Having said that my bottom 3 from the final 6 were Viktor, Christopher and Jeffrey, and having covered that Melissa's work was OK but quite expected, you probably know that these were my top 2 for the challenge. At least before we include the middle entries, which were pretty good. So, lets go.
Elena
Prepare for shock and awe, as I say something you who've read my last two posts about Elena never thought they'd hear from me. Elena should totally have been the winner this week. This just accomplishes everything you'd want it to (more or less.) Perfectly wearable fashionable cocktail dress, check. Sexy without being slutty, huge check. New and interesting, check. BEAUTIFULLY constructed, check. Looks like Elena without being totally what is expected of her, check. The seaming is beautiful and done perfectly. It's quite simple-looking, but that's only because it's done in white. It is very much constructed and designed. The judges took issue with it for being referential of Balenciaga, but I really don't think it's so obviously a rip-off that they ought to have marked her down for it. She had a cocktail called Sardinia, and chose to be inspired by Italy and Italian fashion. I'm not sure taking the fashion of Italy as an inspiration was the best idea (which by the way is the ONLY issue I have with the design of the dress) but it's done so well. This looks like a dress from the Elena Slivnyak collection at Milan Fashion Week, and that's fine. The neoprene is an ingenious fabric choice, especially because its main use is in wetsuits and Sardinia is a popular destination for divers, and it fits like a glove. There's one other thing I don't love, and that's the wristband. The dress just doesn't need it. But I don't think it needed anything once the purse and shoes were on, and the cuff probably detracts less than most other choices she had. Couldn't she have made a clutch or something? Oh, and the hair. The make up is great but I'd love to see sleeker, cleaner hair. The judges may have said it was too sporty then but I want to see the back of the dress, even though it looks very simple. Either way, it's a third truly amazing look in a row, and the judges were right, she needs to stop talking her work down because it's good. In fact, this was near perfect. Since they didn't give her the win when I really feel she clearly deserved it, I'm sorry to say that I don't think Elena is the winner the producers have in mind, even though if you ended the series now she'd pretty much HAVE to be the winner. Yet another spectacular look, and I'm gonna let her keep her name as a reward, rather than giving her a cruel nickname based on maybe her heritage or her general insanity(Tom and Lorenzo called her "Insane in the Ukraine," which I love.) Another great job, Elena.
Korto
The fact that the judges gave completely contrasting critiques ("Lose the belt/this would suck without the belt") is, to me, yet more evidence of the amount of bullshit that is sometimes dumped on the runway to justify what can at times be seemingly arbitrary decisions. And the decision to rank this dress 7th, just above Jeffrey and Melissa is pretty arbitrary. The back is kinda ugly, I really hate the square of fabric with the straight lines coming off of it, and truth be told, I just don't think patent leather works with this printed fabric, but change that for a matte black fabric and it's pretty great. Love the hem, love the print but the patent leather is such a big mistake that it would possibly be a low scorer. And to be honest there's not a huge amount going on without the patent leather, so it kinda does fail. This is the first time I've started typing a critique from memory, rather than having the look in front of me. Won't be doing that again, because in my head this was a lot stronger than it is in reality. Korto's been doing edgy for the last two challenges, and I've yet to see if that's a deliberate evolution or just what the challenges called for, but this feels like an attempt to infuse the Korto I was crying out for last week with some edge, and it doesn't work. I don't know if it's possible even, but it's not managed here. Do better, Korto. I believe in you.
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