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feather_ghyllEpisode 8 – Quarter-finals – Fashion week
I started thinking it was Fashion in Movies week, given the first challenge: a simplified version of the Givenchy dress Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. On choice of fabric, I suppose Asmaa won, going for a blue satin, Mia’s pale aqua was too light, and though she went for black, Lauren went for a matte (she really loathes anything bright and show-offy.) Vicky and Tony went for patterns, and I liked his more than hers and more than I expected to, but their problems were that they used the same material for their linings. Well, this was more of a problem for Tony.
Most of the contestants had little fun with the burrito method, but watching them bag it out was fun. Contestants had already pointed out their mis-steps too us – the biggest was Lauren’s invisible zip fail, which led to her ripping the zip off, having to redo it, and that not very well and running out of time. Asmaa, with the fewest criticisms, came out on top, next Mia, who was beaming, Vicky was in the middle, Tony next to last, and Lauren last.
The transformation challenge was a tribute to a collection by Esme: or a request to turn shower curtains into a high-impact, high-fashion outfit. I thought they all obliged, with Lauren feeling the need to redeem herself by going thoroughly transparent, Tony honouring Matthew, Asmaa kind of playing it safe for her with underwear, Vicky letting a bright yellow do a lot of the work, and Mia draping for a very her outfit. The judges were kind, but Tony came last. I was a little surprised Asmaa was fourth and Vicky third, when Esme had pointed out the obvious ‘won’t stay up’ problem with Vicky’s. They liked being able to see the underpinnings of Lauren’s outfit (although, again, totally unwearable), but Mia’s work, with an element of intrigue, came top. She and Asmaa did feel like safeish bets for the semis at this point.
Given some of the business involving smoking, I tend to believe that Sara is or was a smoker. The made to measure involved a smoking jacket and male models. Cue bemoaning about not having done tailored stuff for men before. The buzz word was ‘luxury’, which meant materials like velvet, which bring their own challenges.
Asmaa and Tony were both going for purple with black trim, but different detailing. Tony was doing a difficult type of pocket and made a mistake with one early on. He also wore his Willy Wonka-inspired jacket A LOT. Asmaa was dithering over shoulder pads and doing piping.
Lauren was also going for velvet, but, controversially not doing lining, so all her sewing would be visible, and she lost time in joining a sleeve, so some of her grand plans went rather by the wayside. I liked the look of Vicky’s ultimately, although it was always clear that the fit was going to be a problem, and Patrick (clearly talking about his life’s work) pointed out it was too short too.
Mia had decided to take inspiration from Harry Styles (of course) and herself, using a brocade that made everyone talk about grannies. She was doing a scalloped lapel, which she ended up having to do in quite a rush, so the judges were surprised by its quality, although she’d clearly bodged the belt just to get it finished. I would like to see the ‘original’ lapel in a block colour to truly make up my mind about whether I liked it.
Lauren had not just not finished, but she’d sewn her pockets on wrong, so for all the attempt to ramp up the tension about who’d be going (and who’d get garment of the week) it was fairly obvious that it should be Lauren, who cried. Asmaa might have been less ambitious than Mia or Tony, but her sewing was clearly a notch above theirs, so she got the garlands.
(What WAS Vicky wearing? I’m not just talking about the hat. All of it – colour and style – was just offensive to my tastes. Having said that, Sara’s sleeves made her look as if her hands were bandaged.)
Episode 9 – Semi-finals - Utilitarian week
Pattern challenge: five hours to make a man’s trench coat. Vicky discovered late that she’d probably picked an unkind material, while Mia went for pink, and Asmaa a nice blue. Lots of pieces to sew, difficulty over easing the sleeve in, then getting the belt right, and Vicky realised too late that she’d put the buttons in on the wrong side, while doing the buttons practically last was tough for everyone. Asmaa got only the lightest of criticisms, Tony a few more and Mia one or two more (also picking such a light-coloured fabric showed up all the creases), but Vicky’s coat was in a different, lower league.
The transformation challenge (they only had 90 minutes) felt as if it was scraping the barrel – transform these ‘cleaning materials’ from tabards to rubber gloves to bits of mop into an outfit. Everyone had different focuses. Tony thought he’d done a successful bit of draping, but ran out of steam. Asmaa seemed to have decent ideas, Vicky was not super confident, while Mia had gone for rubber gloves, but was nearly thrown by Sara’s love of puns and mention of fetishes.
