Crafty Manolo

Say hello to Nanette Lepore. Hello, Nanette Lepore!

Lepore was the guest judge last night on Project Runway All Stars in one of the best, most interesting challenges the show has ever presented. What was so great about it? Oh, my friends, the designers were thrown into the deep end of the reality pool, as opposed to the ‘reality’ pool they’ve been swimming in so merrily all this time.

What exactly happened? Read on after the cut to find out.

As I said, this was a challenge that takes the actual, cold, hard world into account and accounting, too. The remaining four designers were taken to Nanette Lepore’s place of business. Once there, they were instructed that real world designers have to work not only within budgets, but within the proper cost range to make a profit. That means the entire cost of production has to be taken into account. Not just the fabric, but the notions, amortization of equipment, shipping, and wages of the people running the sewing machines or doing fiddly handwork all need to be taken into account before the designer can buy fabric.

Each one must come up with a design for a piece for Lepore’s ready to wear line. They can make any kind of garment they like so long as it fits into a real world wardrobe. Lepore and her coster, Kelly Keough, will evaluate each design from the sketch and give the designer a budget for all materials.

There’s a great prize this week, too. The winning design will be put into production on a limited basis by Nanette Lepore, and all profits will go to savethegarmentcenter.org. If you don’t want to see who won before you read the rest of this, don’t click that link until you finish reading… but do please click the link and learn more about this incredibly worthy cause.

So the designers take out their HP pads and start sketching. Michael is going with a caftan… again. It’s jersey, again. It’s full length and very low cut both front and back again. Michael, Michael, Michael. You did such a good job of getting out of your comfort zone on the last challenge, even if it didn’t turn out spectacularly well. I’m sorry to see him designing the same dress again on this challenge.

Kenley – no surprise here – is making the same dress again, too. The huge design difference that’s going to win the challenge for her? A kind of cute little keyhole cutout on the bodice. It’s the same dress yet again, but it does happen to be a pretty wearable sort of dress that a lot of women like. Kenley is very confident this week (big shocker!) because she’s done designs for real companies before, so she understands sticking to a painfully tight budget.

Austen has decided that what the average woman needs more of in her closet is taffeta raincoats. I’m kind of loving the concept, and you all know how I am drawn to his hyper-feminine style. Again, having worked in the real garment industry – even if it has mostly been bridal and theater – he has an understanding of the fact that things have to be costed out and he has to make his construction clear in the sketch.

And then there’s Mondo. Oh, Mondo, you’re making me sad this week. You see, Mondo doesn’t sketch. He’s not good at that particular art form, so when other designers are sketching out their garment ideas, he’s mostly doodling hearts and suchlike because he doesn’t draw well. The wacky clarinets of DOOM play in the background as he plays with a pencil and paper and looks more and more miserable. He’s worried that he won’t come across as a ‘real designer.’ I hate to say it, but his fear is legitimate.

Once the sketch period is done, Nanette and Kelly go around to all the designers and work out their budgets. Michael is first up. Nanette is concerned about those batwing sleeves and no seam lines to indicate care in terms of fabric rationing. Kelly determines the dress would sell for roughly $380, which leaves Michael a fabric budget of $48. Kenley’s little dress would sell for $350, and her fabric budget is $41, which is about what she had figured on, she says. She simpers that she’s done this ‘a few times.’ Austen’s coat would retail for $500 and he has $65 to work with for materials.

And then there’s Mondo, who is currently holding his head in his hands and looking incredibly dejected. Oh dear. He explains to Nanette and Kelly that he doesn’t sketch because it isn’t part of his process, and he’s really bad at it. Still, he’s done a very, very, very primitive sketch of five rectangles. The bottom one has little lines to indicate a bit of flair and the center one has vertical dotted lines that seem to indicate some sort of slit for a sash to come through. I can tell it’s supposed to be a sash (a) because it’s coming out of the vertical lines, and (b) I know going in that it’s supposed to be a dress. Nanette Lepore describes it as looking like ‘a tin can with a string hanging out.’ Mondo tries to explain verbally what’s going on, and Nanette and Kelly are certainly trying to understand what he’s got in mind. It’s going to take a lot of piecing, a lot of fiddly work. His $300 retail dress is going to have to be made with a maximum of $32 of materials.

