who was on a very very tight schedule, he had to get out of town. So we had an early morning runway judging. So we’re back in the workroom and I’m just going to leave them alone for a while because they have – I’m not going to hang over them. But I do tell them to remember that they’ve got to put everything that they don’t use back into the containers because it’s all going back to New Jersey. So I check in with them, oh about the middle of the day, at the time our meeting is, and there is a lot of really beautiful work, a lot of really, really beautiful work.
Uli has woven the Mylar with some other material, I can’t recall what, but she has created this absolutely stunning dress. It’s gorgeous. Beautiful. You’d never dream that this was recycled stuff.
Laura ... was it Laura and Michael? And Vincent. Each chose these vinyl coated burlap peanut sacks, and there was writing on the sides, it said “for peanuts only.” And it was – well, I suppose you could say it was close to a fabric but it wasn’t a fabric. It wasn’t a fabric, it was thick and it was very heavy and it was very rough. So Laura created this beautiful mini dress out of it, with large pleats and the pleat in the back was created in such a way that the “pea” part of “peanuts” was inside the pleat so it read “for nuts only” and she did it on purpose. And it was fantastic, it was wonderful. A little provocative. And that was, and I said to her very Schiaparelli-like. I mean it had a particular wit and a whimsy to it that really appealed to me. But Laura being Laura, and thinking very considerately about construction and about her model lined the dress so that it would not be scratchy and uncomfortable for her model to wear. So she did a great job. I will say thought that I was worried about the “Robert Effect” because it was so basic and so simple. So she took some black plastic, the kind of stuff that they use to tie cardboard boxes with if there’s something heavy inside them. She used that to make this beautiful flower, not even remotely close to what Angela does, and a belt. And it was just the right accent. It was a black on this white burlap. It was, it was beautiful. And minimal. And very sort of Courreges-like in its own way. I liked it.
Michael had a beautiful skirt that had kind of a deconstructed look to it and he used the reverse side of the Mylar, which is actually gold – I mean who knew? And gold in this particular case created this sort of ruched looking bandeau top. And then he took clear vinyl and made this beautiful stole out of it. But I have to say it’s one of the things I had actually suggested to Laura earlier when I saw this plain simple thing. I said why don’t you, you know, make a little wrap or something for this. But she said no, I really like the shoulders and want them to be accentuated. But Michael did it, and it was great. And it really gave his look a kind of completion, that made it safe. It thought it was fantastic.
Jeffrey at this point, I don’t know what he’s doing. He is pleating newspapers, and seems to be only using newspapers. And he’s ... I mean that’s about all that I could say at that, or can say at this particular moment. We’ll talk more about it later but I was thinking you know the clock is ticking, you’re putting this newspaper, where is this going?
Alison. Alison was also dealing with a very heavy paper. And she was pleating it. But it looked very architectural. And I don’t mean that in a nice way. It was not working organically. The skirt was like a box. And we were both scratching our heads. We were both concerned. So she abandoned this heavy paper and she went for a big stack of manila paper that she brought back from the recycling place. And I thought all this manila paper? What are you going to do with it? And I checked back with her later before leaving the workroom and she was already working magic on it as far as I was concerned. She was making this very organic skirt by crumpling the paper and loosening it up so it moves more like fabric. And the paper wasn’t deconstructing, the paper wasn’t falling apart, it was fine. So I just said to her, carry on with that, I mean it’s great. So, we’ll leave her for the moment.
Kayne. I mean I have to say it, I don’t know where to begin. I ... I don’t know what, how it’s going to be portrayed on the show. I was horrified. And I think I even let out a scream. And just, you know I’m not supposed to tell them what to do, but I just said to him this is ridiculous! Get rid of the skirt! And what happened to the bottle cap bustier? He’s pasting them at irregular intervals, using irregular sizes, all over this ... thing that was like an inverted ice cream cone. And in fact it was like it was hard as a rock. It was like a shell. It was a craft project. A costume for a kindergarten play of Camelot or something. It was ridiculous. And it was hideous to boot. And he was painting on it ... I mean it was ... it was ... the Jubilee Jumbles Award. I mean it was just ridiculous. We just needed Patty Cake the dog and he was all set. Sorry Angela! I just said you’ve got to do something. You’ve got to just do something. And he had taken, was it paper? I believe it was. And he crumpled up paper and made a top out of it. And while I wasn’t crazy about it, by comparison it was genius. I mean by comparison of the skirt. So I just said look at the top, try to use what you achieved here to achieve something better for the skirt because this is ... bad. Just plain bad. And that’s a good segue to Vincent.
