Stylista: episode 1.5 recap "It's All About Who You Know"

Stylista: episode 1.5 “It’s All About Who You Know”

Original Air Date: 11/19/2008

Last week, the claws started to come out on Stylista. Everyone is a target, some more so than others. In this case, it’s Kate. She’s genuine if you ask me, but the other aspiring editors seem to hate her for one reason or another. It was Devin and William who were sent home, leaving the house with lots of trouble brewing.

Image © 2008 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved

 We already knew from the previews that this week’s challenge was going to have a Devil Wears Prada spin to it, which means some people are going to ace it with flying colors and others are going to fall flat on their face.

The group has a little animosity going on because no one seems to want Kate in the house. I know she’s a bit of a spazz, but honestly, I think she means well. Right away, they’re given the assistant task this week.

The Assistant Task

This week, the assistant task involves a party at NYC’s Bungalow 8. I didn’t think this place still mattered to anyone in New York, but I guess it’s still worth visiting for some. Bungalow 8 is the genius idea of super savvy and fashionable business woman Amy Sacco, and the challenge is to buy a gift for Amy that will be from Anne.

The group breaks off into pairs: Megan and Johanna, Danielle and Ashlie and Dyshaun and Kate. Kate sort of wanders over to Dyshaun, so that’s how he gets stuck with her, and he isn’t at all happy about it.

Armed with the $250 and an hour to shop, the teams take off to look for a gift. Johanna and Megan automatically decide on a cashmere throw for Amy. It’s nice, but looks kind of cheap and also is really wrinkled from being in the package. They feel they’re set with this gift.

Dyshaun and Kate are perusing jewelry, which is probably a bad choice, but they seem to think it’s good. After sorting through options, Kate is in love with the idea of gifting Amy with this ornate vintage Chanel brooch.

Ashlie and Danielle are, by far, doing the worse. They hit a travel shop and stuff a case with everything and anything a person could need when boarding a plane. I guess they don’t know that Sacco only flies private? Packed into the case are bottles of Airborne, hand sanitizer, etc. Hokey and definitely cheap looking.

They bring the gifts back to the Elle offices and Amy is down and out about every gift except the cashmere throw. And even it isn’t nice enough (she immediately comments that it’s one ply), but it will have to do. Amy deems the Chanel brooch nice, but far too personal, and I have to agree. The basket put together by Danielle and Ashlie was just a disaster, so they had no chance of winning.

Since Johanna and Megan won the challenge, they become team captains for the next one.

The Junior Editor Challenge

The teams are now in two groups of three each. Johanna selects Kate and Danielle for her team, leaving Megan with Dyshaun and Ashlie.  Johanna thinks Kate is an asset because she has a photographic memory. This challenge included memorizing a group of people who will be at the Elle party the following evening. The team members are expected to know their names, what they do, as well as a small fact about them. Not sure why the small fact is tacked on there, but it is. I guess maybe so Anne has something to chat about with these people.

Johanna’s team stays up cramming…well, she and Danielle do, while Kate eats popcorn and falls asleep early. Megan’s team breaks up the work, each memorizing 1/3 of the people.

The next day at the event, it seems the latter technique was the better one. Johanna blanks a number of times. Her flashcards didn’t work, and Kate didn’t bother studying at all, so it’s hard to say if she could have come in handy. Megan relishes this, and is glad that Johanna and her team are slacking.

The teams go back to the Elle offices to create their party page for the challenge. Anne advises them to tie the page together with a trend or theme. The teams delegate jobs differently, with Megan’s team doing more teamwork than Johanna’s. Over at Johanna’s, Kate has taken the lead and is moving the team in a certain direction while Johanna and Danielle complete most of the work that Kate is suggesting.

Megan’s team finds a theme and creates a clever title and blurb to describe the ambiance of the party.

When the teams go before the judges, neither stands out in a huge way. Megan’s team spells a designer’s name wrong, while Johanna’s team mis-ID’s an A-list makeup artist.

Deliberation

Anne and Joe Zee are not pleased (btw, the Page Six chick that always comes on VH1 is this week’s guest judge), and decided that Megan’s team should win because they at least portrayed the party as somewhere the reader would want to be, while the other team portrayed it as a stark, boring ski lodge of sorts.

The losing team is brought into Anne’s office. Since Kate stepped up to the plate, she’s safe. Johanna and Danielle are in the bottom two. Anne tells Danielle how much she’s grown…just before giving her the axe. What?! Most of the bad decisions the team made were a reflection of Johanna!

We’re down to only a few, and next week…more tears!