Mondo tells Nanette that his dress will come together, but he interviews that he already feels defeated.

And I guess someone let Mondo’s non-sketching cat out of the bag because immediately Kenley’s ragging on Michael that he needs to teach Mondo to sketch. Of course Kenley doesn’t have an inside voice, so she uses her outside one. Michael tries to get her to quiet down and not discuss this in the middle of Nanette Lepore’s store. Yeah, that’s going to work.

Look, in real world terms Kenley – and you have no idea how much I hate to say this – is right. A designer does need to be able to sketch in the real world. Other people need to be able to see what you’ve got in mind. In the real world, if Mondo had made an appointment with Nanette Lepore to try to sell a design to her, she would have taken one look at his tin can drawing and shown him the door. It wouldn’t be worth her time and effort to find out what that tin can would be once Mondo got his hands into the cloth. In point of fact, Mondo would be well advised to take a class in basic fashion illustration.

That said, Kenley was completely wrong to bring it up that way at that volume in that place. If she really wanted to be helpful, she’d have taken Mondo aside and asked him if he’d like her to give him a quick lesson. But Kenley has only one volume: extremely loud. And she has only one mode: hyper-abrasive. And Mondo is a little bit of a sensitive plant. He’s frankly kind of embarrassed by his sketching lack of skills, so bringing it up loudly in public is the single worst possible way of approaching the subject.

Mondo, I say this with love and every possible ambition for you to succeed: take a class or get a couple private tutoring sessions with someone who’s good at putting things in terms that work for you. You do need this skill in the real world, and I want everyone to be able to see how brilliant you are even before you start working in your true medium of fabric.

Anyway. Instead of going to MOOD this week, the designers are brought into Nanette Lepore’s fabric den to choose their weapons of mass market destruction. As they walk in, there’s this gorgeous kind of chrysanthemum print on the end in several different colors. It’s fabulous, but the print stops several inches from the selvedge. It would look gorgeous, but it’s going to eat a tight budget.

Kenley finds a huge purple peacock feather on baby blue print. It’s kind of spectacular… if you’re doing something that will show off that print. She immediately decides that’s what she’s making her little, demure dress out of.

There’s nothing wrong with the dress (other than the fact it looks like every other dress Kenley has made before), and the fabric is great… but they are not built for each other. This is an obvious misstep.

Michael heads straight for his (and I must admit my) beloved jersey… and chooses the chrysanthemum print in a pretty yellow and slightly blueish green. Has he checked the ends? He does love the weight of it.

Austen falls in love with a raspberry raincoat taffeta that fits nicely in his budget. He’s a happy camper and I want to lick that color through the screen. It makes me wish I looked better in things in the pink range.

Michael is right on budget with his chrysanthemums. Kenley, however, is slightly over budget. She ditches half the purple fabric she wanted to use as binding around the tulip sleeves and the keyhole detail. That brings her back on track. Mondo brings up a potentially terrifying melange of fabrics for Kelly to examine for the budget. There’s a pale chartreuse, a Kool Aidish purple, a black and white zigzag stripe reminiscent of Keith Haring, a fabric of vertical stripes in a variety of midrange tones,  and a fabric in broad horizontal stripes of several pastel shades and a deeper purple. I bet Kelly is nervous about this assortment, especially in light of the tin can sketch. Me? I know Mondo’s work better than she does. I know that what would be disaster on a stick in the hands of most will be poetry by the time Mondo works his magic. Even including a trim, he’s actually under budget.

Back in the workroom, Michael discovers that although his fabric is 60″ wide, the print is only 48″ wide. This is why you always look at the whole piece of cloth before you buy, Michael. He makes the only possible choice and decides he will ditch those long sleeves. Kenley looks at her print and decides to ditch her keyhole.

As the designers work, Joanna Coles wafts through with Nanette Lepore in tow. As Joanna discusses the importance of the challenge, Kenley keeps working until Joanna pulls out her best British Headmistress voice to say “Kenley, I’m talking to you.” Kenley stops fitting things on her model. I begin to contemplate the uses of having a Joanna Coles to keep order around. And then I realize I would be the one she would be chastising the most and decide that’s not really what I want most in life. Still, I might just have to send her some of my homemade lemon curd.