But Vicky’s second idea – to weave scourers and tabards together - was sound. Asmaa had run out of material and so had to find more and come up with more ideas, Mia was slowly fashioning an outfit. Tony was filling in gaps. It turned out that Vicky, by putting two simple ideas together, had created the most structural outfit. And Mia wasn’t far behind with her use of colour-blocked gloves. Asmaa was indeed undermined by the back and front not feeling like a cohesive whole, although 10 more minutes might have helped her. Tony deserved to come last.
The judges tried to make out that it depended on the made to measure but I was fairly sure, as I’ve been for a while, that Asmaa and Mia (the least experienced of them) would go through. A good job for the programme as they’re the best at explaining what they’re up to.
Challenge: boilersuit for ladies. Indeed, Sara was modelling one. From the drawings, Asmaa and Tony’s had the most impact, and Vicky’s pattern was clearly the simplest. They all tried to do the most stressful bits early, but nearly all ended up rushing to finish. The judges highlighted that Vicky wasn’t pushing herself, and that Tony’s use of a male pattern wasn’t going to lead to the best fit for his female model. Mia’s sewing had got her boilersuit to a high level, but Asmaa’s was almost faultless and looked fab. Tony’s could have had more impact and once the judges pointed out the faults, they were impossible to ignore, but Vicky’s had the least impact on the runway and the issues around the middle did for her, perhaps unsurprisingly. Her multi-coloured nails were fun, though.
Two out of three finalists were the ones I expected, then.
Episode 10 – Finals
The judges and Sara had definitely dressed up for it. We were informed (or reminded, in my case) that Tony had only won one garment of the week, Mia had won two and was strong in the transformation challenge, while Asmaa was strong in the pattern challenge and had won three garments of the week on the trot, with Patrick suggesting that that was because she’d learned to rein in her ambitions enough that she could do what she had to do well.
The pattern challenge was a Victoriana dress and it didn’t seem as if they had a lot of time for what they were asked to do – gathering, overlocking/babylocking and frills. But it soon became clear that Asmaa and Tony, having gone for silver and gold versions of the same luxe material, had made a mistake, because the more you touched it or did anything with it, the more it frayed. A less bothered Mia, who had chosen a luxurious pattern in a more stable material, could follow the steps more peaceably, while Tony had to redo one bit, and Asmaa started diverging from the instructions to try to avoid the dreaded fraying.
Unsurprisingly, after the judges pointed out where they’d gone wrong, the ranking was Tony third, Asmaa second and a shocked Mia first. But as Tony said, he was sure of a top three place in the transformation challenge!
Which was both easier and more difficult than usual. Smart to glitzy outfits, both ladies and gents, to be transformed to a men’s red carpet outfit that your Billy Porter or Timothy Chalamet would wear. I rather thought that all three outfits were typical of the contestants: Mia draped, Asmaa had a voluminous sleeve and Tony made the fewest structural changes, kept being distracted by trying on what he was doing, and was more inspired by the 1970s. Asmaa had Billy Porter in mind. Mia spent too much time on the top, because the bottom from her was underwhelming, but the judges would kindly see some David Bowie in the outfit. Tony probably made the most wearable outfit – I was less enamoured of what Asmaa did than the judges (I could have done without the netting, and I had quibbles about the proportions.) But Mia came third, Tony second and Asmaa first quite understandably.
Sara had a chat with the judges, who weren’t putting all that much weight on the transformation challenge, suggesting they’d been quite happy with all three there. So, it did depend on the made to measure, but it was probably between Asmaa and Mia.
Final challenge was to make a ‘two in one’ dress (no, me neither, and though I thought I got it after the explanation, I didn’t get it until I saw them do it on the catwalk on the end. And really, is this a fashion item that is going to work anywhere other than the Met Ball, a movie or the final of Sewing Bee?)
Tony was sewing for one of his daughters, and was only transforming the skirt. Like his, Mia’s outside dress, for a friend, would be black, while Asmaa had the advantage of going from blue to green, and as she started working on the green dress, it already looked wonderfully sophisticated. And she was hoping to suck up to Esme with a bow, something we haven’t seen all that much of this series.
Tony’s second dress’s pattern was quite trippy and fascinated Sara. Mia’s second dress was pink and sparkly, of course.
This whole episode was interspersed with clips in which family and friends and the finalists talked about what sewing/the show/being in the final meant to them.