Ugh, I mean we should never have gone to the art supply store. Because it got him started. This reverie about his daughter, and painting, and fine art. And you know, I’ve never met his daughter and I’m sure she’s lovely and wonderful. But daddy Vincent? What are you doing? You’re inhabiting your daughter’s body and you’re now going to become this painter? I think his daughter is seven. Well, let me tell you, his daughter would have done a lot better with that garment than he did. It was a walking canvas. It was one dimensional, it was two dimensional, I would say. But it was like she was walking around with a billboard. And he hadn’t really considered the wearability of this. And I said you’ve got to consider it. “No, it’s all about the art Tim, it’s all about the art.” It’s a garment. It’s clothes. It’s Project Runway. It’s fashion. And it’s not Project Metropolitan Museum. And I’m deeply respectful of art as I’ve spent years as a sculptor, but the challenge here is that it has to walk. I mean as I keep saying to my students at Parsons, I don’t care what you design as long as your client can get into a taxi wearing it. Because if you can’t, then it doesn’t matter. And this wasn’t going anywhere near a taxi, in fact this wouldn’t be able to walk up and down a flight of stairs! So I told him to think three dimensionally, and to think wearability. And, you know how he is. I mean he listens to his own voice, only. So, fine Vincent, fine.
Angela. Well Angela was another one but I can tell you I was so grateful there wasn’t a bubble skirt in this that it was sort of like, OK, do what you’re doing. But she also was thinking billboard, only she was thinking mini-billboard. So she had two panels dropped from the shoulders, of course front and back, and then she had a kind of bandeau and little mini-skirt underneath that looked like they were the same material. It was costume-y. I mean I didn’t think it looked very apparel-like, very clothing-like, it was costume-y. But again, no bubble skirt. Though, I would have gladly given Kayne a bubble skirt. I mean anything to get rid of that horrible thing.
So have I covered everyone? Bradley’s gone ... so Robert. Robert had made the decision to use the Mylar exclusively. And I rescinded my statement earlier in the day at the Waste Management place when I said you know I don’t think you could make anything boring out of all this. But when I thought about using one material only? I was concerned. I just thought, oh boy. All right but it’s got to be something interesting. And I actually have to say I think he did a great job with it – the only issue was it was really noisy. I mean really noisy. You could hear that dress coming from four blocks away. So I just hoped that that wouldn’t be a distraction for the judges on the runway. And I didn’t care about Robert winning, I just wanted him to be in.
And I have to tell you though going into the runway judging, Vincent for me was the big disaster. The big bomb. And right behind him was Kayne. And I thought, for Kayne this is a misstep, this is not who Kayne is. And we really threw him, well we threw everybody out of their comfort zone, I was just about to say we threw Kayne out of his comfort zone – everybody was out of their comfort zone. But we really threw him off. And it was a misstep. For Vincent? Because we were still, we were seeing Vincent. We were seeing Vincent for what he is. And I just saw this thing and thought this is ridiculous – my favorite word to use for Vincent is preposterous because it usually is and here it was again. So I thought well the judges are going to forgive Kayne. This is going to be OK. But Vincent? That’s a whole other matter.
Alison. I have to tell you. I ... I really love what she created. And I thought .. all the pleating on the top and the asymmetrical nature of it – I mean, this was art. And I wouldn’t have to say that to Vincent. To me, this was an artistic statement. It was reminiscent of something that Issey Miyake would do if he were with us for this challenge. And there were some issues, I mean one was how to cinch it at the waist. And one of the issues was, and forgive me for this, but it’s simply a matter of fact, Alison’s model is a little on the plus size. In fact I think we were all confident that in fact she really is a plus size model and this is simply a statement of fact. So this garment would have benefited from someone who had a modified figure, I’ll put it that way. So this was where the whole “make it work” aspect for Alison ... I never ever thought that this particular garment would be on the bottom three list. I really didn’t. As a matter of fact, well this is a whole – my new refrain “it’s a matter of taste” – as a matter of fact I thought, you know this could possibly win. Maybe they’ll go completely nuts and crazy over it. Because it did speak honestly about where we had been earlier in the day, you could tell that the origin of the materials, you could tell what the materials were, compared to say, Uli. Though from where I stood that was quite magic, of the transformation for Uli. The fact that it wasn’t, that it really transcended, those materials. But then the judges could go the other way, “well we really wanted to see more evidence of what it was.” But I will say, when Alison’s model came out of hair and makeup, well it was over for me. I mean a preposterous bow on top of her head? It looked ridiculous. And it’s the same color as the manila paper and the thing really did look like it was going to a Halloween parade. And I wanted to snatch that bow right off the top of her head, but of course, I can’t do that. But I wanted to. But I did look at Alison and asked, is this really how you want her to look on the runway? This thing? She said she thought it was cute. All right.
So, the runway. We have our show and we have our top three and our bottom three. We have Michael Kors and Nina Garcia back of course, and we have Rachel Zoe, who is a celebrity stylist, and I was thrilled that Rachel was with us because she has a very diverse range of clients, she sees everything under the sun when it comes to fashion and I thought she’s an excellent person to respond to the untraditional nature of what this particular challenge was. She comes to it with a point of view that’s very open minded and open ended, and I thought she’ll respond honestly and intuitively to a lot of this. And then of course with her own set of experiences and client base. So I thought this is really a good thing.