Joanna and Nanette start with Kenley. Both ladies are concerned that the fit of the dress (usually Kenley’s strong suit) is so oddly baggy and frumpy. In fact, Nanette says right out loud that this kind of fit is much harder to sell. Kenley simply tells them the piece is ‘gorgeous the way it is’ and that once they see it finished they’ll see how flattering it is. I personally love looser fits because my waistline is actually slightly larger than my bustline. But this is in that No Man’s Land of fitting where it won’t do me a damn bit of good, but someone who has a more hourglassy figure will look like a rumpled paper bag in it.

Nanette feels Michael’s work is much closer to the sketch she saw. She does, however, point out that trying to sell a dress whose neckline plunges to the navel is not an easy task, so she would require some sort of hook and eye closure in the front. Michael suggests a point slightly below the breastline, which still works with the way he’s cut things, and keeps the flow of his line. Nanette is happy with that.  Joanna brings up the bra question again. Sing it, sister! Michael suggests adding a hook and eye closure in the back, too, if the woman wants to wear a bra. Michael, I love you dearly in so many ways, but have you ever actually met a woman? Scratch that, I know he was briefly married before he came out, so I know he’s met one. But he doesn’t really think about how we live and dress ourselves. A hook and eye in the middle of the back isn’t going to cover a bra, and is really difficult to reach when it’s time to put the dress on or take it off.

Nanette is happy with Austen’s color choice, because customers respond positively to a brightly colored coat. As the woman who currently wears a bright orange coat and whose previous coat was a fabulous purple suede, I concur. Still, she hedges her comments with concerns about whether it’s going to turn out the way Austen has described it and Joanna feels it’s going to be either hideous or gorgeous.

Mondo basically has a row of fabrics lined up so Joanna has to ask what he’s making. Once she knows it’s a dress, she asks where one would wear it. Mondo says you could wear it to the park or on a date or even a cocktail party. Nanette seems more enthusiastic now that she can see the color progression, at least. From what’s in front of her, she likes the idea of something you could wear to the flea market or out to dinner equally well. Mondo feels that his dress is starting to look like one of those dogs that’s so ugly it’s cute. I’m kind of feeling that description.

Austen’s coat is rumpling, and Michael’s dress is falling off his model in funky ways. She says at one point that it’s usually her left breast falling out of his clothes, so she doesn’t know why it’s the right one in this dress. Mondo decides his dress is better without a belt. And as per usual, Kenley has made no effort whatsoever to match up her pattern. The peacock feathers are slashed and truncated. There’s barely a repeat you can see fully. That’s not good.

And so we come to the runway.

Austen’s coat has a ruffled, slightly cowled funnel neckline, and when his model removes the belt, the sucker swings from here to eternity. The hem hits just above the knee, the straight sleeves hit just above the wrist, and I covet this piece… but in turquoise. That pink would do me zero favors.

I know I saw Michael adding those hooks and eyes, and even discussing with his model when and where she should open them up to show the difference in the neckline, but we don’t actually see this happen on the runway. What we do become painfully aware of is the fact that the hem is dragging on the floor by a good two inches all the way around her feet. Between how open it is on top and how long it is on the bottom, it’s a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. I do have to say I love the use of the print, and I like the elbow-length batwing sleeves… but that’s all I love about it. One look at this and I can foresee Michael getting elbowed out of the finale a second time just as he can taste it. Someone else would really have to lay a serious ostrich egg to beat him to the bottom on this.

Mondo’s uglycute dress is next, and while it’s not my favorite piece I’ve ever seen from him, it’s certainly not a tin can with a string hanging down. For one thing, no string. He’s got the horizontal striped fabric as the neckline and yoke, the purple across the bust, the Keith Haring stripe at the waist, the chartreuse across the hips, and the vertical stripe as a fun little ruffled skirt a couple inches above the knee. The use of the fabrics is, as usual with Mondo, unexpected and picture perfect. The one thing I don’t like is that the overall dress is kind of boxy. Still, most women I know have a good belt or two in their closets. He’s even put pockets in the chartreuse strip! I love them! The more I look at this one, the better I like it.

Kenley’s dress is… Kenley’s dress. It’s the same dress she always makes, only more loosely fitted for that special frumptastic look. Not. Loving. This.

