Mischa Barton: PR: Team Paranoia

Monday, March 22, 2010

PR: Team Paranoia

When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go...

We thought these two made a pretty good fit for an East Village kinda vibe. Jay could do something funky and Mila could do something retro. Everyone wins. Except it didn't turn out quite that way. Oh sure, there was funkiness and retro...ness, but the personality issues kind of got in the way of the win.

Actually, that's not quite true. There were definite personality issues, just not in the way you normally expect when it comes to a team challenge. In reality competitions, a team challenges means screaming and yelling, massive egos, and if we the viewers are lucky, a tear or two. Not so here. There was definitely a personality issue, but in this instance it was about one designer simply not liking the other designer's personality while the other designer blithely carried on with her work.

Model: Brittany Oldehoff

The result was easily the worst thing we've seen from Jay.

What makes it ironic (in an Alanis sort of way) is that this look encompasses all the techniques and details Jay normally hauls out to the judges' delight, but this time, they didn't quite come together the way it should have.

Let's start with that tank top. It's just all right. It has a nice graphic quality to it, but it doesn't fit her well at all. More importantly, if you're going to offer up a tank top in a design competition, it better be a damn impressive tank top.

This one ain't.

Then there are the pants. Believe it or not, we think there were a couple of cool ideas here.

For instance, we like the idea of the unusual seaming, but we're completely gobsmacked that he would attempt something like this right after Ben got auf'd for weirdly seamed pants (among other things.)

And every so often, some designer comes along who thinks women are dying to see a return of jodhpurs, but for some odd reason, the modern gal just isn't too keen on doubling the size of her hips instantly. Go figure. We can respect the attempt to do an updated version of the jodhpur, but those deflated saddle bags are weird-looking.

Model: Kristina Sajko

And then there's Mila, who went for broke this week and beamed herself directly onto the starship Enterprise.

Had we never seen Mila's work before, we might have greeted this with a "How fresh! And quirky!" but we're kind of over it at this point. But that's not fair to her so we'll give it our best shot.

But first:

Disgraceful. She should be forced to eat carbs. Models are there to do what they're told and not come up with any ideas of their own. Brutal, but that's the way it is. She'd never pull a stunt like that walking for a big-name designer because if she did, that would be the very last time she walked for any big name-designer.

Back to the look. We do like it. Really. It's just that it feels like the culmination of every other looks she's done. If we have a critique it's that the jacket is a bit too busy for us.

And we're just not that crazy about the skirt fabric.

But it was definitely a funky, modern, urban look and that's exactly what they were looking for.

It's kind of funny. This is the second team challenge where Mila's high-strung gay team mate got completely bent out of shape about having to work with her, while she remained completely oblivious to their high-pitched gay shrieking. She's like the anti-fruit fly.

Tim Gunn's Workroom:

Extended Judging: