S20.E11: Double Bind

[LennieBriscoe]

19 hours ago, Straycat80 said:

Looked red on my TV. 

I know; that's why I initially quoted you. Because you thought it was red. 

I cannot find the color described anywhere else but this thread! WTH?! 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by LennieBriscoe

[lgandkihei]

Granted, I'd never heard of Elaine Welteroth prior to her popping up on Project Runway a while back, so for all I know, she's insanely talented and knows more about fashion than all the rest of us ignorant peasants thrown together.  However, based on everything I've seen of her personal style, I certainly don't feel inspired to consider her some sort of expert.

To my eye, she seems to try way too hard.  She invariably has some ridiculous "oooh...look at how cool and trendy I am" style, but this week was the worst ever.  I understand that African American hair is different, structurally and chemically, from Caucasian hair, so naturally there are different products and techniques used.  Likewise, there are cultural differences.  That's not what i'm talking about. 

I'm talking about the grease!   I don't think that any woman- -Black, white, Asian, Latin or anything else- - wants to be seen looking like a tub of Crisco has been dumped on her scalp, and that's how Elaine looked this week.  The top of her head was nearly dripping with dark wet grease, and then the natural part exploded out from there, with a different (lighter because it was dry) color. I'm not sure if that's all her hair or if there are extensions in there, but the natural part was fine.  The part that had the axle grease dripping off wasn't, and I didn't hear a word of her critiques because I was too busy staring at her head.

All that aside, good riddance to Korto.  Finally.  I don't remember her being so miserable during her first go-round, but this time, I was over her and her rotten attitude by about the second week, and it was a relief to see her get the ax at long last.  

[LennieBriscoe]

I yield! On her page, Laurence's outfit definitely looks RED!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwGrIo7NJn0/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

[Salacious Kitty]

It's probable that the runway lights washed out the color we saw on TV. 

[KittenPokerCheater]

Out of curiosity, has Laurence designed for a plus-sized model this season?

[retired watcher]

On 8/17/2023 at 10:32 PM, WaltersHair said:

There's confidence and then there's ego. She needs to work on one of those.

 

I couldn't have said it better. Her attitude is more I don't care than confidence.

[TakomaSnark]

On 8/17/2023 at 11:26 PM, susannot said:

Damn!  I am totally in the minority here but I loved Korto's look.  When it came down the runway I said to the cats "yes, there it is."  I love loose flowy pants so that explains it.

Hers certainly wasn't the worst. Prajje's was it for me.

[rhofmovalley]

My hair will do what Elaine's did with only a few minutes of teasing. But I do not and would never shellac it with a grease product. I mean, I did once on accident but never did it again.

[Blueboxes]

2 hours ago, LennieBriscoe said:

I yield! On her page, Laurence's outfit definitely looks RED!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwGrIo7NJn0/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

I'm shocked. Looked absolutely Barbie pink on my TV. Which I thought was interesting because it's very trendy now but would not have been when they filmed, just a fortuitous coincidence for Laurence. 

Also Elaine's hair was nuts but that's on brand for her 😕

[SuburbanHangSuite]

Agree with the winner but for me, Prajje was the worst.  They're all so talented, it's hard to choose each week but I hated that origami look.  

Absolutely nothing about Brittany's read modest so the judges just decided to smoke crack before judging this week.  I loved her little squeals about making it to final 5.

I actually like Bishme's with a few alterations. He should've listened to Christian and ditched that embellishment and I wanted a much bigger hood and a much shorter slit.  And I would've styled it with some funky boots.  Glad he's still in the competition. 

[T Summer]

IDK, I got the intention behind Brittany's look. If making a completely covered up dress in solid fabric  with body conscious fit  would be a valid  way to answer  the  modest/sexy challenge

why wouldn't   blending sheerness with a high neck, long sleeve, full length    flowy silhouette  do that as well? ....just in a less expected way.

 

Those  saying there's nothing modest about a look that reveals one's  butt cheeks have a point, but the challenge wasn't merely to make something modest. It was to make something with both disparate elements. It was kind of a dumb challenge to begin with, the judges even said they'd be confused and overwhelmed. What did Romi get, fitted +oversized?

 

I don't think anyone who's not rooting for Brittany or not liking her aesthetic has to worry about her ending up in the finale though.Would love to see her up her game and have me be wrong!

When Korto's elimination reduced the field to 5 Brittany excitedly uttered "I've never been top 5 before!"   Did she forget she won the Seeing Red challenge E5?

She'd have to make something pretty  striking  and completely unexpected(as she did here), for the next few challenges and make them clearly better than Bishme's and Laurance's. I doubt Bishme will  be caught slipping again!

