Fashion, eh? What a load of old balls! Take a bit of cotton nonsense, made for a couple of quid, and sell it for millions. What’s that got to do with big business? Thus spoke the Brand himself, Stuart Baggs, utterly missing the point of what all business has ever been about since the first caveman ugged himself a profit out of a dead mammoth.
Not the Brand’s fault, though, bless him.
If there’s one thing six series of this Apprentice hooey has taught us all, business is simply about using the phrase “going forward” in as many different situations as humanly possible before passing the buck with the precision of a furious Wayne Gretzky.
But fashion was what the candidates were lumped with this?? week, and they were giddy to be told that they should pack an overnight bag for their sartorial task. Talk of Paris and Milan drifted through the Apprentice townhouse upon waves of Paco Rabanne and hairspray, as they had clearly not listened to Mr Voiceover intoning solemnly every week that these are austere times for the Good Lord.
When they were informed that their exotic trip would involve a minbus up the M6 to the glittering lights of Manchester, complete with a night in a Premier Inn, their collective face-dropping made a sound uncannily like the hooting of a million sarcastic viewers.
They were charged with choosing two clothing lines to flog to the commoners milling round the Trafford Centre of a?? Saturday, and the Good Lord anointed Paloma as Apollo’s leader and Liz as Synergy head honcho. Alex immediately?? sprang to life like a demented shitzu on Team Paloma, offering himself up as both a retail guru who had been schooled by a Professor of Retailing – “retailing” ranking?? slightly below “Hob Nobs” as the easiest thing in the world to be a professor of – and a Manc insider who knew the Trafford like the back of his zealous little hand, pouncing upon the chance to select a suitable spot for a promotional stand for their shop using his infinite Trafford knowledge.
Team Liz were slightly less enthused about the challenge ahead, with Jamie professing negative levels of fashion?? knowledge and a healthy disregard for the north. “Manchester’s a few years behind London. To get into clubs there, you still have to wear shoes,” he stated regally, temporarily confusing London with the barefoot nirvana from the musical Hair.
First order of business for both teams – a lightning tour round some of the hottest designers Shoreditch could puke up, beginning with a very unwelcome visit to Cassette Playa, a preposterous hipster nightmare ejaculated straight out of?? the fevered balls of Nathan Barley. Cassette drawled that her line was “Future primitive, luxury streetwear”, stopping?? just short of claiming it was “a bit hot cold” and “kinda?? BBC4 ITV2”, and attempted to sell Apollo an eye-raping neon?? graffitied dishcloth for a grand.
Luckily for everyone,?? Cassette was laughed offscreen and never alluded to again.
Meanwhile, Synergy rejected a high-end purveyor of slutty zip-dresses in favour of a cheaper vintage-inspired range,?? and Apollo went with a similar skinflint-baiting load of petticoats and blouses. Both teams were then entranced by the sequins and baubles of Liquorice, who made the sort of?? disposable glittery hankies much loved by the vajazzled?? youth of today.
But Liz and Jo’s policy of cooing like they were on a hen night and trying everything on while Chris adopted the defeated position of a boyfriend in Topshop dreaming of football emerged victorious over Paloma’s stony-faced professionalism, and Synergy won over the Liquorice designer. Apollo were left with the dregs, which must be the only explanation for their decision to plump with a recycled clothing line (“We actually call it upcycling”) which fashioned new clothes from old business wear, leaving the wearer looking like a delusional tramp. There was a jacket with an inexplicable hood. There was a dress made from ties. There was, and the world has been a poorer place without this, a snood made out of suit sleeves. Each selling for the GDP of a small Third World country.
But hey, everyone in Manchester likes?? sleeve-snoods, right? Right?
It was time to find out, as the teams set up shop in the palatial Trafford centre. And Paloma had clearly knocked back several pints of grumpy cola before bed, starting the day at insanely irritable and getting steadily worse, stopping at regular intervals to kick Alex soundly in the teeth. “I NEED SOLUTIONS, ALEX!” she shrieked as he got three words into a sentence querying the layout of the shop. Luckily for scapegoat-seeking Paloma, though, Alex hopped right into his grave and starting frantically digging, revealing that the amazing promo spot chosen by his Trafford-mojo was several thousand miles away from their shop and watching all his honeyed talk of prime footfall washed away on a wave of disgruntled backchat.
Over at Synergy’s unit, Liz put the I into fashionably late, delaying the shop opening in favour of wearing the merchandise and drooling at herself in the mirror. A sound ticking-off from the Trafford centre manager for?? lollygagging put paid to that behaviour, though, and Synergy were soon hopelessly looking at the massed shoppers wandering straight past their boutique, which they had styled taking inspiration from the classic “Truro Cancer Research shop” look of A/W 1958.
In order to drum up business, Stella was installed in the window of the shop in one of the shiny, slaggy numbers to wave at the punters; Nick Hewer whipped off his jacket and dreamed happily of his younger days in Amsterdam. Eventually, the trickle of customers turned into a flood as the party girls of Manchester hoovered up the sparkly dresses like they were pints of Archers and lemonade.
