The designers were split into two teams in episode 2, in a challenge testing their ability to envision what style might look like a hundred years from now.Crave
We begin this week’s Project Runway Canada episode at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Design and Technology Lab, where host Coco Rocha stands next to a large robot, ready to announce this week’s futuristic-minded challenge: design avant-garde looks for the year 2125, using textiles created in the lab.
The cutting-edge materials include a transparent printed sheet, camo-patterned foil, UV foam fabric that glows in the dark and gridded cotton – all things one could fall deep into a rabbit hole trying to decode, but there’s no time for that. The designers must split into two teams and choose two tech fabrics each to incorporate into a cohesive collection.
Cat Préfontaine promptly proclaims that she’s not a team player, invoking the classic reality show trope, “I’m not here to make friends,” which originated on the first season of Survivor in 2000 and has only occasionally worked in contestants’ favour.
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Regardless, Préfontaine is selected for Delayne Dixon’s “Team Forward” when Dixon and fellow previous challenge winner Leeland Mitchell are assigned to split up the contestants. Dixon also chooses Rome Ramsay, Curtis Matysek and Taalrumiq. Naimo Awale, a two-time loser, lands on the team after being the last designer left unchosen.
Host Coco Rocha welcomes contestants to TMU’s Design and Technology Lab.Crave
Meanwhile, Mitchell chooses Charles Lu, Maya Ginzburg, Foster Siyawareva and Little Feather for his “Team Fashion.” Then, they’re off to the fabric store where they each have $600 to flesh out their looks (fabric budgets have come a long way since the first season of Project Runway U.S., when the designers were asked to create outfits out of items from the produce aisle).
The work commences, and predictably, the unfamiliar textiles prove tricky: Team Fashion keeps forgetting to use the stiff transparent sheet, while Team Forward’s camo-foil is crinkly and gets easily warped (in a bad way).
Awale of the latter group struggles so much that she needs to make an entirely new bodice for her dress, which she doesn’t finish in time.
Préfontaine, meanwhile, ignores the textiles almost entirely and decides to make a chain mail mesh athleisure bodysuit with a randomly tacked-on gridded cotton cape. Not only does it disregard the instructions, but it’s also absurd. Are we really supposed to believe our descendants will be roaming the earth dressed like Joan of Arc meets Kim Kardashian? (Actually, maybe that’s not too far off.)
Then, it’s onto the runway, where beauty brand founder and mega-influencer Patrick Ta joins as guest judge. Team Fashion has the better collection: Siyawareva, who wasn’t sure he could pull off avant-garde, ends up slaying with a sharply tailored ruffled coat and accompanying dissertation on resource scarcity in the next century. “When something is scarce, it’s luxury,” he says.
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Lu, who has been angling for a win since the first episode, finally gets one with a funnel-necked coat dress made from champagne-coloured mesh and fluorescent UV foam adorned with transparent sheet butterfly shapes, which wows the judges.
Team Forward flops with its weak links Préfontaine, Awale and Taalrumiq, the latter of whose vision of a 2125 warrior is a hot mess of mismatched layers. “Your culture is beautiful, your heritage is beautiful, this look simply isn’t,” Ta says to her. Ouch.
Ultimately, Awale and Taalrumiq are voted out of the competition – an outcome that seems only partially fair. Ego blows can either motivate or flatten you, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that poor Awale couldn’t rise above her challenges.
But to me, Préfontaine was the biggest loser this episode. She was already in the bottom once before and completely failed to follow direction this episode.
Justice for Taalrumiq, who showed innovation and thoughtfulness, and even if the final look was a bit ugly, at least swung for something conceptually rich and culturally grounded. Even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes, as some might say.