The judges had a confab where they emphasised that Tony was doing something simpler than the rest, although he was rightly proud of having learned to use interfacing for inserting zips. As Sara called out the various timechecks (they’d had 90 minutes beforehand to cut out the materials as there was more than double the work with a normal dress), Mia started to look more panicked. Asmaa had to redo something, but Mia was leaving stuff ‘for after’ and then realised she did something wrong and by the time time was up, had sewed an important part of the transformation mechanism in the wrong place and was in tears.
Cut to the catwalk. My overall take on Tony’s little black dress was that it was bulky, but the judges noted and praised little details. His daughter then had to walk the catwalk again (they were asking even more than usual from non-professional models) and reveal the second dress, which she did with a shimmy and it looked impressive.
Mia’s little black dress also looked baggy and when we got to see the back, the second dress was unfortunately visible. The mechanism sort of worked, but the black of the first dress was visible because she’d ran out of time to check and fix the lengths, and although nice things were said about the sewing, and the second dress with the diamante strap could have been very pretty, we already knew she’d lost the competition.
I suspect they made sure on purpose (either in the order they filmed it or the edit) that Asmaa came last. In a striking cobalt blue and with a looser top, the first dress had the most impact – Esme queried the lack of a popper, which was the main sign that Asmaa could have done with a little more time. But then her friend was asked to walk the catwalk again and use the mechanism and it was as magical as Cinderella, the way the material swirled around her body, blue becoming green and a very sophisticated green dress emerged. The front was plainer, relying on the sparkles, but the back was a wow.
Former contestants returned, as did the finalists’ family and friends – and Mia’s dad was very clumsy with the mannequin containing Asmaa’s made to measure. They found someone to support all of the finalists, but I think all the viewers knew, as we had from that moment of transformation (or when Mia stumbled, and I’d thought Asmaa was the favourite from very early on) who would win. But Sara had a conversation with the judges where no names were mentioned for form’s sake. The winner was indeed Asmaa, and deservedly so. She’s always clearly been very good, and she was the clear winner of the final challenge.
I do love the catch-up about everyone, that they’d all met up – it seems like a very bonding experience, and sewing is generally a solo activity – and what their projects had been since filming. Vicky’s memory quilt sounded lovely, while there was a sense that most of them had used what they’d learned (Tony doing a zero-waste suit, Lizzie drafting her own pattern.) And learning that Mia is now studying costume design feels about right.
I started thinking it was Fashion in Movies week, given the first challenge: a simplified version of the Givenchy dress Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. On choice of fabric, I suppose Asmaa won, going for a blue satin, Mia’s pale aqua was too light, and though she went for black, Lauren went for a matte (she really loathes anything bright and show-offy.) Vicky and Tony went for patterns, and I liked his more than hers and more than I expected to, but their problems were that they used the same material for their linings. Well, this was more of a problem for Tony.
Most of the contestants had little fun with the burrito method, but watching them bag it out was fun. Contestants had already pointed out their mis-steps too us – the biggest was Lauren’s invisible zip fail, which led to her ripping the zip off, having to redo it, and that not very well and running out of time. Asmaa, with the fewest criticisms, came out on top, next Mia, who was beaming, Vicky was in the middle, Tony next to last, and Lauren last.
The transformation challenge was a tribute to a collection by Esme: or a request to turn shower curtains into a high-impact, high-fashion outfit. I thought they all obliged, with Lauren feeling the need to redeem herself by going thoroughly transparent, Tony honouring Matthew, Asmaa kind of playing it safe for her with underwear, Vicky letting a bright yellow do a lot of the work, and Mia draping for a very her outfit. The judges were kind, but Tony came last. I was a little surprised Asmaa was fourth and Vicky third, when Esme had pointed out the obvious ‘won’t stay up’ problem with Vicky’s. They liked being able to see the underpinnings of Lauren’s outfit (although, again, totally unwearable), but Mia’s work, with an element of intrigue, came top. She and Asmaa did feel like safeish bets for the semis at this point.
Given some of the business involving smoking, I tend to believe that Sara is or was a smoker. The made to measure involved a smoking jacket and male models. Cue bemoaning about not having done tailored stuff for men before. The buzz word was ‘luxury’, which meant materials like velvet, which bring their own challenges.
Asmaa and Tony were both going for purple with black trim, but different detailing. Tony was doing a difficult type of pocket and made a mistake with one early on. He also wore his Willy Wonka-inspired jacket A LOT. Asmaa was dithering over shoulder pads and doing piping.
