The Apprentice 2, Episode 6: Dressed for Success

Elizabeth and Jen meet with the buyers and learn a few key lessons. It’s important for each line to have a focus. Quality and luxury will sell. What about cost? Jen and Elizabeth learn that it’s important for the pricing to be in line with the competitors.

Mosaic goes to meet with buyers as well, and Kevin explains that they want to “set the bar low” so that they can generate sympathy from the buyers. Wow, that’s a really bad plan. I’ve worked with buyers before, and they’re not going to spend their money on your product because they feel sorry for you. Really, the guys should be asking questions, and talking up how great Ilsa’s designs are. Kevin, instead, tells them that they might not know a lot about fashion, but “We know what we like on the ladies.” One of the buyers makes a snarky comment about the dearth of successful straight male designers. Heh. The men look worried.

The design team goes to buy fabric. Raj keeps pulling odd patterns and colors for Ilsa’s approval. She dismisses the pink polka dots, for example, as “too goofy.” The guys continue to pull bolts of fabric at random to show her, and Ilsa looks more and more annoyed. Carolyn, meanwhile, is just about ready to die laughing. Carolyn tells us that the men are really out of their element, but that Kelly is doing a good job of organizing them. And indeed he is – Kelly makes the guys focus and bring Ilsa only what she needs. He adds that Raj, with his weird fabric choices, is not helping, and that by whipping everyone into shape, he feels like he’s the project manager. Between this and his successful design, Kelly is doing a great job at this task.

With considerably less fanfare, the women buy their fabric. Elizabeth and Jen return, and Elizabeth immediately begins questioning things. She wonders if the fabric is rich enough. Ivana is exasperated. The team, she says, has had problems in the past with over-thinking things, and much of it comes from Elizabeth. Elizabeth proves her point by talking about how important it is to have a focus item in the line. The women tell her they have one – the capelet. Elizabeth argues that it should be something else, but Ivana shuts her down.

With that, the women head off to meet with the people doing the sewing. Darren tells them that they don’t need to have the models come in for measurements, that he’s fine with using the information from the modeling agency. This feels like foreshadowing, but I don’t think this is necessarily a disaster. All models have cards with their measurements on them, so the tailors can work with that. And I believe it’s common to do some last-minute alterations right before a runway show.

Mosaic returns to the Parsons School of Design to get to work. They immediately descend on the model cards and decide that it’s very, very important to call the models in for measurements. Ah, so I believe we are setting up a contrast between the guys and the women. The models arrive, and John says that the team buzzed around the women like bees around a hive. Ilsa rolls her eyes. Raj says that, despite his Harvard education, Andy has nothing to say to the women, and just giggled. Raj admits that he was in “a chemical haze” around the women. We see him speaking German to one of the models, who seems charmed by him. Ilsa clearly thinks they’re all a bunch of morons.

The next morning, Apex arrives and sees all of their clothing ready to go. Maria tries on a jacket, and admits that her vocabulary has been reduced to “fabulous” and “love it, love it, love it!” Sandy does a runway walk, and all of the women play dress-up with the clothes. Maria is happy because Darren already has the line sheets done, and she’s confident that the buyers will be impressed.

Things aren’t so good for Mosaic – they still need to get a lot of sewing done. Kelly says that it’s important for Ilsa to focus. Raj is in charge of writing the line sheets, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he keeps asking Ilsa for advice. Ilsa brushes him off, saying she needs to work. Kelly finally pulls him aside and tells him to leave her alone – after all, only Ilsa can do this part of the job. Kevin takes all of this in, and says that as project manager, John should have taken control of the situation.

While most of the women of Apex head to the St. Regis hotel to get the models ready, Elizabeth and Lil Stacy stay behind to attach swatches to cards. Elizabeth says that she wishes she could have gone with the rest of the women, but that she isn’t in with the rest of the group. Poor Cinderella.

Mosaic is scrambling to get ready. Kevin and Wes are in charge of pricing, Andy is handling the line sheets, and the rest of the guys take off to get the models ready. Kevin thinks John should have stayed put to help them with these more crucial tasks. Good point – how many guys does it take to supervise the models getting their hair and makeup done? Kevin reviews the pricing with Ilsa, then he and Wes increase the prices where they see fit. Meanwhile, at the hotel, Raj is sporting a smoking jacket and talking to one of the models about the tragic lack of bow ties in the typical man’s closet. John says that he’s nervous, but confident.

It’s time for the fashion show! The men and women get front row seats on one side of the runway, and the buyers take the other side. Donald Trump arrives to the usual hail of trumpets, a bit that never fails to amuse me. Isaac Mizrahi announces the fashion show, and fans of Season One recall Omarosa’s fatefully calling him “Isaac Miz-a-ra-hee.” The women’s line is first, and I must say, it looks like they met Sandy’s goal of producing clothing that is fashionable, yet accessible. The guys think the women made bad choices – buyers won’t buy backless dresses and mini skirts. What? These guys don’t know what they’re talking about, I’m afraid. The men’s line is up next. Ivana says that her first reaction was, “Who raided my father’s attic and who cut up my sofa?” Indeed, Ilsa’s clothes are fashionable, but not wearable for the average woman. Jennifer tells the guys that the clothes are “so couture,” then has to explain to Wes what that means.

The buyers work away at their calculators, and Raj looks nervous. Once the buys are in, the teams meet to go over the results. Carolyn reports that the men sold $7,735 worth of clothes. Ooh, that feels low, especially considering how many buyers were there. George says that the women outsold them by far with $22,060. Trump says that the women gave the men “a big thrashing,” and that the men priced their merchandise too high. The women’s reward will be a celebrity party at Hugo Boss featuring performances by Cirque de Soleil. The men have won an all expenses paid trip to the boardroom.

The men head back to the suite, downhearted. John talks to Raj about strategy. Kevin and Wes were responsible for pricing – maybe he should bring both of them to the boardroom. Raj thinks that makes sense. Chris joins them and agrees. Then, Chris says that this specific task aside, he’d fire Andy if he could. John says that he feels confident with the job he did, then heads inside so that the other guys won’t think he, Raj, and Chris are conspiring. Raj looks down at the Hugo Boss party and declares that it looks boring.