We have to protect her at all costs.

How many men does it take to wear a handbag?

The Bag Awards

As it’s Reduce, Reuse, Resign-Oneself-To-Flopping Week there was only one way it could start – with a million scraps of fabric and someone sobbing in the corner

and Suzy having a complete mental collapse over making one of these subpar Christmas present coded bags was not exactly helping to sell them to the masses

every week Suzy comes just a little bit closer to unleashing her inner Regina George. The only thing stopping her is Esme’s sudden decision that pink cannot even be worn on Wednesdays which doesn’t seem like a valid critique when “It looks like I’m squinting at a Cath Kidston prototype” is right there

add it to the cafeteria table for misfits of the spectrum (not that one, that’s a different table and they’re having a very lively discussion about Neopets)

I’m beginning to see why we ended up with several series in which everyone just kept making dark blue or black pattern challenge pieces. Luckily Luke will never be deterred from colour and if there’s a way to make the pattern challenge supremely gay, they will find it

and just to flex on the several other sewers languishing away in quilting hell, Luke used their spare time to make a little extra luggage tag

Please welcome to the stage, Miss Chanely Accoutrement.

While Luke’s approach to the full spectrum of colour was a showcase of pride, Suzy’s was very much a Rorschach Test of pure panic and anxiety which is arguably as much a part of queer culture as Gilbert Baker

I can see a rooster fighting an artistically foreshortened poodle

Suzy’s biggest mistake was choosing the cute measuring tape fabric which was a one sided print, a fact she seemed to only realise after getting most of the way through making her tiny bits of fabric ravioli

and making sure all of the scraps were facing the right way up ate into her time quite severely and it very much was not worth it as Esme and Patrick both questioned the cohesion of flap and sack (the scientific terms for bag anatomy)

Don didn’t really have any such excuse, it all seemed to just go to hell in a handcart very suddenly

and unfortunately, Kiell was too busy setting up Clothing Hoarders Anonymous with Lauren to supervise Don’s weekly descent into The Sewing Abyss™

however, you can take the man out of research physics but you’ll never be able to take the research physics out of the man – he truly is the Edwin Hubble of Sewing Bee

and thus the bag just became his science fair project about Tropical Chaos Theory

he could’ve just made a baking soda and vinegar volcano or exposed the Edison Company as elephant murderers like a normal person.

There were a few good points to Don’s bag, they liked the colours and the neatness of his quilting

Unfortunately, it barely operated as a bag

although, at least you could wrestle the flap into submission, Lauren’s bag was a sort of Ark of the Covenant situation and shall never be opened

you’ll never see that compact mirror you thought you’d need when you went out to dinner with the girls EVER AGAIN.

While most of the sewers just went for a scatter shot approach to their fabric scraps because the thought of trying to control the tiny pieces of fabric was exhausting, none more so than Georgie who had no discernible theme and I can respect that

Pascha went for a more collaged approach with her Valentine’s Day bag

it’s cute and I wish more of the sewers had gone for a more creative use of the scraps and the show could’ve prompted them more towards that seeing how much they love adding a random specification exclusively for the point of making Marcus and Don’s lives miserable. Speaking of Marcus, he was just shredding African wax print and hoping for the best, getting about halfway through before deciding he should probably added a couple of stripes to make his bag go faster

and while it might look like it lacks much of a vision, once you notice the portrait of Pingu as painted by Picasso in the middle of it, you really can’t unsee it

he did have a few gaps in his fabric innards, but it was still enough to come 6th on account of Suzy’s bag induced hysteria and Don and Lauren creating a pair of barely functioning bags. King of Failing Upwards.

On the better end of the spectrum, Ailsa came in second with a less defined aesthetic than Marcus’s Waxprint Soup

it’s vaguely nautical with the blue and stripes, while still staying true to Ailsa’s fondness for the Irn Bru logo. She only narrowly beat out Alex who took third for her bag that looked like it was inspired by Britney and Justin’s wedding

but if you want to wear it, you have to wait for the bag to choose you (a reference to Arthurian legend AND NOTHING ELSE)

it’s a sort of Sword in the Stone situation, if you manage to shoulder it you get to rule England

SUCK IT CHARLES.

An Official Quilted Bag Ranking:
1. Pascha’s Heartistic Approach
2. Ailsa’s Entirely Inoffensive Vaguely Nautical Offering
3. As Close to Y2K As this Challenge Could Get
4. Georgie’s Bare Minimum Approach
5. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
6. Pingu (Picasso. Madness on fabric.)
7. Hook, Line and Pinker
8. Suzy’s Gay Anxiety Allyship
9. Chaos Theory at the Tiki Bar

The Colours, Duke, the Colours!