Lauren was also going for velvet, but, controversially not doing lining, so all her sewing would be visible, and she lost time in joining a sleeve, so some of her grand plans went rather by the wayside. I liked the look of Vicky’s ultimately, although it was always clear that the fit was going to be a problem, and Patrick (clearly talking about his life’s work) pointed out it was too short too.
Mia had decided to take inspiration from Harry Styles (of course) and herself, using a brocade that made everyone talk about grannies. She was doing a scalloped lapel, which she ended up having to do in quite a rush, so the judges were surprised by its quality, although she’d clearly bodged the belt just to get it finished. I would like to see the ‘original’ lapel in a block colour to truly make up my mind about whether I liked it.
Lauren had not just not finished, but she’d sewn her pockets on wrong, so for all the attempt to ramp up the tension about who’d be going (and who’d get garment of the week) it was fairly obvious that it should be Lauren, who cried. Asmaa might have been less ambitious than Mia or Tony, but her sewing was clearly a notch above theirs, so she got the garlands.
(What WAS Vicky wearing? I’m not just talking about the hat. All of it – colour and style – was just offensive to my tastes. Having said that, Sara’s sleeves made her look as if her hands were bandaged.)
Episode 9 – Semi-finals - Utilitarian week
Pattern challenge: five hours to make a man’s trench coat. Vicky discovered late that she’d probably picked an unkind material, while Mia went for pink, and Asmaa a nice blue. Lots of pieces to sew, difficulty over easing the sleeve in, then getting the belt right, and Vicky realised too late that she’d put the buttons in on the wrong side, while doing the buttons practically last was tough for everyone. Asmaa got only the lightest of criticisms, Tony a few more and Mia one or two more (also picking such a light-coloured fabric showed up all the creases), but Vicky’s coat was in a different, lower league.
The transformation challenge (they only had 90 minutes) felt as if it was scraping the barrel – transform these ‘cleaning materials’ from tabards to rubber gloves to bits of mop into an outfit. Everyone had different focuses. Tony thought he’d done a successful bit of draping, but ran out of steam. Asmaa seemed to have decent ideas, Vicky was not super confident, while Mia had gone for rubber gloves, but was nearly thrown by Sara’s love of puns and mention of fetishes.
But Vicky’s second idea – to weave scourers and tabards together - was sound. Asmaa had run out of material and so had to find more and come up with more ideas, Mia was slowly fashioning an outfit. Tony was filling in gaps. It turned out that Vicky, by putting two simple ideas together, had created the most structural outfit. And Mia wasn’t far behind with her use of colour-blocked gloves. Asmaa was indeed undermined by the back and front not feeling like a cohesive whole, although 10 more minutes might have helped her. Tony deserved to come last.
The judges tried to make out that it depended on the made to measure but I was fairly sure, as I’ve been for a while, that Asmaa and Mia (the least experienced of them) would go through. A good job for the programme as they’re the best at explaining what they’re up to.
Challenge: boilersuit for ladies. Indeed, Sara was modelling one. From the drawings, Asmaa and Tony’s had the most impact, and Vicky’s pattern was clearly the simplest. They all tried to do the most stressful bits early, but nearly all ended up rushing to finish. The judges highlighted that Vicky wasn’t pushing herself, and that Tony’s use of a male pattern wasn’t going to lead to the best fit for his female model. Mia’s sewing had got her boilersuit to a high level, but Asmaa’s was almost faultless and looked fab. Tony’s could have had more impact and once the judges pointed out the faults, they were impossible to ignore, but Vicky’s had the least impact on the runway and the issues around the middle did for her, perhaps unsurprisingly. Her multi-coloured nails were fun, though.
Two out of three finalists were the ones I expected, then.
Episode 10 – Finals
The judges and Sara had definitely dressed up for it. We were informed (or reminded, in my case) that Tony had only won one garment of the week, Mia had won two and was strong in the transformation challenge, while Asmaa was strong in the pattern challenge and had won three garments of the week on the trot, with Patrick suggesting that that was because she’d learned to rein in her ambitions enough that she could do what she had to do well.
The pattern challenge was a Victoriana dress and it didn’t seem as if they had a lot of time for what they were asked to do – gathering, overlocking/babylocking and frills. But it soon became clear that Asmaa and Tony, having gone for silver and gold versions of the same luxe material, had made a mistake, because the more you touched it or did anything with it, the more it frayed. A less bothered Mia, who had chosen a luxurious pattern in a more stable material, could follow the steps more peaceably, while Tony had to redo one bit, and Asmaa started diverging from the instructions to try to avoid the dreaded fraying.
