We were a little harsh in our initial assessment of this look. We'll give you a moment to get over your shock.
It originally came off as pretty generic, but he did one interesting thing.
He totally made that newspaper look like two fairly sophisticated prints.
Unfortunately, he didn't really do anything eye-catching with them. It's a pretty basic silhouette with pretty basic proportions.
Still, it was a decent, if understated, entry.
Model: Matar Cohen
Epperson's fauxmono was anything but understated.
In fact, we kind of love the whole drama of it.
It comes pretty close to costumey, but it's got such great sweeping proportions to it.
A mark against him in the technical area, though. The dress is entirely made of fabric with paper sewn to it. It's an interesting effect because of the way he used it, but it's not offering what the judges tend to reward in these kinds of challenges: innovative technique.
It's not any sort of technical triumph and from a design point of view, it's pretty basic.
But this has a nice graphic quality to it that works. We just don't like that weird fin off the hem. We get that it mirrors the one on the bust (which we like), but it looks odd on the bottom.
It's a basic middle of the road entry, which is becoming a trend with Logan. He needs to step it up.
This is more good than bad but if he doesn't do something to impress the judges soon, he's looking at an auf. First you weed out the obvious ones, then you weed out the underachievers.
Model: Fatma Dabo
Oh Louise, honey. This is a painful miss, we're afraid to say.
She just bypassed clothing and went straight to costume with this one.
It's just not working for us, poodles. We get when someone's going for whimsy, but this is just clumsy and unfabulous. Those paper tubes on the bust scream grade school craft project.
Plus, it's not fit very well at all in the bodice and the skirt looks like a lamp shade. Big fail on this one, Louise.
We're a little confused about the judging this week. Alert the media.
Kittens, we have to say, it was entertaining as hell to see Litte Miss Full-Of-Herself get her comeuppance on the runway after the constant trash-talking. All that head-bobbing and self-stroking was getting just a tiny bit annoying.
Still...
Model: Celine Chua
...to be honest, the dress isn't horrible.
Absolutely, the winged skirt is weird and bug-like. We get that. Also, it connects to the bodice weirdly. But on a whole, the rest of the dress isn't awful.
It's, for the most part, well-fitted and he managed to create an interesting print out of the paper.
We even like the little faux spikes on the straps. It was the only thing that had anything to do with the "East Village punk" look that mostly existed in his head.
In fact, everything above the waist is not too bad. Not challenge-winning, by any stretch; in fact, we're not even suggesting he shouldn't have been in the bottom. Flawed, but not a disaster. Still, we can't complain too much because he desperately needed the smackdown. Our only regret is that Nina wasn't there to give it to him. How much more delicious would that have been?
For far more on Peppermint Patty, check out this week's T Lo Awards.
Okay, not to buy into unsupported tinfoil hat theories, but is anyone else thinking the judges have it in for Gordana for some reason?
Is it age? Personal style? Behind-the-scenes-drama? Who knows? But for some reason she doesn't seem to be able to get any attention from the judges except negative attention and her output so far deserves a bit better than that.
Model: Tara Egan
Is this perfect? No, not really. It's a little too boxy and stiff-looking.
Bordering on armor-like, actually.
But it had way too much going for it to have the judges react so badly to it. We don't get it.
Aside from the slight boxiness of it, it's still a pretty cute design and it displays some fairly kickass technical proficiency.
We're not entirely sure who should have been on the bottom this week (although we can think of at least one dress that probably should have been there). There were a relatively high number of interesting, well-executed looks with this challenge. It's almost looked like Gordana (and maybe Nicolas) fell to the bottom by default and the somewhat raw judges over-reacted a bit in their criticism.
Kudos to the top 3, because they all did a pretty amazing job this week.
General consensus among the commenters holds that Christopher was robbed out of the win. We can't say we agree.
Model: Katie
Don't get us wrong, it's a great look. He said he wanted a show stopper and he succeeded.
But from where we're sitting, it's just not all that impressive from a technical standpoint, at least not compared to the other two looks in the top three.
From a design perspective, it's a pretty basic look and something that Christopher seems to return to again and again: structured on top, frilly on the bottom.
But what sets it firmly in runner-up status is the fact that the bottom of the dress, the part that's supposed to really wow us, is a basic muslin skirt with a lot of paper leaves attached to it.
Sure, it moved beautifully (and let's not overlook Katie's contribution - she sashayed like her life depended on it) and it was appropriately dramatic. We're not saying it wasn't a great look.
We just think that when you stack it up against Althea and Irina, both of whom offered much more structured garments made entirely out of paper, it doesn't impress us as much.
And speaking of Althea...
Darlings, is there anything more delicious than two prom queens who hate each other? We hope all this angst results in a hair-pulling contest, forcing Tim Gunn to burst into the room Mrs. Garrett-style, yelling "Girls! Girls! You're BOTH pretty!"
Model: Tanisha Harper
To our way of thinking, if anyone got robbed out of the win, it was Althea. This really is a pretty amazing look.
It's not just the fact that it's so structured and that she basically made her own print that makes it so impressive.
It's the fact that it's so form-fitting - and perfectly fitted, to boot. It completely hugs every inch of Tanisha. That was a major risk to take because it increased the likelihood of rippage.
We still stand by the Irina win because it was clever and well done and off the beaten path, but this was a really close second for us.
And most impressive of all, it was a really stylish, chic look. Way to go, Blair. Maybe you can kick Jo's ass next time.
Our losing streak in witty titles continues.
Model: Vanessa Fitzgerald
It originally came off as pretty generic, but he did one interesting thing.
He totally made that newspaper look like two fairly sophisticated prints.
Unfortunately, he didn't really do anything eye-catching with them. It's a pretty basic silhouette with pretty basic proportions.
Still, it was a decent, if understated, entry.
Model: Matar Cohen
In fact, we kind of love the whole drama of it.
It comes pretty close to costumey, but it's got such great sweeping proportions to it.
A mark against him in the technical area, though. The dress is entirely made of fabric with paper sewn to it. It's an interesting effect because of the way he used it, but it's not offering what the judges tend to reward in these kinds of challenges: innovative technique.
