‘Making the Cut’ season 3 episode 2 recap: In ‘Activewear Champions,’ whose sporty looks were ‘staggering’?
With the elimination of Emily Bargeron in the season three premiere of “Making the Cut” for her evening wear looks that looked way too daytime, there were nine designers left competing to become the next great global brand: Curtis Cassell, Rafael Chaouiche, Georgia Hardinge, Sienna Li, Jeanette Limas, Markantoine Lynch-Boisvert, Gabriella Meyer, Ciara Chyanne Morgan, and Yannik Zamboni. So who kept up with the pace in “Activewear Champions,” which premiered on Amazon Prime on August 19?
Assignment
The designers are immediately introduced to a special guest, Chief Design Officer for Champion North America Ned Munroe. If the title of the episode weren’t clear enough this is an activewear assignment, in which the designers will create two-look activewear collections in collaboration with Champion. They would receive Champion reverse weave fabric, plus Champion trims and logos to create their designs.
Unlike “Evening Wear,” which gave the designers two weeks to work from home before arriving on the show, this assignment gives them only two days to complete their task with the help of seamstresses and a textile printer. The winner will create a capsule collection for the “Making the Cut” store and the Champion website. “Activewear is not only for the gym. It has become a streetwear staple,” host Heidi Klum explains. “And as a reminder, accessible never means boring or watered down.” That last bit sounds like she’s throwing a little shade at the designers for their accessible looks in “Evening Wear,” many of which didn’t live up to the high-fashion runway looks in the judges’ eyes.
Day One
The assignment starts with the designers getting a bit of inspiration. Some designers head to Runyon Canyon to get glimpses of the Hollywood sign. Jeanette is there and takes inspiration from dried flowers that she plans to turn into an art piece for her runway look. Markantoine is off in a completely different creative direction, but it’s no less promising: as a child of the 1990s, he’s going to design an “activewear grunge” look inspired by Kurt Cobain and his famous black-and-red striped sweater.
Other designers visit the Banc of California Stadium, the home of the LA Football Club. But Gabriella isn’t going for a soccer look. She’s going to try to expand the usual Champion brand with après-ski looks that the company isn’t usually known for. Meanwhile, Rafael wants to make something “comfortable and cool,” Curtis is inspired by the cross patterns in the stadium to make his own new Champion textile, and Ciara wants to make … something. At this stage of the game she’s just jotting down ideas and will sort them out later, which is worrying because she just landed in the bottom two in the last assignment and only has two days for this one.
Compare her to Georgia, who is already cutting her patterns while other designers are still getting their fabrics. That makes Curtis nervous especially since he’s planning to create his own plaid fabric using the Champion trim, and “it’s going to take a while.” We get to know Curtis a little better in his profile segment that explains the inspiration for his Queera nonbinary fashion brand. He thought of the rigid binary options for brides and grooms and wanted to make a grayscale in-between those options. He was once described as a “gender-neutral” designer, and that mortified him. He thinks of himself instead as “gender-empowering, extreme masc, extreme femme. There’s nothing neutral about me.” His first major celebrity client was Billy Porter, because of course it was. I like the cut of his jib. His “Evening Wear” looks were terrific, so I’m excited by what else he has to offer.
But I’m not sure how I feel about Markantoine yet. He talks a little smack about Sienna’s win in the previous challenge. He thought it was beautiful but didn’t represent the future of fashion like his work strives to do. That’s pretty gentle smack-talk, to be fair, but there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and I wonder if the show is setting up a rude awakening for him, as is sometimes the case on reality TV.
There’s also a fine line between a loose, open-minded design process and complete disorder, which is what I’m concerned Ciara is getting herself into as she still isn’t 100% sure about her designs. She says that’s her normal process, but does her normal process involve creating two finished looks in just two days? “Why does this skirt have so many freaking pattern pieces? What was I thinking?” she wonders to herself as she’s scrambling to prepare a tech pack for her seamstress. “I think I bit off a little bit more than I can chew.”
