The Fashion Show, Season Two, Episode Two: I think I'm gonna barf!

OK, I don't know if I can make it through this episode.

Isaac: "What? It's just blood and veins and flayed human corpses. What's the big deal?"

ooooh . . .

Isaac: "Are you alright?"

I think I need to lie down . . .

Seriously, I have an aversion to anything having to do with the human circulatory system. Even typing the V word makes me have a panic attack.

David: "You mean Vaginas?"

No, I don't mean Vaginas, dummy. I mean Veins. OH MY GOD, stop making me type that word! I'm going to pass out!

David: "I'm glad you didn't mean vaginas. Because I really like vaginas."

Dominique: "He is so cute! AND he likes vaginas!"

Well, he sounds like a frickin' dream come true. You should marry him immediately.

We start the episode with Mike completely psyching himself out:

Mike: "There are no snow leopards in Africa! How can I work with people who don't know that?! If the judges are just going to reward mistakes like that, I don't think I can continue."

He's absolutely right. Snow leopards are not native to Africa. Here's the thing, though: nobody gives a shit where snow leopards live. More from Mike:

Mike: "I am so creative! No challenge could possibly be too much for me to handle."

We sure are hearing a lot from Mike. That means one of two things: either he's going to get food poisoning, or he's going to get caught cheating."

Mike: "Those are my only options?"

Well, I suppose you could just quit.

The designers get a note from Iman:

Dear designers,

It's been a day since you had the honor of having me shout at you. Do you miss me? Of course you do.
Best regards,
Iman

The designers meet Iman at one of those awful Bodies exhibitions. Iman explains that they will be creating collections based on the inside of the human body:

Iman: "I want you to make my heart skip a beat."

Not there, you don't. They'll pump you full of plastic and put you on display faster than you can say, "I'm not dead yet; I always look like rigor mortis has set in."

Obviously, we have to hear from Mike, telling us how this challenge is perfect for him and he's going to be so great. What could possibly go wrong?

The designers look around the exhibition:

David: "There is nothing sexier than a woman with no skin! I am so turned on right now."

Yeah, I'm just going into another room for a while. Let me know when it's safe to come back.

[a few minutes later]

OK? They're at the fabric store now? Good.

Calvin has a plan:

Calvin: "You want cohesive? I'm going to give you cohesive like you've never seen before. I'm going to cohesive the shit out of this collection."

Back in the workroom, Calvin is still trying to explain his vision:

Calvin: "Let me start at the beginning. OK, so about fourteen billion years ago there was this huge explosion and then the universe started expanding . . ."

Cindy: "Calvin, we don't have time for this."

After some more yelling Isaac comes in and tells them he's ready to see their story boards.

Isaac loves what he's seeing from House of Nami, especially the amazing ideas coming from Mike. I can hardly wait to see those ideas realized.

Isaac tells House of Emerald Syx that their name is really stupid and they should change it to House of Emerald, which is still stupid but slightly more appropriate:

Isaac: "The name change is a big improvement. Unfortunately, you still suck."

House of Emerald picks Jeffrey as the team leader, because he has the highly-desired quality of not being Calvin.

Isaac comes back and tells the designers he's given this a lot of thought and he's decided the challenge needs a twist. Each look will need to have one piece that is reversible.

Mike is losing it. He hasn't done anything. He complains that nobody is helping him but he hasn't asked for help and says he wouldn't accept any help even if anyone offered. He cuts up his dress and then walks out.

Tim Gunn: "Designers, I have an announcement. Mike will not be coming back."

Isaac: "Hey, what the hell are you doing here?!"

Tim Gunn: "Well, you weren't making the announcement, so I had to do it."

The other designers are completely shocked and upset:

Cesar: "Good riddance."

Rolando: "Schmuck is the funniest word I've ever heard in my life!"

Well, alright, so maybe the other designers will get over the loss.

