S01.E02: Episode 2

[Meredith Quill]

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TBC

 

[Omeletsmom]

I'm not sure Yan and Henck know the difference between costume and clothing.

[meep.meep]

I loved the winning team's concept more than the execution.  Why didn't they try different colors on each side of the strands - red on one and blue on the other?  They deserved the win.

And the father and son team worried about their male model - there's a guy right over there wearing a kilt!  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

S1.E2: Fabulous Floral Fashion

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The teams take on an assignment combining floristry with fashion, working with thousands of cut flowers to create couture gowns for human models.

Ooh, I was SO excited about this challenge because it reminded me of the challenge on S2 Project Runway where the designers had to make dresses out of flowers (I still remember Chloe's gorgeous leaf dress!). Chanelle the fashion designer definitely had an advantage in this challenge!

I liked that we got to learn more about the contestants in this episode. Last week, we barely got all of their names.

I noticed that we got shots of the models in their flower dresses and we also got shots of the dresses on stands (without models). I wonder how long they spent filming those dresses.

Yan and Henck's Eve inspired dress was too short and it was too costumey. For two people who seem to love fashion, they have a lot of very preconceived ideas about what constitutes fashion. When they said they didn't want a big doily dress that looks like it should go on top of a roll of toilet paper, I was like great, that's fine but you do realize that not every dress in the world looks like a crocheted toilet paper doily, right? There's a huge range of other dresses that exist in the world besides that and the costume you made. The technique they used to overlap the leaves on the snake was cool (and very fitting) but the dress was a crop top and teeny tiny skirt and both were too lumpy.

Delilah and Rachel's armor and tunic was so wilted. The biggest problem for me was that they left so much of the metal mesh of the vest exposed.

It was nice to see Ralph (the gardener) give his son Jim (the 3D design student) free rein with this design. I loved that he said he didn't know anything about fashion or gender neutral clothes so he was letting Jim make the decisions. And it was such a great dad moment when he gave Jim a good pep talk when he saw his son was freaking out. On a shallow note, I wish I could tell Jim to stop speaking from this throat. Right now he sounds like Kermit the Frog. Their man dress was a huge lumpy mess. It looked like their model had been swallowed by a bush and he was trying to escape.

I really wanted to like Chanelle and Raymond's double helix DNA dress but it ended up looking like exactly what it was - a swath of flowers wrapped around their model. I loved the rainbow gradation of the flower colors though. I haaaaaated the flower petals on the model's face as makeup. It's such a tired thing to do and it never looks good. It was very nice of Chanelle to explain exactly what she was doing to Jordan (sewing pockets of ripstop nylon with mesh so they could put moss inside to keep the flowers fresh. I totally cracked up when Chanelle described the crop tops and stuff she designs and then added that she's too old to wear that stuff.

Sarah and Jordan's burlesque dress was gorgeous. I would have given them the win because they made a dress that looked like it was actually made of fabric. I don't care that they mostly used plumosa. I also loved the way Sarah cut apart the calla lily petals to cover the bodice. Like the previous episode, she showed a lot of flower knowledge, like which flowers needed a lot of water (plumosa), which ones were hearty enough to withstand not having a lot of water (calla lilies), how to curve the calla lily stems without breaking them, etc.

Nick and Taylor are such hipsters. I don't know why anyone needs a "houseplant consultant" and their "we're BFFs, no PFFs!" made me roll my eyes. Same for when Taylor said that winning this competition would give them credibility back home. Girl, I don't think so. I want to snatch that stupid hat off Taylor's head. They really should have focused more on their actual dress instead of the umbrella. Yes, it was pretty to see the flowers hanging down from the umbrella, but their dress was terrible. I mean, SO BAD. The main focus of the challenge was the dress. It doesn't matter how good your accessories are if your dress is bad. I was fine with the mask because it made good use of the natural shapes of the flowers. And I would have been okay with the umbrella if their dress hadn't been so simply, lumpy, and shapeless on their model's body. It looked like they spent all their time on the umbrella and the dress was an afterthought. They were smart to use the little tubes of water to keep the flowers fresh.

Andi and Helen, on the other hand, are adorable BFFs. Good on Andi for realizing that Helen could safety pin each posy to their dress instead of hand sewing them on. Their dress ended up looking like a big rug though. There was so much greenery that there wasn't much shape to the dress. But I'm glad that the model said it was comfortable to wear because some of them obviously were not.

Eoghan and Declan's ballgown did not look like a ballgown. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I'm pretty sure that the definition of a ballgown is that the skirt is floor length. Their model's skirt was barely covering her bathing suit parts in the front so no, not a ballgown, guys. The dress itself looked a bit thrown together like there wasn't much rhyme or reason to the flower/plant placement. I really did not like the roses just coming out of the front of the bodice.

Ryan and Andrew's pixie meadow dress was very colorful but the skirt was just a tad too short. The matching hat was cute. Their papier mâché technique was smart.

I was fine with Rachel and Delilah being eliminated but there are a few other teams that were in the bottom in my mind. Chanelle and Raymond's rainbow DNA design was lovely but it wasn't really a proper dress that would cover up all the lady bits. They also didn't make the flowers look like fabric, which is why I would have given the win to Sarah and Jordan.

[SunshineNDaisies]

Sarah and Jordan were truly the Best in Bloom this episode. Chanelle and Raymond didn't even make a dress - it was a giant flower snake wrapped around the model. The gorgeous flower gown that Sarah and Jordan put together is something that could go on a catwalk - hello, isn't that more "fashion" than a snake??