Day Two
Morning comes, and Ciara is literally praying to God. “I like to start my day with prayer because I have a lot of moments that I doubt myself,” she says. “But when that does happen I have to remind myself, okay Ciara you’ve come this far, you have to keep going.” Gotta give her credit for perseverance. She’s not giving up, though she forgot to include her elastic in her tech pack, so she’s got extra work to do.
Yannik is happy with the work from his seamstress. Rafael is just about done with his accessible look and now just needs to work on his runway look, for which he decides to incorporate netting. Markantoine is confident because he doesn’t think a lot of the other looks in the workroom seem like true activewear. He’s getting kind of a shady edit today, isn’t he? And Jeanette asks her fellow designers for their scraps of fabric so she can stuff some flowery balls for her top.
Then it’s time for Tim Talks, which will give us a sense of how the designers are really doing. For starters, Curtis’s custom fabric is “staggering … I’m crazy about it.” But Tim Gunn thinks Gabriella’s runway look isn’t nearly elevated enough to capture the judges’ attention. Yannik is making “very deconstructed underwear” and Tim “can’t wait to see this.” But “I hope they understand it,” says Yannik. I admire his creativity and willingness to push the limits; “Do you have a problem to show your butt?” he later asks one of his models. And after just a couple of episodes I feel like I can already identify a Yannik look on sight. That’s how much he stands out on a runway.
Tim thinks Rafael’s accessible look is “literally a champion,” but that means he’s going to have to step it up on the runway look to make sure it’s “more of a wow” because the accessible design is “a tough act to follow.” And as for Ciara, Tim worries that her accessible look is more elevated than her runway look. The accessible design is also made in a fabric that will be unforgiving if there are any fit issues (we in the business call that foreshadowing). And Tim can’t wait to see Markantoine’s skater-boy look on the runway, though he’s not so sure about Markantoine considering adding leopard print to his design.
At this point we get a closer look at Markantoine’s life and career in a profile that shines a new light on him. He’s had his fashion brand since 2015 full of denim and skatewear. He also works as a fashion teacher. But in 2019 he was the victim of a gay bashing and was left with four facial fractures and an inability to work for months. “But now I’m here and I’m ready to take over the world,” he says. Okay, Markantoine, you’ve won me back. You’ve earned a little shade after what you’ve been through and come back from.
Model fittings go well for Curtis, whose strappy runway look reminds him of “if Edward Scissorhands did sports.” Yannik doesn’t have anything for his models to try on yet — worrisome. And lo and behold Ciara’s unforgiving accessible look doesn’t fit her model so she’ll have to improvise. It would take took long to alter it to fit properly, so she decides it’s faster just to change the whole design. “I guess I’m just ambitious like that.” Give her credit for keeping her cool. Other designers might pull their hair out at such a setback, but Ciara is doing her best to roll with the punches.
Fashion Show
The day of the show Yannik hits a setback of his own. The seamstress returns his tech pack without a key piece of the garment due to a lack of time. “I have no pants!” Yannik exclaims. “I have to do a pair of pants or my model is naked. Gonna show his willy.” This is Amazon Prime so I think you’re allowed to show willy here, though the judges might object to that particular fashion statement. We’ll find out a few minutes later how much skin he ends up showing on the runway. But he too is good-humored and rolling with the punches. I hope he sticks around awhile.
The show itself takes place in a futuristic studio with a ceiling of multicolored lights, which has been the backdrop for photo shoots, fashion campaigns, and commercials for activewear. The first designer to show their work in this eye-popping intergalactic space station of a runway is Rafael. “This is how you start a show,” says designer and judge Jeremy Scott. They love the giant Champion logo earrings that accompany the sexy mesh runway look, and Ned appreciates that Rafael did his homework as the mesh ties in with Champion history.
Markantoine is next, and his confidence throughout the episode proves to be well-earned (sorry for doubting you, Markantoine!). “I’m here for this grunge chic,” says Jeremy, while actress and judge Nicole Richie considers it “exciting.” The accessible look is also “super cool,” according to Heidi, but not as exciting as the first look. Gabriella follows, but her two looks don’t go over very well. The skiing theme bothers Ned since it doesn’t fit the Champion brand. I don’t think Gabriella was ignorant of this, just trying to put a new spin on it, which I appreciate even though I agree with the judges that the looks don’t work. The first après-ski look feels like an après-ski costume from a Wes Anderson movie, and the second jumpsuit fits poorly in the wrong choice of fabric.
