Finally, we have arrived at my second favorite challenge of every Runway season. Second only to the group challenge, of course, is the "make a garment with weird s*!%" challenge. This year we have the hardware store challenge, which started out as a cool idea and then spiralled into a mess of hammering, taping, painting, blood, sweat and tears in the workroom. As if this whole "being creative with untraditional materials" thing wasn't bad enough, the designers were also asked to make an accessory to be judged as a part of their look. The accessorizing seemed like a bit of an afterthought for most of the contestants and something that the judges only commented on if it was good. Did Emilio even have an accessory?!
Some used metal, too much metal for my liking and others were, you know, smart and actually chose to use materials that could be manipulated, cut, stretched and sewn…what a concept! We ended up being served a smorgasboard of garments from awesome to alieny to armorish to promlike.
After the jump, check out the very excitable winner, the extremely sore loser and the podcast where we discuss the controiversial aufing, how I still hate Seth Aaron and much much more…
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.