On to the fashion show. The guest judge is Douglas Friedman, who has had an extensive career photographing Rachel Zoe. Show coordinator Stefan, who, by the way, is a huge star now and gets his own Ford commercials, makes fun of House of Emerald:

Stefan: "So, House of Cubic Zirconia, let me see if I understand this: three members of your team wanted the gauzy veils and two members didn't, so you dropped the idea? You make me sick."

House of Emerald looks like a collection . . . of bridesmaid's dresses. Seriously, it's mostly a bunch of red satin dresses with matching jackets! Awful (with two exceptions):

Cindy - She made an ugly dress with a bolero that looks slightly uglier when you turn it inside-out.
Jeffrey - He made a nice dress with really unusual pleating at the ribcage and a fold-down neckline, which is more "adjustable" than "reversible."
Tamara - She also made an ugly dress with another pointlessly "reversible" jacket that looks almost exactly the same inside-out.
Calvin - He made a jacket that folds into a bag and a skirt that becomes a cape. I loved all of it and it was an audience favorite, but it was more "adaptable" than "reversible" and, while the ideas were great, they weren't really appropriate for what looked like an evening gown. Clothes that can transition from day to evening are useful. But a formal gown with a removable skirt and a backpack just doesn't make sense.
Golnessa - She made a nice red dress with an attached scarf that can be thrown over the shoulder. That scarf is in no way reversible.

During the commercial break, David gives an impromptu concert on his mouth organ. If you know what I mean.

House of Nami has a better color story. They use pinks and salmons and layered chiffon to represent human musculature. Stefan yells at House of Nami to stop touching the models:

David: "But I love touching women! They're so sexy!"

David - He made a dress that he thinks looks like a vagina. It's kind of ugly.

David: "You just don't love vaginas as much as I do."

Well, that may be, but that was just not a great outfit.

Dominique - She made a salmon-colored dress with a long chiffon vest that supposedly reverses to reveal a vein pattern [gag], but the model doesn't put the vest back on so we don't see it reversed.
Rolando - He made a chiffon dress with a puffy chiffon thing that he calls a jacket but obviously isn't. I guess it's a stole. it looks inspired by the body but I don't think reversing it makes any difference.
Eduardo - He made a dress with a reversible skirt. The filming seems to be done specifically to prevent us from seeing what the garments look like. The model reversed the skirt but I can't tell if there was any difference. This is another crowd favorite.
Cesar - He made a pretty cool fringed dress that looks inspired by the exhibition. The reversible jacket might be puffier in back when it's reversed, but who knows? We didn't get to see the back of it before it was turned inside-out.
Nami's sixth look is a nice, kind of choppy layered chiffon dress with a scarf that doesn't seem to reverse to anything. I don't know why they assumed they had to have a sixth look. Whatever.

House of Nami wins and Eduardo wins an additional hour of work time in the next challenge.

House of Emerald is the losing team. Calvin and Jeffrey had really good looks, but Calvin couldn't work with the team and Jeffrey, as team leader, failed to magically make Calvin a more pleasant person to work with.

The judges complain about Cindy's weird, awful pleating. They also scold Tamara for listening to her teammates, who forced her to add some stupid pleats to her dress. I don't know what she was supposed to do:

Laura Brown: "You should compromise without compromising."

Oh, Laura, after a promising start last week, you've let me down.

Iman: "Did you think of telling your team that you didn't want to add the pleating?"

Tamara: "Oh, I never thought of that. What a brilliant suggestion."

Iman: "YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Calvin says he's not arguing any more:

Isaac: "That sounds like a threat."

Calvin: "No no no no NOOOOOO. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm completed."

Iman: "Calvin, you are a total dictator. And I'm being polite so I added the 'tator.'"

Iman says calvin could be the most talented designer there but nobody can stand to work with him. They punish the winning team by forcing them to take Calvin. Then they give House of Nami one minute to decide which member of the team will go to Emerald. I knew it would be Cesar. I knew he would feel protective of his team and think he needed to take the bullet. But the reality is the rest of his team now has to deal with Calvin. They're screwed.

David has a confession:

David: "I've never actually seen a vagina."