As with every single Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Week Transformation Challenge, the sewers would be taking a bunch of discarded clothes and making a new outfit out of them

except this time they had to make a monochromatic outfit, which seems a weird specification when they’re at the mercy of whoever doomed these clothes to a fate worse than being reduced to mattress stuffing by Oxfam. Most of the sewers did manage to rummage together a decently sized colour coordinated pile, Marcus however proved to be a bit of a magpie for muddy earth tones

sadly the tactic of hoping Esme and Patrick would stay a safe 50 feet away from the outfit at all times didn’t really pan out for him

which you could tell was going to happen when he was the only one the producers prompted to explain where the outfit would be worn

I mean, what else are you going to wear to your granola eating hippy retreat in the Appalachians that has a smart-casual dress code?

it’s really quite self explanatory.

Marcus wasn’t the only one to have their colour choices questions as Don had apparently created a new The Dress™ as Esme and Patrick had the world’s shortest debate (not counting when Rishi Sunak forgets his apple crate) about whether it was red with blue stripes or blue with red stripes

IF THE MONOCHROME NATURE OF THE CHALLENGE WAS SO IMPORTANT WHY PUT THE PATTERNED DRESS IN THE MIX? That dress could’ve had a wonderful life as the dress your mum saw in a charity shop and thought would be good for a work party but then never ended up wearing so it ends up languishing away in her wardrobe for 3 years before being taken back to the same charity shop to have the same story repeated ad nauseum.
I actually really loved Don’s look and I could genuinely see the disparate parts actually being worn by a moderately trendy alt-fashion influencer with a Cider promo-code to sell, especially the top with its laced up back

it could go to same Avril Lavigne concert as Ailsa’s provided you add a fishnet glove, converse and a boomer-like nostalgia for MySpace era selfies that were 90% flash and being unashamed by how filthy your mirror was

but clearly both Esme and Patrick were prioritising judging the sewers on how ruthless they were at getting the the good block colour fabrics because Marcus and Don made up the bottom 3 alongside Suzy’s Tweety Bird French Maid outfit

both Esme and Patrick actually quite liked it, possibly because they both still use Facebook and have had their brain chemistry completely rewired to respond positively to memes like this

my research for that image lead me to this Facebook Page that I’m choosing to believe is just the most insane shipping community fueled entirely by a fervent hatred for Woodstock from Peanuts

every post in that group is going to be followed by the most insane piece of misinformation from a very obvious fake Russian based news source. Every time, like night follows day.
Patrick and Esme’s biggest critique of Suzy’s outfit is that you would need a whole period drama dressing montage to get into it

it’s amazing how often the actual getting into the garment does or doesn’t matter for these Transformation Challenge. In my eyes, it’s more a test of conceptualisation. I don’t really mind if it’d take 3 chambermaids to get you into your sexy Tweety Bird outfit for your nighttime rendezvous with Lord Barnaby Hardmeat in his matching 5 piece Sylvester suit. This is my pitch to be on the writing team for Bridgerton’s 4th season. Call me, Shonda. I HAVE IDEAS.

Speaking of Bridgerton, Luke’s for the most part did look like something I could see them putting on a background character who has 1 minorly important line of dialogue and a wig that won’t quit

the corset top is truly impressive, as was managing to have that draped white sash not make it look like a toga, others were not so lucky. Then we get to the rest of the outfit and I’m not as sold on the vague concept of a Georgian ghost puddling around her feet

the top being so elegant really does make the bottom look even more like the sheets of a motel where there’s a not 0% chance of walking into your room and finding a dead body.

Luke still managed to score second place and I think they deserved it for the workload alone, losing out only to Pascha’s nostalgic 90s sexy vampire

I didn’t love it as much as the judges did but I am also needlessly angry about the fact the one thing Bridgerton (I’m on one today) did for fashion was start a trend for corseted crop tops and as much as this is Buffy inspired, this is also what I imagine Daphne is wearing as she hunts vampires in Europe or whatever they’ve claimed her character is doing now. My entire knowledge of Bridgerton after the first season is through the Fug Girls and whatever Nicola Coughlan posts on Instagram. Call me, Shonda…?

Rounding out our top three was Lauren who had apparently taken Esme’s dislike of pink personally and was now going to force her to like it through exposure therapy

I like the sari-esque drape and silhouette (that’s going to be useful next week) I just wish she’d had enough fabric for that drape across the front to hit the floor but she’s done the best she could with the limitations of the recycled fabric.

Lastly we have Alex and Georgie – the latter only marginally beating out Alex’s easy-clean hobbit vest and matching puffer skirt

Georgie did at least have the decency to be shocked hers went down so well

especially considering most of what she seemed to have done was perform some minor waistband frankensteining and then draping her skirt over the shoulder like one of those 5 Minute Crafts life hacks for a garment I can only describe as what Pat Butcher would’ve worn if she was the Emperor of Rome in 46AD

I have a zero tolerance stance on AI Art on the blog but the need to see Pat Butcher looking like Caligula in drag is testing my resolve. If any pedants are questioning the monochrome nature of Georgie’s outfit, leopard print counts as a drag queen’s nude.

