[DESIGN STAR RECAP] Episode 2: Fashion Forward Room Design

Buckle your seatbelts kids, cause now that the goose feathers have been wet vac'd up, it was a good ole fashioned Dicks v. Chicks battle royale tonight on ep numero dos of Design Star!

Yaaaaaaay!

"Julie blew away like a feather." HA! Nice one, Michael.

Anyway, after the dust settles, all the designers scurry off to get their new assignment. Not before Nina takes a fire hose filled with bitch and soaks the shit out of everyone in the "Penthouse" though. Sidenote: PENTHOUSE?? Really!? Clearly HGTV can barely afford paint for these mofos and we're supposed to believe they're all livin in a de-luxe apt in the sky?? Let's stop being polite, and start getting real: I'm guessing "penthouse" means "apt potentially near the top floor."

Anyway.

With an ode to Project Runway, this week's challenge asked each designer to choose a piece of fashion that inspired them most from the "Design Star Fashion Show" and design a room based around it. The catch was, teams were split into two: boyz v. girlz. Each room, on each team, needed to work together AND relate back to the piece of fashion.

Confused yet? Cause shit only gets *more* complicated.

Designers don't get to choose their own fashions...I mean not really. Cause they are forced to choose a look from the most pathetic, rag tag "fashion show" my eyes ever did see. This shit looked like it was on final clearance at TJ Maxx. You know...the crap that's all inside out, and jacked up on the hangers? With deoderant marks-n-shit? Minus the Magaschoni (and ok that men's suit was kinda cute too), that's the sort of bullshit they sent down the runway. I mean, that wedding dress!? It looked like a bunny rabbit threw up all over it.

OH WAIT: annnnnd this shit all needed to go down in a ONE bedroom apartment!? So designers are sharing rooms with their totally diff fashion looks, and need to make all that shit look cohesive!? I mean!!!???

Memo to HGTV: this challenge was totally fucking retarded. I get that you want to copy Bravo and incorporate some fashion elements into your show, and I dig that. But when you ask all your mediocre designers to choose from completely disparate, ugly assed looks and come up with a cohesive overall design, you get a a big juicy crapburger. These people can't come up with a good design on their own, much less collectively. And fine: maybe that was the point, but then save the chicks v. dicks stuff for another challenge.

So, let's not beat around the bush: Nina is a total fucking bitch. I mean, at least the editors desperately want us all to think that she's a total fucking bitch, and so far: shit's working like a charm. Two mins into the show and I was ready to punch her directly in the face. She's got a way of talking to people that is this wonderfully mesmerizing combination of off-putting, know-it-all-y and judgey all at the same time. It's like the perfect trifecta of bitchtacular, and I'm not gonna lie: I'm spellbound by it.

Sidenote: have you noticed Nina's hardcore cleave during the opening credits?? This shit looks likes its from the cover of Jugs magazine!? (and everyone else looks so darn demure). Kinda bizarro.

So onto the designing!

The guys, despite some initial cattiness from Michael who dropped a "I'm questioning his taste level" and "he doesn't think outside of the box" double bitch bomb on Trent, were working together WAY better than the girls.

Ironically, Michael accuses Trent of being "too literal" mere moments after he chose a leopard print rug as a representation of his leopard print outfit. Riiiight.

Nina starts in immeds by, again, trying to take control. She convinces the girls that since she's a "professional" she should paint a mural on the wall, and the bitches agree, mostly I think cause they're convinced she'll fuck it up and then go home. Then she does a drive by purchase of a rug that no one wants but her, by systematically bullying the sales person to take it down from the display as everyone else stands by with their thumbs up their cooches. At least the bitch gets shit done.

Cut to: Stacey and her motherfucking chair. This chick spent approx as much time painting her chair as it took to grow the tree in the forest, cut it down, and build the chair in the first fucking place. Jaden Smith had pubes by the time this bitch was done painting her goddamned chair. JAYZUS. Best of all, after doing NOTHING else, Vern Yip was like "nice job, Stace!"

Back at the boys' place, everything is puppy dogs and moonbeams. Courtland is rockin a Paul Smith wall (as Gen pointed out on Twitter), and everyone is working together like they're all pledging the same gay frat.

