Outfit #1

Jane starts out the hour in a blazer and a dress that she made herself, by personally putting on a dress and a blazer that were already hanging in her closet.

Outfit #1, continued

She paired this outfit with hot pink shoes. It looks a little Candie's to me. Andie Macdowell hasn't looked below her own nose yet in one episode, though, so I'm sure she hasn't noticed.

Birkin

As a reward for her successes thus far, Andie loans Jane a Birkin. It's like Rent The Runway right in her little accessories closet. Which doesn't appear to be locked, nor is her office. If this were Family Feud, a giant red X stamp would be on the screen right now accompanied by a buzzer. However, Jane does go off in a little trance and sniff the Birkin. Andie is horrified that her new assistant is a Birkin Huffer, although I laughed, because I suspect that's exactly what I would have done.

Andie

Andie Macdowell spends every minute of every episode with this expression on her face. And I don't think it's Botoxically mandated; I think that's just her choice. I feel like she watched Devil Wears Prada as prep and then sort of... put her usual spin on it, which is kind of... part drag, part cardboard.

Anyway, Andie hands Jane a list...

List

Girl, please. Like Andie would have left her a handwritten list of tasks, with neat little squares she can check off whenever she finishes something. This would have been dashed off in an unpuncutated email with barely any formatting, and then a sig line that's a quote from Karl Lagerfeld about how much he loves revenge. (Not Revenge, although Karl would probably be tickled by that too.)

Lulu

Lulu, meanwhile, walks through the halls basking in all the adoring glances and turning heads -- although she might want to consider that they're staring because they didn't realize Colonel Sanders was still in high school. And has a vagina.

Lulu

Lulu has changed into a corset and a blazer. How come Lulu's dad is on her about her grades, but not about her obsession with treating her school clothes like a Victoria's Secret catalog shoot?

Outfit #2

Jane may already be losing her touch. Half of this seems like her fashion wardrobe eve though she is going to school, but the shorts -- which I am mildly afraid are a skort -- look like a child's Easter brunch outfit. She wore it with booties, which I couldn't get a good grab of, which only added to how terribly dated this feels. On the plus side, I DO believe that she might've found those bottoms at Goodwill.

Outfit #2 again

Also, she appears to be wearing an octopus on her hand, which is either a metaphor for how she's becoming entangled in the tentacles of deception, or just kind of an uncomfortable-looking ring.

Outfit #3

So, Jane changes into this for her workday. I don't get this girl. She would have been perfectly fine just changing out of her skort -- her cracked-out butterfly weight belt would have been perfect for work. Instead, we're supposed to think she had this in her bag AND tights AND new shoes. We need, in addition to the scene about her eBay problem, a part where she's in the back of Duckie's car trying to charge her travel steamer via his cigarette lighter.

Outfit #3 continued

That's the SECOND pair of hot-pink shoes she has in her closet. I'M WATCHING YOU, JANE QUIMBY.

Hellooooo

This is Brad, Andie's male model. He is a sensitive delicate flower who is crushed when Jane dumps him on Andie's behalf. Mostly I just wanted to share him with you. Consider it a little Monday six-pack.

Outfit #3 AGAIN

I would just like to point out that, during the cleanup scene, they DID have Jane without her heels on -- which is totally regular and realistic, and that's great, but as soon as she flopped down on the couch to exhale for a second, her shoes were back on her feet. Oh, Continuity, you are the cruelest mistress. Incidentally, that is Bitchy Coworker India they are hauling around, as she got drunk on her own success at creating a huge party mess and then passed out behind a couch.

Male Model

Meanwhile, Brad the Model fully American Beauty'd himself upstairs in Andie's bedroom. She was not pleased. She is so BORING. BE PLEASED.

Outfit #4

Back at school on the day of a big test she hasn't had time to study for, Jane is panicking so much that she completely forgot to unlock her chastity waist cuff. Duckie, meanwhile, is such a hipster that he's wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of an old-school camera hanging around his neck.

Outfit #4 continued

I thought this was a dress, but it's a shirt over a poofy skirt. I guess this is how she's going to get away with the clothing changes: disguising her layers. Jane apparently decides not to change today, though -- maybe she realizes yesterday's change was half a waste of time -- and so she wears this little outfit both for her math test and to get her ass handed to her by Andie for letting Brad into the house. She has to return the Birkin immediately. Except instead of putting it back in the unlocked accessories cabinet from which it came, she empties it on the spot and hands it to Andie, who then leaves the office with two purses, one of which has nothing in it. METAPHOR. Maybe.

Lulu

Meanwhile: Lulu's Father, your daughter is an inch away from being valedictorian, and an inch away from flashing her lunchbox all over town. And the GRADES are your beef? Dude.

Fug the Show: Jane By Design, episode 3

This week we only had four changes -- things are diminishing by about half each time, from 15 to 8 to 4 --bringing our Poor Little Stitch Girl Costume Count to 26. Sounds like perhaps the budget is catching up with more people besides Jane Quimby. Plotwise, Jane's deadbeat brother got the job at the school with the ex-classmate zzzzzzzz. Jane and her archrival Lulu find out they're tied for top of the class and so Every. Test. COUNTS. Would a school principal really tell people that they're in a race for valedictorian? The guidance counselor is all NO IGNORE HIM but the girls pretend they're not shitting bricks and then Lulu hisses to Jane that it's ON. Except she has private pain, because every mean girl does: Lulu is all sad because daddy pressures her about her grades and Duckie dumped her because she wouldn't go public with him. So she decides not to be ashamed of slurping his face anymore, and they make out in the hallway. Duckie realizes now he has to tell Jane that he's banging a girl she hates. Speaking of banging, Blane is nowhere to be found; Jane references it briefly but basically they just didn't want to pay the actor to pop up in this episode. Speaking of actual banging, Andie is nailing some hot male model. She goes out of town and hands Jane a list of things to do, and on it is breaking up with the sad clown. Jane does. He is sad. Andie is also having some important trunk show at her apartment, but she's not going to be there, of course, AS IF, so Jane has to run it, OF COURSE, AS IF. And Jane's work rival India tampers with the invitation so that it turns into a classic Sixteen Candles kegger, although nobody ends up inside a coffee table, which is too bad. Jane makes Duckie help her solve the problem, but she forgets that Male Model showed up with flowers and she hid him in the bedroom, so Andie gets home and he's sprawled on the bed wearing nothing but rose petals and so Andie is frowny with Jane and takes back the Reward Birkin she'd loaned her. So, the first week, we learned a double life is hard. The second week, we learned a double life is hard. And this week, we learned that a double life? Is hard. I guess consistency is key? Although, on the consistency tip, I changed up from using the camera and instead tried screengrabs from the streamed episode. Experiments!