[dleighg]

7 minutes ago, T Summer said:

When Korto's elimination reduced the field to 5 Brittany excitedly uttered "I've never been top 5 before!"   Did she forget she won the Seeing Red challenge E5?

I assume she got eliminated in her season as one of six. Not that I keep track of those things.

[T Summer]

21 minutes ago, dleighg said:

I assume she got eliminated in her season as one of six. Not that I keep track of those things.

Yes, thanks that makes sense.

[swankie]

On 8/18/2023 at 7:40 PM, Dr Mama said:

I like Rami, but I didn't think his dress this week was super flattering to his model. And while I loved the overall look of his "Freedom" dress, it looked to me like he had some stitching issues.

If you ask me the dress Rami was sent home for looked better than this top 3 look of his.  Looking back I think he should have been standing in the bottom 3 instead of Korto.  He didn't meet the challenge and his dress was ugly! To me the bottom 3 should have been Rami, Bishme and Prajje with Prajje going home.  If Korto had kept her big mouth shut it might have happened that way.  Oh well!  

[T Summer]

I agree with you @swankie

I would have put Rami's look in the bottom 3, with Bishme's being at the very bottom for pretty much the first time that I can recall? If Rami didn't get auf'd in the denim challenge E8 where Prajje should've gone,  the save could have been available for  Bishme. 

 

 

[Nordly Beaumont]

6 hours ago, T Summer said:

IDK, I got the intention behind Brittany's look. If making a completely covered up dress in solid fabric  with body conscious fit  would be a valid  way to answer  the  modest/sexy challenge

why wouldn't   blending sheerness with a high neck, long sleeve, full length    flowy silhouette  do that as well? ....just in a less expected way.

 

Those  saying there's nothing modest about a look that reveals one's  butt cheeks have a point, but the challenge wasn't merely to make something modest. It was to make something with both disparate elements. It was kind of a dumb challenge to begin with, the judges even said they'd be confused and overwhelmed. What did Romi get, fitted +oversized?

I agree. The challenge wasn't a "real client" challenge where she was making a dress for someone who wanted a modest look that was also sexy. The challenge was to combine the elements. I thought her way of doing it was clever.

[SemiCharmedLife]

40 minutes ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I agree. The challenge wasn't a "real client" challenge where she was making a dress for someone who wanted a modest look that was also sexy. The challenge was to combine the elements. I thought her way of doing it was clever.

I was taken aback by the idea that her dress combined sexiness and modesty, until I read some of the comments here.  All of you astute posters helped me see that the lace layer had a modest silhouette.  Yes, the end result was not modest, but the task was to have elements of both.

[carrps]

6 hours ago, T Summer said:

I would have put Rami's look in the bottom 3, with Bishme's being at the very bottom for pretty much the first time that I can recall? 

Bishme was in the bottom at least a few times in the beginning of the season. He was kind of an emotional wreck from his sister's death, and he had some real clunkers. I was so happy to see him get wrapped up in the work and let his creativity help him recover. I love Bishme.

 

[SuprSuprElevated]

Perhaps it is attributable to my age (I'm a sexagenarian, ironically enough) that I happen to believe a woman can be sexy without being exposed. Brittney's model was exposed. I realize that modern culture doesn't really have a problem with that.

Plus, I hear my mother in my ear, lol.

[carrps]

I've seen a lot of body exposure over the last decade or so, and Brittany's was miles more tasteful than a lot of what I've seen on red carpets and such.

[SuprSuprElevated]

24 minutes ago, carrps said:

I've seen a lot of body exposure over the last decade or so, and Brittany's was miles more tasteful than a lot of what I've seen on red carpets and such.

I'm not saying it was distasteful, just doesn't meet the modest definition to me, when the entire bottom is out there, no matter how shapely it is, lol.

Perhaps it's a semantics thing.

[cinsays]

i would like to have seen what each of the stylists would have done with a sexy-modest category

[dleighg]

10 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

when the entire bottom is out there

to be fair, I don't think that was Brittany's original intent. I recall her asking the model if it was riding up and the model/Christian (!) said she was fine with it.

[sleepyjean]

MiMi couldn't do a thing with Prajjé's garment. That told me everything I needed to know.

[DEL901]

34 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

I'm not saying it was distasteful, just doesn't meet the modest definition to me, when the entire bottom is out there, no matter how shapely it is, lol.

Perhaps it's a semantics thing.

I think the design of the dress was modest.  Even the guest judge said she could sell it with a different fabric.  

[30 Helens]

57 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

I'm not saying it was distasteful, just doesn't meet the modest definition to me, when the entire bottom is out there, no matter how shapely it is, lol.

Perhaps it's a semantics thing.

I think where many people are getting stuck (not just you) are in thinking the end result had to look modest. It didn’t. It just needed elements of a modestly-designed garment. In this case, those elements were the high neckline, the long sleeves, the long skirt. That pattern, with an opaque fabric, would be a modest dress.