"We were either gonna win as a team, or lose as a team"--uhm, thanks very much, Courtland. I wasn't quite sure how that team thingy majingy worked, and I totally apreesh you clearing that up for all of us.

So the winning room gets featured in Redbook magazine!? Redbook Magazine seems to be geared toward old soccer moms, and has fuck all to do with design. Also, I'm pretty sure my blog has more readers than Redbook Magazine, but whatevs.

Can we make a request, that next week, the contestants money all goes toward getting a stylist for the judges?? Pretty please? Gen looked way better this week, but Candice needs HALP, and Vern does too. Dude was rocking a janky crooked tie throughout all of the judging segements and no one told him. Candice was wearing some Mortitia Adams T-shirt that had more netting on it than that fucking ugly ass wedding dress. WON'T SOMEONE HELP THESE PEOPLE???

So, SPOILER ALERT: The Boys win. Courtland runs away with Best in Show, and he and Michael go on to record a hit iTunes song entitled: My Taste Level is Higher Than Yours. Ok, kidding, but how hard would that rule?? They could work with the producer who did that "Elegance is Learned" song with Countess Luann!

Anyway, the judges tell the dudes that they didn't like their bed, and they missed the mark with the wedding dress. All I know is, I like that bed waaaaay better than that wedding dress, and in fact, am now working hard to erase the wedding dress from my brain's memory (As well as those two HORRIBLE pillows. Where the eff are those from!? Cause clearly they didn't come from Bo Concept). They mentioned that the room should have included "fantasy and drama"  but AGAIN, that would have looked RIDIC with the rest of the place (i.e. further proof that this challenge was all sorts of DUMB).

On to the girls place.

As predicted by everyone except Nina, her mural ruined the girls' place entirely. Though I hate to say it: I do agree with her on the navy and pink...I didn't dig the rug itself, but I loved that color combo. The best part about the girls place was that gold pig though on the coffee table. I've seen it a bunch of times (I feel like they used to sell it at Matter), and it was def in Domino at some point. It reminds me of Il Porcellino in Florence.

I like the side table as well, cause I have something that looks kinda like that, but the rest of the room is just eh. And I think the bedroom is HORBS.

Vern Yip had this gigantic hard-on for that Starburst mirror and it is soooo amateur hour its not even funny (also, WTF is it inspired by? Dude on the left looks like he's going to a Pearl Jam concert in 1991 and dude on the right looks like a terrorist. Neither one of those looks scream: starburst mirror). I think I hate it so much b/c that is like THE piece that someone who knows nothing about design, but wants to get all designer-y will buy themselves as proof that they have "high style." And then their lame, non-designer-y friends will see that shit and be all "OHHHHH." All I know is: Dexter wouldn't hang that crap in the plastic, makeshift room he builds to chop up his murder victims. Gag me.

THOUGH, I *do* have to give Vern props for some of the best one-liners of the night: "This isn't garanimals" was of particular note.

OK, so do we have another case where both designs sucked a dick, and we really just needed to choose the best of the worst? Yes. Does anyone care? No.

So the ladies show up to the studio for the loser fest.

I don't know how many Teddy Bears lost their lives for Nina's vest, but based on its length, it looks to be the result of a Teddy Bear massacre.

Despite Stacey's all day chair-a-thon, she gets off scott free. Emily & Casey are also safe, so that leave Tera (not TARA, cause that makes too much fucking sense) and Nina in the bottom two.

OH SNAP!

Miss Nina got SERRRRRVVVVED. So now the girls need to go head to head in their "hosting" vids. Tera is likable, sweet and down home. Nina is cold, bitchy and charmless. Guess who wins??

Nina!!!

I have no fucking clue how, but I for one am a happy camper cause this means waaaaay more dramz next week too!. I was sad to see Tera go, mostly because I was enjoying watching everyone call her Tara on Twitter, but c'est la vie.

Next Week:

Karaoke! Or something like it! The designers need to design an outdoor space inspired by music. And there was lap dancing I think too! (kidding, ppl...gawd).