We get a bit of a montage, time passing by like sand through one’s fingers; Paloma tells the rest of her team that they need to push the expensive recycled gear to make up for their waste of a promo area, customers refusing to buy hooded waistcoats and 100% woollen coats because they’re expensive, and Jamie telling teenage girls to wear nothing under the dress he is selling them. That last was exactly as creepy as it sounds.
Alex and Laura get to see the fruits of their labours when their advert comes on the TV, presumably for the first time, and they’re both rather giddy with excitement. Laura totally did well in front of the camera. Also seeing it for the first time are Jamie and Stella, who are like “Oh shit”. “Sod this, we need to get selling,” Stella says.
One. Chris has another potential buyer for the tie dress, and she has a little girl with her, who climbs inside the dress and wraps it around herself, because at it turns out, the dress may have an outer shell of ties, but on the inside, it’s a duvet. Like it wasn’t already the most demented garment ever created. Chris comments that she “will be the only person who ever wears this dress”, and just about manages to keep his tone on the right side of the line between “this is a one-of-a-kind treasure” and “no one else would be caught dead in it”, though he’s certainly treading it close. He mentions that she’s not the first to try it on, just to make sure the latter interpretation isn’t implied, then leaves far too long of a pause to sound earnest in adding “you are the person it’s looked best on, though”. But whatever, neither Chris nor the price tag are enough to dissuade this woman from the sinister magic of the tie dress, so that is a sale. Paloma compliments him, and Chris preens and brags, and Stuart Baggs™ pops in with a Chris impression that sounds nothing like him, and yet somehow is still totally accurate, saying “I don’t know if you remember, but I was also the winning PM from last week.” I love that man. He’s never going to win, but I hope he can somehow make it to the interviews like James last year.
