In which we confirm to our readers that we are indeed smoking sweet, delicious crack.



Love this dress. Love the color; love the contrast between the stiff metallic of the bodice and the flowy sheer of the skirt. And yes, we even love that Judy Jetson shoulder treatment. We think it should have been slightly toned down, however. From a proportion perspective, they're just a little too large.



We J'ADORE* this dress. Again, though: there's an issue with proportion. It's not so much that the shoulders are too prominent as the cups sit too low. The skirt is gorgeous.

* It's intentional, Frenchy. Unclench.





Our absolute favorite look of not only this collection, but all of ten collections shown. Oh Jay. Why didn't you pick this one to show the judges? All three of them would have creamed over it. Love the contrast between the flowy feminine, sparkly dress, the vivid fitted jacket, and the ass-kicking gaiters. If any look sums up Jay's aesthetic best, it's this one.




We're back to the mistake of pairing a dramatic piece with pieces that are either too low-key or too clumsy-looking. We love the jacket (even though there seems to be a technical issue with the yoke), but we hate pretty much everything else. The fit on those shorts is AWFUL.




We like the design, but it's not without its problems. We're happy to see a more toned-down shoulder treatment and we do love the bodice, but it looks a little thick and stiff on her. In addition, we think the waist is a skosh too high.

In the end, we think he had a ton of great ideas but was tripped up by the fact that he needs to edit more and he needs a better understanding of how to fit a woman's body.

There have been six winners of this competition, Of that six we only agreed with the decision twice (Jay McC and Leanne). In other instances we either disagreed outright (Jeffrey, Christian) or begrudgingly admitted that the winner took it by default because the other collections were weaker (Chloe, Irina [Actually, we forgot how much we liked Irina's]). Our point is, some readers have expressed confusion that we would tout this collection as our pick for the best while at the same time pointing out the things that don't work for us. That seems a little strange to us. It's a rare thing to show a collection where every piece and every look is perfect and universally loved. In fact, it almost never happens. We've repeated ad nauseam our reasons for thinking this was the best collection on that runway but we never meant to imply that it was flawless. To our way of thinking, there were only ever two close-to flawless collections shown in this show's history (Jay and Leanne). If anything, we would compare this to Kara Janx's decoy: eliminated from the competition, she showed up the judges by putting out a stunning collection that should have won that year. Kara's done pretty well for herself, so we think Jay's got a shot at greater success, but he really needs to tone down some of the elements he likes so much and figure out how to make them work together.

[Photo Credit: firstVIEW.com]