So we have our show and we have our top three. Who are Michael, Laura, and Jeffrey. And just to go back to Jeffrey for a moment. I was concerned that earlier because he was once again looking at risk of not finishing and he created this incredible garment. I mean really incredible. Newspaper and cardboard. He painted the entire thing. So you have the newsprint and even photographs from newspaper -- oh and he used magazines as well -- with the images from the newspapers and the magazines bleeding through the paint. It was really, it was the kind of thing where you thought what is this textile and you wanted to get closer to it and really discover what it is. It was provocative and it pulled you in. But it was very beautifully done. And I will say though it was a little down, dark in terms of feeling and I thought well again, matter of taste. The judges may respond positively to this, they may think oh dear, no don’t go there. But they responded positively. So in the whole matter of taste issue and aspect we have Alison up on the runway as one of the bottom three. So I just thought, uh oh. But of course we also have Vincent and we have Kayne. So we have the Q&A between the judges and the designers and the designers and models leave and the judges talk and bring the top three and bottom three back. So Kayne is told that he can leave the runway but that he just barely squeezed by and he’s basically admonished for having such a serious misstep. And he knows it. I mean he really knows it. So I breathed a sigh of relief. And that left Vincent and Alison. And Alison has been such a steady performer I just kept thinking oh great, Vincent’s going to go. [Laughs] Sorry. You know how I feel about him. And Alison is just, I mean she’s great to have around and she’s really talented and she’s really serious about what she’s doing. I mean she’s very young and she has a passion and passion is palpable. So I was in my own way shocked that Alison was selected to be out. I was profoundly disappointed. But shocked. I mean I understood it, I could absolutely see it from the judges point of view, I could. And this is why I’m not a judge because I’ve brought to this whole process what it’s like to work with Vincent and I just, I know where my vote would have gone. So that isn’t fair in it’s own way. And again it’s why I’m not a judge. The judges are unencumbered by all this stuff that happens with us. And they should be, it’s just like going to a show at Bryant Park. People in the audience, the editors who are going to be writing about the show, they don’t know what’s going on backstage and what’s going on leading up to the collection’s presentation. They haven’t a clue, they don’t need to know. But I was just very disappointed. I’m confident that the presentation of the runway worked against the dress. I mean it did. If the dress would have been on a dress form? I think it would have been much more compelling. But of course that’s not our manner of presentation. And the hair and makeup are critical elements to any kind of fashion presentation because it is about the look being on a person and moving – and that’s another thing about Vincent, here I’m going back to it. That ... thing couldn’t walk the runway. The model almost fell face down when she was faced with the steps. And talk about slow. I’m sure in the editing that it was speeded up because they’ll have to because we don’t have a lot of time for the story that we need to tell. The stories. But I mean my brain was bleeding by the time she got to the end of the runway it took her so long. I mean it was just unbelievable. Because she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t move. Oh Vincent.
I am, I was thrilled that Michael won. I mean his garment looked fantastic. The look was great, the model was great. He and Nazri are a great pair. And I have to say for Laura and for Jeffrey it was like competition, it wasn’t like oh this was easy. Could have gone to Laura, could have gone to Jeffrey, but it went to Michael and this makes his second win and second in a row. He’s the only Season 3 designer to win more than one challenge and just bravo, bravo.
Everybody knows that I go backstage at the show to tell the designer who’s out, in this case Alison, that she has to go back to the workroom and pack up her things. And go home. I mean I hate doing it but I have to do it but it’s part of the structure of the show. But I have to wait before I go back because there’s interaction among the designers when they return from the runway. There’s great excitement about who’s won, there’s great sadness about who’s out, usually, and there certainly was in this case and there was a reverberation of shock backstage about Alison being out. And lots of tears, and not just from Alison, from a lot of people, and a lot of anger, I have to say. A lot of anger directed at Vincent. And especially, it was especially incendiary between Vincent and Laura because, and I hear bits and pieces of the conversation in standing near the doorway and I can hear everything, I’m not supposed to hear it, well it’s not that no one wants me to hear any of it but I’m not standing there with the intention of hearing things, but it was loud. Uh and [laughs] ... Vincent was defending criticism from the other designers about how the look walked on the runway, about how the model couldn’t walk the runway. He just said “I don’t agree, it was great, I told her to do it slowly because there’s so much on that surface to see, you know my painting, my art.” And Laura basically said something like that’s a bunch of bullshit, a bunch of crap, and just face it, that was a big flop, you should have been out and this is a travesty and I can’t believe you’re still here. And that was being echoed by the other designers. And [more laughing] Vincent turns to Laura and, well I didn’t see it, I hear Vincent say to Laura “take those Harry Winstons you got and shove ‘em up your nose.” And then there’s this ... silence. [more laughing] So I turn to one of the producers and I say do I have to walk into that? And I did. And actually the first words out of my mouth, I embrace Alison, and I said you know something? I thought you could have won this, and I said I was shocked as everybody else by the outcome. But, it is what it is. And you’ve been great, and you should feel proud and you’ve been fantastic here and we’re going to really really miss you. I could not make eye contact with Vincent, I could not look at him. And of course I embraced Michael, second win, first time this season for anyone, and it was a great thing. But you know with a couple of exceptions, we know who they are, they did a great job. They did a great job with this challenge and I was really proud of them. So we had a lot of drama.
So our next challenge is about the everyday woman. So you can bring as much interpretation to that as you’d like, but I can assure you it’s really sensational. It’s really good.
Click here to comment.
