Fashion Star eliminated menswear designer Nicholas Bowes during Tuesday night's premiere of the new reality fashion design competition on NBC.
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Bowes, a 38-year-old Australian and former male model who currently resides in Los Angeles, CA, was eliminated after Fashion Star's fourteen designers participated in a fashion show in which they each presented three designs that represented their signature look for purchase to clothing buyers Nicole Christie, Terron E. Schaefer and Caprice Willard.
In addition, celebrity mentors Jessica Simpson, Nicole Richie and John Varvatos also offered their feedback on the designs.
Bowes presented three motorcycle jacket designs which were panned as non-distinctive and dated by Simpson, Richie and Varvatos -- resulting in him bashing Simpson and Richie after hearing their feedback.
"I think it's a very fashion-forward piece. If you understood what was going [on] right now, you'd probably understand that that's what is going on right now with men's fashion," Bowes told Simpson.
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"Look, everyone's got their own opinion. I think like John's advice from a guy's point of view is not bad, but it's very hard to understand the girls giving advice about men's fashion," he added after Richie's feedback.
"That is so Aussie chauvinist!" Fashion Star host Elle Macpherson, a fellow Australian native, interjected.
"Um, I'm a little bit offended. Not a little bit, a lot of bit," Simpson replied. "To talk down to a woman -- in this business -- we're running the world right now, okay?! I'm trying to be nice, because I really kind of want to hit you across the face right now!"
"I'm embarrassed," Macpherson said.
"Why?" Bowes asked.
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"Because these women have been in fashion for many years, they have an opinion!" Macpherson responded.
"You know there's two women buyers behind you, right?" Simpson pointed out.
"Hi," Christie said as she waved to Bowes from the buyers' box on the other side of the Fashion Star stage.
Bowes subsequently failed to receive purchase offers from Christie, Schaefer or Willard -- putting him in danger of elimination.
Six designers received purchase orders for their designs and therefore automatically advanced to Fashion Star's next round.
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Willard, a buyer for Macy's, purchased the designs offered by Edmond Newton, Lizzie Parker and Nikki Poulos. Christie, a buyer for H&M, bought the items designed by Nzimiro Oputa and Sarah Parrott, and Schaefer purchased Orly Shani's designs for Saks Fifth Avenue.
The purchases left eight designers facing possible elimination: Barbara Bates, Ross Bennett, Bowes, Ronnie Escalante, Oscar Fierro, Lisa Vian Hunter, Kara Laricks, and Luciana Scarabello.
Christie, Schaefer and Willard then narrowed the elimination pool to Bowes, Fierro, and Laricks by naming them as the week's bottom three designers.
As the show's mentors, Simpson, Richie and Varvatos were then given the chance to save one designer and selected Fierro -- leading to the buyers' announcement that they had decided to eliminate Bowes.
"Nicholas, your design was commercial tonight but we've seen it before. To truly be successful in this business, you have to be open to feedback and you weren't tonight. And at this point I doubt that you will be able to show the development needed to come up with a full collection at the end of this series for all of three of the retailers sitting here," Christie told Bowes.
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"I'm sorry Nicholas, you're not our Fashion Star -- you're going home," Schaefer said.
Bowes appeared to remain less than apologetic for his earlier comments even after his elimination.
"It felt like a little bit of a slap in the face. But people who know what is current will probably be a little shocked that I got kicked off. I really liked my motorcycle jacket and I wasn't saying that girls don't have a clue when it comes to fashion, I'm just saying I don't think they understand high-end fashion," he said.
About The Author: Steven Rogers