The judges think Mondo used his colors and prints well, but Nanette isn’t sure a curvy woman could wear it well. Isaac mentions potatoes in regards to the line. There’s a tiny bit of lip service given to the fact that Michael’s dress is too long and way too open both front and back to sell, but Nanette wants to take it home with her. Hmmm… Michael may live to fight another day, after all. The judges all note that Kenley picked the wrong print for her dress. Nanette mourns the loss of the keyhole, which was the detail she thought was going to sell the dress. Isaac makes the bizarre comment that it’s a good dress, but he kept waiting for it to turn into ‘something more inspired.’ Well, okay, then. Not sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound like much of a compliment, at any rate.  Austen points out that in addition to being able to wear the coat cinched up fully or left to swing where it will, it also can be belted Watteau style, where just the front is cinched and the back is left draped behind. I fall in love with it just a little more, if possible. Call me, Austen! I’ll bake Napoleons. Isaac and Geraldine both say they thought the coat was a dress when it came out. I have to admit, I can see where they’re coming from. I even think it could be worn that way in a pinch, if someone wanted to. Isaac and Nanette both say the fabric isn’t doing much for them on the runway. But it’s your fabric, Nanette! Angela, though, loves everything about it and thinks it’s tremendously commercial to boot.

At this point, my heart is in my throat because the judges sounded like it was between Austen and Michael at the top, and Mondo and Kenley at the bottom. If Michael and Kenley both go through and Mondo is eliminated, I swear I will hurl a heavy tome of fashion history right through my flat screen… and I have the tomes to do it, too! From day one I’ve been praying for a Mondo/Austen showdown. I think they’re both amazing – albeit wildly disparate – designers, and I want to see them showing their best work head to head.

As the judges confer, Nanette says that Austen’s wasn’t her favorite because of the fabric he chose. Again, he got it from you and made what was supposed to be made out of it. Your raincoat taffeta, his raincoat… not getting this. Interestingly enough, her opinion of Kenley as ‘haughty’ and unwilling to take advice does give me hope. Everybody lines up to love Michael’s design, which, again I don’t get. It’s the same piece he’s done five or six times in this competition, just in a print with a hem the girl nearly tripped over. I say this with all possible love for Michael, but that was really not his best work by a country mile and he needs to find another design to do. Most women are not models. Most women cannot wear bare caftan after bare caftan. We have jobs, and kids, and houses to clean, and grocery shopping to do and we need clothes that fit an actual life and an actual bra.

And then a miracle (or an hour of intense argument we don’t see) happens, and a decision is made.

Austen is… in.

He’s safe and going on to the finale. Yay!

Mondo is… THE WINNER!

He, too, moves on. His dress is put into production at Nanette Lepore to support the Garment Center. I’m delighted for him, and for all the women who get to buy his fun and funky dress.

And so it comes down to which the judges are going to let go, and it’s down to the right two. Michael cuts and drapes beautiful, but largely unwearable clothes. His hem was far too long and his torso far too bare for real life. Kenley decided stubbornly to go with a print that fought her design, cut out the only interesting feature of that design to accommodate the print, and still used it poorly. She doesn’t listen to any criticism or advice – even from people she might wind up working for. Both of them are guilty of making the same dress over and over again, no matter the context.

Michael is… in!

That means Kenley – who I’ve been praying would go home right from challenge one is finally out of the game. For all practical purposes, Michael is kind of out of the game, too, I think. He could prove me wrong and pull something out of his posterior that completely blows me away. Then again, pigs may fly.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fond of Michael and I do root for him to do well. I was delighted for him when Diane von Furstenberg dropped that casual ‘call me after the show’ to him, because I believe she could be a great mentor to him and help him find what he will do best. But compared to Austen and Mondo? Yeah, he’s not on the same level. Not now. I think what Michael has the most of is potential. Mondo and Austen have already found their voices, and those voices are both gorgeous, as different as they are.

I love Austen’s unabashed femininity and fearless decadence. I adore Mondo’s astonishing eye for pattern and color, and his playful sensibilities. No matter which one winds up on top, I have no tears for the other, because I firmly believe both will succeed in their chosen profession.

So we’ll see which one turns out the best collection… and which one the judges think that is.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2012 at 1:45 pm by Twistie and is filed under Media, Sewing, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.