Isaac Mizrahi on This Week's The Fashion Show: 'She Wasn't Too Trashy, Yet Just Trashy Enough.'

Once again, The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection served up a delicious episode: Housewives from Bravo's Orange County and New Jersey wings wore the contestants' fashions, and some of them looked elegant! Really. Pick your jaw up and join us for our weekly interview with judge Isaac Mizrahi, who thinks the best designers this week infused their work with just the right amount of trash.

The housewives were great to watch, and pretty drama-free, mysteriously. What do you think they brought out in the designers?

I think the good thing was that the designers got a taste of what it was like to work with actual clients. For the most part everything on the show is ready-to-wear, but often you're called upon to do clothes for actual special clients. More and more, in the world of expensive clothes, the more service you offer someone, the better. The closer you make it to something they want to buy, the better. I think it was an incredibly good lesson to work with special clients.

Was House of Nami's win inevitable? Was it a tough decision at all?

No, I actually thought it was really close this week. I didn't think House of Nami was definitely going to win, especially because, to me, what I noticed more this time were the women. I didn't notice the clothes as much. The women are stars, so it was kind of difficult for me -- and I'm a fashion judge, all I do is look at fashion all day long -- because I thought the House of Emerald did a really good job too. Those girls looked fine. They were all fine. Somehow I was focused on the women, their jewelery, and the way they came across the runway. That said, they're all stars. It was much more difficult for me to see that the House of Nami's clothes were better.

Did the champagne color palette lose it for Emerald?

Well, I think honestly that the House of Nami's color palette worked because it was darker colors and it's just more flattering. [Emerald's] beige-y, ecru-y colors are really hard to do on actual women. In 24 hours? That's like adding another challenge to the challenge.

Honestly, those women have beige hair and skin. Maybe they were doomed to look washed out?

I think so too, I think so too. That idea of it being gold? They didn't go gold enough. It ended up beige and ecru, and they're starting with people who have beige hair and beige nails and beige lips.

I can't take credit for this observation, but Eduardo's winning dress and Golnessa's losing dress were pretty similar. Did you notice that?

Well, I mean, yeah, but the handling of it is everything. The detail, the drama of Eduardo's dress and the turning of the rustle and the flattery of the body, it came out really great. Gretchen is a good-looking specimen, but I thought that Golnessa's look made her look terrible. The way it was put together, the whole lack of knowing -- the way that flap was chewed up and slapped on that dress? I do realize it's a 24-hour challenge, but you have to just choose another design. The dress that was on Dina, I don't know -- yes, it was definitely flawed, but for some reason he really worked all of Dina's assets. If you put Dina and Gretchen side by side, you'd have a good chance that half the room is going to like Gretchen better, but when you put her in that beige dress with the top that worked well and the bottom that was too tight with that crazy banana? And then that the scary brown that didn't match anything? Or it didn't mismatch enough? Nothing about it worked.

Plus, Golnessa had that weird beanbag-chair thing affixed to the bottom of her dress. Was that her waterloo?

Yes. That was what did her in. I can't explain it -- maybe in food terms, it's like if someone made a butter sauce and it cracked. You can't serve a cracked butter sauce. That's like slapping everybody in the face. That was Dress 101 bad. For instance, take a look at Cesar's dress: It didn't work. It was a failure, I'd say. But you at least get the impression he's going somewhere. He finished it the right way. He's great at that, finishing clothes. Somehow, it didn't slap you in the face as something really terrible. The fabric didn't end up looking like remnants, whereas it looked like she had remnants of things.

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