The last assignment winner, Sienna, brings out a look that reminds Nicole of a “mental asylum” … in a good way. The judges consider the two looks a little chaotic but young girls would love them. Both Heidi and Nicole think their daughters would want the designs. So not a slam dunk like Sienna’s first assignment, but not a bad showing for someone who hadn’t designed activewear before. The mental asylum is followed by Yannik’s “free the nipple” first look, about which the judges are “intrigued” — and yes, the model is wearing pants, so Yannik didn’t free willy after all. The second bathing suit/underwear look is described by Nicole as a “hot mud wrestling competition” … again, in a good way. I’m kinda digging Nicole’s taste for metaphors, and Ned digs the jockstrap reference to Champion design history.
Ciara’s struggle is evident in her two looks, with silhouettes that are too simple, lacking in wow factor, “underwhelming.” To Ned, the turtlenecks and skirts feel more like officewear than activewear. And once again they notice fit issues with an unforgiving fabric. Having this problem for two straight challenges could be damning. So far it looks like it’s between her and Gabriella for elimination. But Jeanette could be in trouble too since her bubbly art piece looks more like an “avant garde collaboration with Fruit of the Loom.” The judges also think the colors are underwhelming and that the second accessible look is bland, like a trip to the airport according to Nicole, and she doesn’t mean that in a good way.
The last two are Curtis and Georgia. Nicole likes Georgia’s “ice queen” version of sporty, though the cape seems like an afterthought to Heidi. The accessible look is strong too, but the judges feel like they’ve seen it before; it’s not new or exciting. Then, for the second week in a row, Curtis is one of my favorite designers with his woven runway look and his plaid print accessible look. The judges think the accessible look would absolutely sell, he “absolutely nailed it” with his “gutsy” designs. Hard to believe he thought the judges might hate it.
Judging
The judges call four people forward for critiques, but not two of the designers I was expecting. The top two are Rafael and Markantoine, both deserving, but I’m surprised Curtis isn’t getting a critique to make it a top three. Markantoine is the first to hear the judges’ comments, and they reiterate how strong his first look is and how his second packed a little less of a punch. Jeremy says the runway look would have made for a great accessible look and he could have punched it up even further for the high-fashion piece. Rafael is next. He hears that his runway design was fun, sexy, and dramatic, but still Champion. Unsurprisingly, given that showstopper of an accessible look, Rafael is named the winner of the assignment, so he gets a collaborative capsule collection with Champion — pardon all the alliteration. (Watch our interview with Rafael below.)
Curtis isn’t left out of the fun, though. They call him forward next, and he’s nervous since this is usually when the judges talk to the bottom designers, but in this case they have Ned deliver some more good news. Even though Curtis didn’t win this challenge, Ned still wants to work with him to make and sell his accessible look, which is almost as big a win as winning the assignment outright.
And now we get to the bottom designers: Jeanette and Ciara (not Gabriella?). Jeanette’s art piece didn’t work for the judges and didn’t lean enough into the Champion brand. They were Heidi’s two least favorite looks. But by talking to her, Jeremy changes his mind, and by majority vote Jeanette makes the cut! Heidi makes it clear that it was a close call, though. I suspect that means Nicole wanted her to stay and Heidi wanted her to go, with Jeremy changing his vote to give Jeanette another chance.
That was bad news for Ciara, though, who was the next bottom look. The fit problems. The lack of fantasy in the runway look. The fact that both looks were almost identical. The drab color choices. The lack of imagination. Ciara is eliminated. She doesn’t argue to try to change the judges’ minds, merely thanks them for their time and the opportunity to design for them. In turn, the judges encourage her to keep going. She wouldn’t have gotten on the show if she weren’t wildly talented.
“This experience has done nothing but lit a fire under me,” says Ciara in her exit interview. “This opportunity means a lot to me because I feel like I’m opening up doors for other people and paving the way for other Black fashion designers. So I feel very grateful to be representing my culture and representing Black designers like myself.”