Back at Apollo, Alex was attempting to make up for his promo spot gaffe by drumming up custom in his own indomitable style. This mainly consisted of holding up a great big placard and shouting at people. “Do you like this dress?” he Partridged at passing women, causing them to visibly shrink away from him. Detecting that this strategy wasn’t really setting the world on fire, he arranged for Trafford Centre TV to film an advert for Apollo’s shop which would be shown on the 1984-esque all-seeing Jumbotron video screen in the food court. This positive move had no effect on steam-roller Paloma who continued to blame Apollo’s lack of sales, war and famine, the dizzying success of Wagner on X Factor, and every other misfortune to befall the planet on Alex’s poor choice of promo stand positioning.
While their vintage line started to sell well, the ridiculous recycling suit monstrosities stayed resolutely on their hangers, even when Paloma got her terrifying sales banter going. “That’s smoking hot,” she lied unconvincingly to one pillock trying the suit-hoodie, somehow making it sound like a bodily threat.
But then, a breakthrough, as Chris and his himbo monotone actually managed to sell the tie-dress, revealed on closer inspection to have an extra duvet function built in to the skirt! Not even stopping to consider what sort of social occasion requires a tweed/duvet ballgown – very formal overnight fox hunt’n’orgy, maybe? – some moneyed Mancunian mummy spunked ?300 without blinking an eye, much to the amazement of the whole team, who just about managed to stop themselves from saying “Seriously? But it’s made of ties! TIES!”
A last minute flurry of selling for both teams, with Synergy slashing prices and getting a bit Walford Market, barking about discounts from the in front of the shop, and Apollo failing to palm off their cuff-dress. And then: boardroom time.
Liz and Synergy were crowned the winners, tapping into the important mum and daughter market with their party dress/vintage stuff combo, and were whisked off to the races to laugh at Jamie saying phrases like “?2 on the nose” in his big old posh voice. Apollo were dispatched to Loser Cafe to pick over their defeat and listen to Paloma work on the finer details of her plan to pin absolutely everything on the hapless Alex.
Back at SugHQ, the Good Lord took them to task over losing the Liquorice dresses to Synergy, especially Sandeesh, who had contributed a great big pile of nothing to the operation. Widening her eyes to 100% bush-baby, she tried to claim she was good at logistics, basically meaning that she could coordinate her fingers and brain together to operate a calculator and not much else, but the Good Lord was having none of it. Alex was raked over the coals for his promo stall error, his poor marketing and social skills and being such an irritatingly easy sacrificial lamb.
Stuart, Stella and Chris escaped unscathed, largely due to narrative reasons.
Paloma decided to bring Sandeesh back into the boardroom based on her professional observations throughout the series, which put the wind up the Good Lord something chronic. He suspected Paloma was trying to be a consultant rather than a candidate, and no bolshy bird was gonna tell ‘im abaat nuffink, apart from that posh one next to him and that one from before who looked like a dinner lady!
Paloma’s card was marked from that point, as she demonstrated breathtaking arrogance and childish stupidity in equal measure. Rolling her eyes and huffing like a teenager told to empty the dishwasher every time Alex opened his mouth, she kept right on with her insistence that he was more useless than a claustrophobic sardine even when confronted with direct evidence to the contrary. Eventually, after once again claiming she was the best thing to hit business in several decades, she descended into personal insults and doing the “talk talk talk” lobster-claw hand flapping gesture.
It’s a good thing Lord Sugar handed her Antipodean arse back to her when he did, or she would have been reduced to just repeatedly honking “I know you are, but what am I?” and deploying the much-loved Stop Hitting Yourself manoeuvre.
Yes, despite Sandeesh “doing naff all” and Alex being “blaady useless”, the Good Lord could see a hate campaign when it was painted in dayglo 20-foot letters in front of him, and Paloma’s massive mouth and flat vowels were escorted from the building. Don’t worry, menfolk of Britain. You’ll still have Liz for another few weeks.
Harry Hill TV Burp moment: Please God, let it be the sleeve-snood. Please!
Next week: Camp costumes and cleaning products. You’ll wish Barry Scott had never been born!
Tim says
I think Sugar had also cottoned on to the fact that Paloma was adept at deflecting responsibility for things away from herself, claiming the credit for the good stuff and pointing the finger for the bad stuff. She consistently over-promised and under-delivered. Anyone can say they got a big order, but if you don’t follow through on your promises then talk is cheap. And Paloma delivered a lot of cheap talk – and ultimately trash-talk which buried her without any need for help from the others.
http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2010/11/04/synergy-are-top-shop-teflon-paloma-top-flop-after-fashion-disaster/
Susannah Straughan says
Agree with Tim, that Princess Paloma was the architect of her own downfall this week. But as Debra Barr proved last year, you can come back from being a gobby cow who talks trash in the boardroom– just as long as you tickle Nick Hewer’s fancy.
Let’s give Paloma some credit for her Oscar-winning performance over on You’re Fired! I’d say she has Kate Walsh in her sights and could well be presenting some pseudo-business show before the year is out.
Andrew Cummins says
QUITE FRANKLY, I AM NOT REALLY BRAIN DEAD ENOUGH TO KEEP ON FOREVER WATCHING THESE KIND OF THINGS. DO YOU ALL REALLY FIND IT THAT INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING? AFTER SO MUCH OF IT, I PERSONALLY WOULD CONSIDER IT TO HAVE BECOME EXTREMELY BORING LIKE PLENTY OF OTHER PROGRAMMES HAVE BECOME. I WOULD RATHER WATCH A DVD OR GO OUT AND HAVE A PINT, STUFF IT. SORRY EVERYONE, BUT ENOUGH’S ENOUGH, WHO CARES?