February 1, 2006
Garden Party
This challenge is all about innovation. Heidi announces that our six remaining designers are to design an outfit for a garden party. She says that they will learn more about their challenge the next morning, which they do when I arrive at the Atlas to wake them and take them shopping. Our destination? The Flower District: several blocks of wholesale and retail plant and flower shops all cheek-by-jowl. The Flower District is rife with wonderful smells, colors, textures, and in late June humidity! It was a hotbed of inspiration and, well, a hotbed. We were all suffering.
The designers had $100 and an hour to shop. Each of the three shops available to them had different specialties: green plants, flowers, and floral accessories. But for our trustworthy muslin back in the workroom, the designers had only their Flower District purchases with which to design and make.
I feel compelled to assert that $100 blew out of the designers' hands. It became clear that it would be neither affordable nor feasible to construct a garment entirely of flowers. Green plants, especially with large leaves, were to be essential ingredients. Furthermore, everyone was concerned with longevity; that is, getting the garment to hold up overnight and under the hot lights of the next day's runway judging.
For those viewers and readers who speculate that our judges are privy to the designers' activities prior to the runway judging and/or that I interact with the judges and provide background information for their decision making, let me put all of that to rest. If that were the case, then the judges would have known why the designers didn't use more flowers. "Where are the flowers?" was our judges' mantra. I wanted to call out from my folding chair in the back recesses of the room, "You can't expect the Tournament of Roses for $100!" Shut up, Tim.
Finally, in the last challenge I intentionally shook up the designers by giving them a tough love talk. They had been coasting and weren't talking enough risks. It was as if each was saying, "I don't care about winning; I just don't want to be OUT." Accordingly, we bring in an incentive: IMMUNITY. The winner of this challenge has immunity for the next challenge. That means that the winner of this challenge is one of the Final Four.
DANIEL
Daniel WINS! It goes without saying that to a large degree each designer's fate is determined during the shopping trip. By fate, I mean the "make it work" aspect of the materials that are purchased. It's a lot like cooking: don't return to the kitchen and discover that you need an egg. Daniel made very wise and very strategic decisions when we were shopping in the Flower District. His choice of rich green ferns ensured that color and texture would prevail, and the purplish-blue orchids placed on the bodice caused our judges to swoon. Everything about his outfit said, "Fashion." The silhouette and the dress and the drape of the ferns on the skirt, the woven bodice, and the thoughtful placement of the orchids made a powerful statement and looked stunning on Rebecca. Daniel's on to the Final Four!