An Official Recycled Clothing Transformation Ranking:
1. Budget The Vampire Slayer
2. Luke’s Elegant Motel Murder Scene
3. YOU’RE GOING TO LIKE PINK EVENTUALLY, ESME
4. “Rawr” means “I love you” in Dinosaur
5. Caligula’s Drag Brunch Performance of Proud Mary (people had better read these bits because this sentence deserves to be seen)
6. Alex’s Easy-clean Hobbit
7. The Centre of the Tweety Bird / Colleen Camp in Clue Venn Diagram
8. The Dress Debate 2: Red and Blue Boogaloo
9. Marcus’s Granola-eating Appalachian Gentleman

Wedding Hells

As is common for RRR (sadly not that one) Week, the week’s Made to Measure Challenge was just the Transformation Challenge on an unhealthy dose of performance enhancing drugs with the sewers taking a garment you’d usually only wear once and turning it into a party dress you’ll probably only wear once. The starting garments being wedding dresses and not the TK Maxx office shirts your mum has to buy for your 15 year old brothers 2 days before the funeral of a relative they met like twice. Of course Amber Butchart was here to explain the history of white dresses but she would never be caught in something so plain so she was dressed as Mary Queen of Scots going to a fancy dress party as a strawberry

in order to stop this from becoming an endless parade of Sexy Miss Havishams in a gritty Netflix retelling of Great Expectations, the sewers were allowed to dye and deconstruct their fabrics at home. I wish they’d somehow managed to get footage of all this, mostly because I’m curious to know how bad the staining of Don’s bathtub ended up being

Ailsa and Marcus weren’t dyeing their fabrics, which I imagine was at least part of the bargain between Marcus and his wife whose marriage continues to be tested through the means of a quaint BBC talent show

it’s the light leaving the eyes of everyone in earshot when he said it for me <3

Marcus did at least have the novelty of turning the dress into a piece of menswear, opting for a lace waistcoat which sounded extremely Timothee Chalamet up until the moment it got worn over a basic cotton t-shirt

it doesn’t look quite as impactful as it would if it were on a man that looks a bit like a Victorian orphan who might die if you told him the plot of Dune, which is why I think Dune counts as a comedy. In this essay, I will…

There were a couple of fit issues with Marcus’s trousers which is probably why his model walked down the runway like an ironing board trying stop a panic attack and refused to make direct eye contact with a single person in the room

but the vest was really good and I think felt like one of the most fashion forward pieces made for this challenge – I could see someone like Ncuti Gatwa wearing it quite easily.

Ailsa had gone for the approach of finding the most-wedding-dress wedding dress she could possibly get her hands on

and then turning it into the mostest-wedding-dress wedding dress she could possibly imagine

I would have LOVED for either the tulle overlay or the undergarment to have been dyed a different colour to make her actual design elements stand out, because she had a really cool sort of industrial Pennywise thing going on

it’s a really cool outfit, but not a great wedding dress transformation because at the end of the day it still looks like you’re getting married in a refurbished warehouse to your wife with your polycule of partners making up the rest of your wedding party. More than a few of your guests have come in steampunk costumes without being prompted to. I will always love a garment that I can write fanfiction about which was the only real redeeming quality of Don’s dress

remember the 2021 final when it was so obvious Serena was going to win that Raph just said “lol” and made a dress that was 1 part Kate Bush to every 2 parts Victorian bay window? (which was unironically my favourite outfit from that challenge)

let’s just say, I wouldn’t be surprised if a cloud of smoke and a Kate Bush tribute act came flouncing out of from Don’s malfunctioning theatre curtain of a dress to perform Wuthering Heights.

Lauren continued to subject Esme to candy coloured stockholm syndrome having dyed her wedding dress the pinkest shade of pink (No, Anish Kapoor, you cannot have this one either.)

Lauren’s entire run this episode is one of the bigger clues that this was filmed when barbiecore was much more of a thing, but it’s been left in the dust we plow through Zendaya’s-Bicurious-Tennis-Movie-core and are awaiting Whatever-Mia-Goth-Does-On-The-MaXXXine-Press-Tour-core. But for now, it’s still 2023, everyone is still talking about Barbenheimer and Lauren has just smuggled 3 mini bottles of Kylie Minogue rosé into the cinema (don’t ask her where)

the construction of this is kind of a nightmare, visible lining immediately makes a garment look sloppier than it is. However, I do think a lot of that is redeemed by just how gloriously tacky this Paris Hilton on the Simple Life two piece is? I can practically hear the nasal whine as Paris and Nicole clean a dairy while wearing Miu Miu purely for the joke of the dairy owner pronouncing it as Moo Moo.

