Althea is stealing glances over her shoulder at all of this, and says in an interview that while there are pieces of her stuff that need work, nothing needs as much as Irina's dress. "There's pins everywhere," she says. "And there's probably about twenty yards of hemming. Does she want to get to that, soon? I don't know." Hee. Now who's being smug? Meanwhile, Irina is trying to explain to Tim that she got sort of insane with wrapping and braiding fabric on the dress, and the whole thing makes him put his head in his hands and say, in all seriousness, "Good God, you have a lot of work to do." Y'all, if Tim Gunn said that to me, in that tone, I would jump off a bridge. Before leaving, he reminds them that they have a lot of work to do on their stuff as well as model castings, fittings and hair and makeup consultations.

The time has come for model casting, which would have been interesting to watch in detail, but we only see a little of it. "What kind of models are you looking for?" Carol Hannah asks. Irina: "The pretty kind?" Ha! Althea says she's looking for certain body types for certain looks, and they head off to meet the casting director. After a parade of skinny chicks, they make their final selections. The best is when Carol Hannah asks one girl where she's from. "I'm from Norway," the girl says. CH: "I want her." Beautiful.

Back in the workroom, much work is happening when they are surprised by a visit from none other than the Vicious Twins, Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. Everyone is mortified, but as Irina says, advice from these two is always valuable. She's glad, she says, to get a chance to talk to them when they're not grilling them on the runway. In other news, I wish Irina didn't pronounce a hard G on the end of every -ing word. Everything sounds like: "when they're not grilleen gus on the runway." I am sure this is a product of both her parents' accented speech and perhaps the area of NY she's from? I have no room to talk, of course, having the most ridiculous accent of all time, myself, but still. It bugs.

Nina and Michael seem to give pretty good advice. Everything, they say, should totally exemplify who the finalists as designers. If they see anything in their collections that's been done before, Nina says, they should take that stuff out. Michael explains how to order the show, in high/low moments like the audience is being taken for a ride. All good. Nina adds that they should think about color, and seemingly without knowing anything about Irina's collection, says that an all-black collection is difficult to get editorial on. I think that's what she says, anyway -- the edit is really weird and the camera is on Irina, not Nina, so who knows if Nina was even in the room when she said this? Anyway, Irina puts her head in her hands. In an interview, she has the unmitigated gall to say that she disagrees with Nina. "I know she's a judge," Irina says, "but color just doesn't fit in to what I'm doing with this collection." Well, Michael did tell them to go with their guts, so I guess... sometimes, though, your gut will turn on you. Ask Carol Hannah! (See what I did?)