The Apprentice 6×05 – “Fashion”
Episode Grade: A
Stella answers the phone today, and is in fact already dressed and ready to go while everyone else is still in bed. After hearing that they’ll be meeting at the Fashion Retail Academy, and need to pack overnight bags, Stella hangs up without saying goodbye, like they do on television. Predictably, everybody goes crazy upon hearing the phrase ‘overnight bag’, because all Apprenti have a Pavlovian response to that phrase that makes them think they’ll be going somewhere awesome, like Milan or Paris. Well, except for Stuart Baggs™ who laughs in Jamie and Christopher’s faces and says “That’s so ridiculously optimistic!”, and I don’t know what is up with him this week, but it’s awesome. He’s like this throughout the episode, just making fun of all the ridiculous delusions that everybody on this show operates under, it’s amazing. In interview, he explains the source of his Greek chorus attitude this week; “Fashion is the most boring thing in the whole world.” Which I think every male candidate will say some variation on at some point in the episode, because they are all desperately concerned about the possibility that someone will see them displaying anything but disdain for the whole concept and think that they are gay. Stuart Baggs™, though, I actually believe it coming from him. Whatever else he may be, he is not a man who is overly concerned about the way he is dressed.
LSAS explains the task, which is to pick two up and coming fashion designers in London, and try to sell their shit in the Trafford Centre in Manchester, then decides to shuffle up the teams a little more, to make it “fair”, because currently there are three dudes and two chicks on Synergy, and two dudes and four chicks on Apollo, and we’re all just going to take stereotypes at face value and assume that the men have nothing to contribute on this task. Which makes it a 2/4 split, and that’s not fair. So, Liz heads over to Synergy, while Stuart Baggs™ joins Apollo. LSAS also appoints the PMs himself this time; Liz will head Synergy, Paloma will head Apollo. Do you think he’s deliberately obstructing anyone who tries the “I haven’t been PM yet” defence in the Boardroom from getting that chance? If he makes it Christopher and Alex next week, that’d be hilarious, because then literally everyone but Sandeesh and Stuart Baggs™ will have been PM at some point.
Apollo. Paloma opens up by asking who on the team is “a fashionista”, and answers her own question by flatly assuming that the answer is “Laura and Sandeesh”. Alex, the only man who doesn’t run screaming away from the gay grenade, and is instead cheerfully oblivious to it, redirects the question to the more useful question of explaining what skills he has that might be of some use on this task; “a very famous professor of retailing taught me retailing.” I’m trying to think of a more ludicrous claim I’ve ever heard on this show, but I’m coming up short. A very famous professor of retailing. Not just famous, mind you, but very famous. In interview he shares some of the wisdom he learned from this very famous professor of retailing; “Retail is all about creating a hive of honey, and getting people to the honey pot.” You want to attract customers, not repel them. That kind of knowledge is worth its weight in gold, that’s for sure.