Luke had also gone for pink and like Marcus, their wedding dress had come from a personal source

their mum could have just loaned them the sleeves and they’d have had enough fabric to dress at least three of Lauren’s wine drunk friends for their saturday evening viewing of Barbie (2023) – if you couldn’t spot the annoying tipsy woman in the Barbie audience, I’m afraid you were the annoying tipsy woman in the Barbie audience.

Luke was going for an 80s inspired piece of power dressing, running into the classic problem of worrying that their garment looked like the sort of 80s clothing that belongs on a member of The X-men who isn’t even trying to hide the fact they’ve got superpowers

and while it does look a little bit like Lady Gaga got stunt cast as the Pink Ranger in a reboot of the Power Rangers

I could just as easily see Claudia Tiedemann from Dark wearing it and she was the director of a nuclear power plant

if someone had told me that I could run a nuclear power plant AND dress like a member of the Dynasty cast that could curb stomp you with an well arched eyebrow, I might have paid attention in physics classes. I’m sorry Don, I checked out after the third lesson involving pennies and magnets. That’s all I needed.

Pascha’s outfit also had a little bit of nostalgic flare with the asymmetry and generous shoulder bow going a little 80s

I do kind of love the unusual colour combination and it does at least feel like a distant cousin of the infamous 90210 prom dress

Pascha’s does look a little more like it won first place at the county farm fair though

I’d rather go to prom with the first place jersey cow than the second place jersey cow. There’s a Carrie joke in here somewhere but I’m tired, Picasso’s Pingu really took it out of me. Cow-rrie? That’ll do.

Given that I imagine Suzy collects vintage wedding dresses like Esme collects the scalps of well-intentioned middle aged men, I’m sure she had a wealth of specimens to slaughter in order to get a headstart on her entirely self-sufficient wedding

I reckon Suzy could be a Swiss Army Knife of British reality TV and she’ll crop up on MasterChef and Bake Off talking about how she’s going to cater her own wedding. Then of course she’ll she pitch up on Love Island because it turns out she hasn’t actually found her husband yet and this has all been an extended psychosis that we probably shouldn’t have encouraged but she’s so charismatic we just laugh it off and call her ~quirky~ like we did in the early 2000s. (She does actually have proof of her husband though, the clip on Instagram of his proposal in the Mood fabric store is the cutest thing – she truly has found someone to match her freak and that’s all you could ever want.)

As for Suzy’s dress, adorable and cute!

but did very much feel like the trickle down ASOS version of Alex’s more high fashion take on a similar concept

this is one of my favourite garments to come out of Sewing Bee, it’s the dream “skirt goes spinny!” dress

and further proof this series was conceptualised during The Barbiefication of Society

there is no bigger compliment than looking like a Barbie that’s been subjected to extreme body modifications by an 8 year old. I was slightly less keen on the undergarments but appreciate that one can be ready for an emergency cancan at any moment

you never know when you’re going to hear that Moulin Rouge needle drop.

Lastly we have Georgie who had a really pretty beaded fabric

and she was very much going to let the beading do the talking with her final dress being so minimalistic that it verged on just being a nightie

it is cute and I could certainly see someone like Anya Taylor-Joy wearing it provided she walks with her back to the wall the entire time because the back looked like Georgie had tried to reseal the leftovers from a chinese take-away

you’re just going to forget the chow mein is in the fridge anyway!

An Unofficial Wedding Dress Transformation Challenge:
1. In Case of Can-Can, Break Glass
2. Luke’s Pop Girlie Power Ranger
3. Pascha’s First Place (not really) Dexter Cow of a Prom Dress
4. Suzy’s Trial and Error Hen Do Outfit
5. Why does Ailsa’s dress, the largest wedding dress, not simply eat the smaller wedding dresses?
6. Lauren’s Simple Life
7. The Timothee Chalamet We Have At Home
8. Georgie’s Beaded Chow Mein Container
9. Tonight, the role of the Theatre Curtains shall be played by….

Garment of the Week was a runaway success for Alex, although I was glad to see Luke’s delightful nonsense up for consideration

and then up for debate about who to send home were m sweet baby angels, Don and Marcus – I love and underdog, I spent 4 weeks of Strictly championing Matt Goss because of an obstinate belief that he could be Skimbleshanks if he just got to Musicals Week. Sadly that failed to materialise, as will Dom managing to get to the week that forces the sewers to make fancy dress costumes

he would’ve made a fabulous Aesopian tortoise out of discarded pizza boxes.

_{And so, we brace for the well meaning intentions of Cultural Specificity Week where we’ll find out who’s Indian and who’s Outdian}