Unsurprisingly, after the judges pointed out where they’d gone wrong, the ranking was Tony third, Asmaa second and a shocked Mia first. But as Tony said, he was sure of a top three place in the transformation challenge!
Which was both easier and more difficult than usual. Smart to glitzy outfits, both ladies and gents, to be transformed to a men’s red carpet outfit that your Billy Porter or Timothy Chalamet would wear. I rather thought that all three outfits were typical of the contestants: Mia draped, Asmaa had a voluminous sleeve and Tony made the fewest structural changes, kept being distracted by trying on what he was doing, and was more inspired by the 1970s. Asmaa had Billy Porter in mind. Mia spent too much time on the top, because the bottom from her was underwhelming, but the judges would kindly see some David Bowie in the outfit. Tony probably made the most wearable outfit – I was less enamoured of what Asmaa did than the judges (I could have done without the netting, and I had quibbles about the proportions.) But Mia came third, Tony second and Asmaa first quite understandably.
Sara had a chat with the judges, who weren’t putting all that much weight on the transformation challenge, suggesting they’d been quite happy with all three there. So, it did depend on the made to measure, but it was probably between Asmaa and Mia.
Final challenge was to make a ‘two in one’ dress (no, me neither, and though I thought I got it after the explanation, I didn’t get it until I saw them do it on the catwalk on the end. And really, is this a fashion item that is going to work anywhere other than the Met Ball, a movie or the final of Sewing Bee?)
Tony was sewing for one of his daughters, and was only transforming the skirt. Like his, Mia’s outside dress, for a friend, would be black, while Asmaa had the advantage of going from blue to green, and as she started working on the green dress, it already looked wonderfully sophisticated. And she was hoping to suck up to Esme with a bow, something we haven’t seen all that much of this series.
Tony’s second dress’s pattern was quite trippy and fascinated Sara. Mia’s second dress was pink and sparkly, of course.
This whole episode was interspersed with clips in which family and friends and the finalists talked about what sewing/the show/being in the final meant to them.
The judges had a confab where they emphasised that Tony was doing something simpler than the rest, although he was rightly proud of having learned to use interfacing for inserting zips. As Sara called out the various timechecks (they’d had 90 minutes beforehand to cut out the materials as there was more than double the work with a normal dress), Mia started to look more panicked. Asmaa had to redo something, but Mia was leaving stuff ‘for after’ and then realised she did something wrong and by the time time was up, had sewed an important part of the transformation mechanism in the wrong place and was in tears.
Cut to the catwalk. My overall take on Tony’s little black dress was that it was bulky, but the judges noted and praised little details. His daughter then had to walk the catwalk again (they were asking even more than usual from non-professional models) and reveal the second dress, which she did with a shimmy and it looked impressive.
Mia’s little black dress also looked baggy and when we got to see the back, the second dress was unfortunately visible. The mechanism sort of worked, but the black of the first dress was visible because she’d ran out of time to check and fix the lengths, and although nice things were said about the sewing, and the second dress with the diamante strap could have been very pretty, we already knew she’d lost the competition.
I suspect they made sure on purpose (either in the order they filmed it or the edit) that Asmaa came last. In a striking cobalt blue and with a looser top, the first dress had the most impact – Esme queried the lack of a popper, which was the main sign that Asmaa could have done with a little more time. But then her friend was asked to walk the catwalk again and use the mechanism and it was as magical as Cinderella, the way the material swirled around her body, blue becoming green and a very sophisticated green dress emerged. The front was plainer, relying on the sparkles, but the back was a wow.
Former contestants returned, as did the finalists’ family and friends – and Mia’s dad was very clumsy with the mannequin containing Asmaa’s made to measure. They found someone to support all of the finalists, but I think all the viewers knew, as we had from that moment of transformation (or when Mia stumbled, and I’d thought Asmaa was the favourite from very early on) who would win. But Sara had a conversation with the judges where no names were mentioned for form’s sake. The winner was indeed Asmaa, and deservedly so. She’s always clearly been very good, and she was the clear winner of the final challenge.
I do love the catch-up about everyone, that they’d all met up – it seems like a very bonding experience, and sewing is generally a solo activity – and what their projects had been since filming. Vicky’s memory quilt sounded lovely, while there was a sense that most of them had used what they’d learned (Tony doing a zero-waste suit, Lizzie drafting her own pattern.) And learning that Mia is now studying costume design feels about right.