The sexy element was the sheer fabric. So, modest cut + sexy fabric = modest/sexy. She met the challenge.

[dleighg]

and as I pointed out upstream, on the "modest" designer's own shop page, she features a dress with a low cut design with the chest (not) covered by lace. So I guess there are different views of modest.

https://batsheva.com/

[Nordly Beaumont]

Laurence got classic/trendy, but I could see her look fitting into all the pairings (except fitted/oversized).

Sexy/modest

Basic/bold

Elegant/edgy 

Formal/casual (kind of a stretch but maybe)

No real point to this, it's just a thought that occured to me...

 

 

[SuprSuprElevated]

Ok y'all, I'm moving on from the modesty thing. I feel my way, you feel yours.

It's all good, but just agree to disagree. ✌️

53 minutes ago, dleighg said:

So I guess there are different views of modest.

You think?  lol

[dleighg]

as a slight tangent from @Nordly Beaumont 's comment above, all this discussion seems to indicate that the challenge didn't make a whole lot of sense. And the term "double bind" seemed like some Barbie-esque cultural point (a la America Ferrara's speech) they were bound and determined to make, but it didn't really connect to the challenge. Oh well, I know they have to keep coming up with "new" ideas.

[Stats Queen]

3 hours ago, dleighg said:

all this discussion seems to indicate that the challenge didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I agree. And it was a one day challenge - why?

I don’t think Korto’s was they worst, but I thought she should have been send home several weeks ago.

I wonder if they saved Bishme since he’s been on fire the last few episodes. With so few left until the final runway, they may have been focused on who they want to see in the finales.

The weirdest thing to me was Elaine saying nice things about Rami …

[rhofmovalley]

6 hours ago, sleepyjean said:

MiMi couldn't do a thing with Prajjé's garment. That told me everything I needed to know.

If Mimi can't make it work...it can't work. 

[Pattycake2]

I thought Bishme’s was the worst followed but Prajje.  Yes, Brittany’s was sexy and modest, if she was on the beach.

[sleepyjean]

On 8/19/2023 at 2:34 PM, lgandkihei said:

I'm talking about the grease!   I don't think that any woman- -Black, white, Asian, Latin or anything else- - wants to be seen looking like a tub of Crisco has been dumped on her scalp, and that's how Elaine looked this week.  The top of her head was nearly dripping with dark wet grease, and then the natural part exploded out from there, with a different (lighter because it was dry) color. I'm not sure if that's all her hair or if there are extensions in there, but the natural part was fine.  The part that had the axle grease dripping off wasn't, and I didn't hear a word of her critiques because I was too busy staring at her head.

Maybe Elaine was trying to do a mashup of competing styles herself? Unrestrained vs controlled? Exuberant vs sophisticated?

That's all I've got. Otherwise I can't think of any good reason for this. Whatever the concept was, the execution was not what it needed to be. 

 

[RoseAllDay]

Tamra Judge from Real Housewives of Orange County. Eerily familiar, no?

 

[pally]

I just finished watching Season 5, Korto's original season.  She was sarcastic and snarky, especially towards Kenley, who no one liked. In the current season, she was still sarcastic and snarky but somehow a bitterness came through more than anything.

[IvySpice]

47 minutes ago, sleepyjean said:

Maybe Elaine was trying to do a mashup of competing styles herself? Unrestrained vs controlled? Exuberant vs sophisticated?

Greasy hair vs. washed?

Korto was sent home for giving the judges lip. Fair enough on both sides -- she can say what she thinks, they can choose to keep designers who respect their authoritah. I came in 100% on the side of OG designers, especially a snarky black woman with so much ethnic expression in her work, but even I was losing patience with her this season. Yeah, the judging is crummy -- it's a reality show. If you can't live with that, it's not the right place for you.

Laurence's work looked super pink on my TV. It never crossed my mind that it was actually red.

Speaking of Laurence, her design would have been impossible with a plus model, so that really drove home the disadvantage of using one. Of course it is possible to make gorgeous clothes for a heavier model, but it takes a lot of options off the table, and that's a disadvantage. I hate that about the way the show hires models now.

[stewedsquash]

On 8/19/2023 at 11:29 AM, RoseAllDay said:

And who stole Prajje’s idea for Elaine’s top??

The same person who dressed the mannequin in the same style top next to Christian at Mood?

I liked that the guest judge was just nice and kind in her comments and that she said if she had this challenge she wouldn’t be able to do it and would be crying in Mood, way back in the corner of the store.

[littlebennysmom]

On 8/20/2023 at 4:03 PM, dleighg said:

and as I pointed out upstream, on the "modest" designer's own shop page, she features a dress with a low cut design with the chest (not) covered by lace. So I guess there are different views of modest.

https://batsheva.com/

Ugh, I looked at the website -- my eyes!

