“I will not water down my designs.”
Meet Jedda-Kahn. Seems like a nice enough guy but he doesn’t appear to be cut out for television and we’re not convinced after this episode he’s cut out for the world of fashion.
This was the first time we watched this show and found ourselves wondering just why Joe was spending time with this designer. Usually there’s something in their work; some spark or germ of an idea that lets us see that they’ve got talent and potential. We hate to be harsh about a person who has a dream, but…
We’re REALLY not seeing it. It’s one thing to make something like this. Sometimes you get so close to the work you can’t step back and see it for what it is. But to vehemently defend these looks as something that “edgy” girls want to buy and wear? That’s borderline delusional.
Joe seemed to think Jedda-Kahn’s problem came down to editing, but that’s a critique for people who have a base aesthetic that can be tweaked. He didn’t seem to have an aesthetic. All his looks seemed wildly different. The only through-line was that each look had way too many elements. You could edit each piece down but you’re going to be left with a bunch of looks that tell you nothing about the designer and don’t seem to belong in the same closet. That’s not an editing issue, that’s a basic aesthetic issue. In other words, it seems to us he didn’t need to edit down; he needed to rebuild from the ground up.
Maybe Joe was just choosing his battles, because getting him to even consider editing his work was a major task in itself. Getting him to rethink his whole design philosophy was simply never going to happen.
We did feel a little bad for the guy. That critique with Joe’s fashionista friends (sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon) was HARSH. It looked to us like he’s not someone who understands the critique process. If you don’t know how to take constructive criticism, it can be extremely hard to take; hurtful, even.
We think that’s why he suddenly got all weird with Georgina Chapman. It’s like his pride couldn’t take another hit so he decided to go merrily sailing down Denial river.
We’re not sure how to explain his lack of preparation for the buyer’s meeting. The one thing Joe praised unreservedly was this guy’s technical skills, so we find it impossible to believe that this wasn’t a passive-aggressive maneuver. If the collection fails, he can always tell himself it was because Joe tried to force him to do something he didn’t want to.
We felt really bad for Joe here. We’re not naive about the realities of reality television. We doubt very much that any buyer who participates in this show will think worse of Joe just because that week’s subject didn’t have the goods. Joe’s not really putting his reputation on the line. Still, if we were in his shoes, we’d be a little embarrassed at what he was about to put the ladies from Scoop through.
The Scoop ladies were polite about it and tried to look for compliments, but the second this walked out it was all over. It’s a cute design. Nothing we haven’t seen before, but it would fit on the Scoop rack. The problem is, it’s so obviously a mess. This ain’t Project Runway. You can’t hope you’ll get by with some pins and shitty seams but no buyer is going to consider you after looking at this.
This one’s a little better, but we really don’t like that fabric.
This had a little something to it, but it was overshadowed by the poor fabric choice and the super tight fit. We’ll say it: stubborness and lack of taste are pretty much the end of the road if you want to be a fashion designer.
Come on now. Just try and tell us he wasn’t deliberately sabotaging himself. Look at that shitty hem. Why on earth couldn’t he finish this in 3 weeks? WITH a team?
This at least looks like some effort was put into it. It has some style to it. But it’s still sloppy and unfinished.
This was the piece where Joe allowed Jedda-Kahn to do whatever he wanted. It was an obvious recipe for disaster and Jedda-Kahn did not disappoint:
Alrighty then! That settles it: TASTE ISSUES. But also, somewhat revealing of his mindset. Because this dress?
Was already sitting in his showroom and had been since before Joe got involved, apparently. In other words, he threw one of his existing pieces in. Now, it could have been that he was so pressed for time and behind on the other pieces that he used it as a fallback, but we’re going to play armchair psychologists. We think he put the least amount of effort into the pieces Joe approved so he could, in his imagination, wow the ladies from Scoop with something he’d already done, thereby proving Joe wrong and proving that he’s a great designer.
Obviously, the Scoop ladies were having none of it and backed out of the room slowly before running to the elevator and frantically pushing the call button over and over again. It was uncomfortable to watch. And we really do think there was a part of him that thought he was going to impress them. He wasn’t a jerk about it, but it seemed pretty obvious to us that his pride had taken a serious hit and he just didn’t want to hear the truth.
[Screencaps: tomandlorenzo.com]
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