[SuprSuprElevated]

14 hours ago, sleepyjean said:

Maybe Elaine was trying to do a mashup of competing styles herself? Unrestrained vs controlled? Exuberant vs sophisticated?

That's all I've got. Otherwise I can't think of any good reason for this. Whatever the concept was, the execution was not what it needed to be. 

 

And I was left wondering if Prajje was credited for knocking off designing her top.

[Lamb18]

On 8/18/2023 at 3:59 PM, Salacious Kitty said:

Has Rami ever designed pants? 

There was a menswear challenge in season 4 so he must have at least once.

[cinsays]

10 hours ago, littlebennysmom said:

Ugh, I looked at the website -- my eyes!

yeah, pretty drab, dark, ugly stuff

[Salacious Kitty]

4 hours ago, Lamb18 said:

There was a menswear challenge in season 4 so he must have at least once.

Not if he designed a kilt! 😃

[Dr Mama]

21 hours ago, sleepyjean said:

Maybe Elaine was trying to do a mashup of competing styles herself? Unrestrained vs controlled? Exuberant vs sophisticated?

 

That's exactly what I thought when I saw her hair--a mash up of slicked back and full

[Kitty Redstone]

On 8/19/2023 at 2:34 PM, lgandkihei said:

All that aside, good riddance to Korto.  Finally.  I don't remember her being so miserable during her first go-round, but this time, I was over her and her rotten attitude by about the second week, and it was a relief to see her get the ax at long last.  

She whined a lot about Leann. But it was offset by the presence of Kenley, who (when she wasn't engaging in self-aggrandizement) whined and whined and whined until all the oxygen was sucked out of the room and no one much noticed Korto's whining.

 

On 8/20/2023 at 3:44 AM, T Summer said:

IDK, I got the intention behind Brittany's look.

Same. The modesty was all in the silhouette. I actually loved her look and thought it should have won.

[SouthernChick]

I, too, thought Brittany should have won.

[escatefromny]

On 8/18/2023 at 10:16 PM, 40Love said:

It's all ego. She has such a high opinion of herself, that she can't even fathom anyone criticizing her. She needs that kind of confidence in the dog-eat-dog world of fashion. But, it wasn't working for her on this show. What's interesting is she came on the show to be judged... but can't take the judgment. Guess she just expected to win every challenge... every week. Glad she's gone. 

I really liked Korto in past seasons, but she was really unpleasant this go around.  She seemed (to me) to be going through something.  She just seemed petulant, bitter and full of empty bravado.  She did mention a divorce . . .

[MaryAnneSpier]

Compare Korto's farewell to previous contestants'. No one really seemed too broken up about her departure; I think the other contestants were over her whining and sour attitude too.

[RoseAllDay]

Just caught Korto’s flame out on the runway again. She may have already been a goner, but the way Elaine looked at Nina sealed it. The judges do NOT appreciate being talked back to, even though their critiques can be questionable at times. 

I don’t think Korto really cared. She spoke her truth, she stayed true to herself, peace out.

[lark37]

On 8/18/2023 at 12:11 AM, buttersister said:

I know people have said that the larger-sized models are a disadvantage on this runway, but Christian broke through designing a (gorgeous) red-carpet gown for Leslie Jones. And his runway shows have featured models of all sizes. Not to mention, he partnered with Lane Bryant. So somehow, he finds ways to, uh, make it work.

Go, Bishme. Korto may have said things that hurt her with the judges tonight, but among the very true things she said, it’s Bishme’s to win.

Big Christian Siriano fan here—although I didn’t like him much on his season of PR.  I follow his career and runway shows. So I have to disagree that him dressing Leslie Jones was his “break through moment” although it was great that he was the one designer willing to make her something for her film premiere. Christian was already a successful designer who had dressed many a celeb for red carpets for quite a few years before then.  The Leslie Jones gown was in 2016.  Here are some celebs wearing his gowns on red carpets before 2015.

https://www.latimes.com/la-ig-christian-siriano-red-carpet-photos-20150217-photogallery.html

He consistently uses plus size models in his runway shows too  

I agree with others that the fix seems to be in for Laurence.  I know leather is her signature, but has she done much other than jackets or jumpsuits in leather? I think they are keeping Rami around to make a final collection to justify Christian’s save of him.  I didn’t think Korto’s was the worst. I’ve never gotten what the judges see in Praije (sp?).  I didn’t get him in his season nor do I this time. Christian’s Golden Girls was pretty spot on!  Bishme may have a chance of winning the whole thing as well,  but I think this is Laurence’s redemption season. 

Edited September 2, 2023 by lark37
Double negative and length