Outfit #1

Our first outfit is part of a montage of Things That Are Out. See, the teaser -- the chunk before the main credits -- is really short this week, and it's just Jane's voice-over telling us that yesterday's awesome is tomorrow's passe, or in Klum terms, your shit is auf'd almost before it's ever on. As an example, Jane puts on this outfit, and then frowns at it. Now, they panned up her body, so I tried a little photoshop magic to stitch together the three main parts, and this is the quilt of my making:

Outfit #1

Her arms changed places, but the proportions are right. This is supposed to be the outfit that's so terrible, except a) I really like the shirt, and b) it looks exactly like something she would wear now. "I bought my skirt while on peyote" does not mean "out of style." It just means "bad idea." Also, in 2012, isn't almost NOTHING actually considered officially out of style? Ugly, sure, but otherwise it feels like pretty much anything goes these days.

ANYWAY, the part that confused me is next. Because then Jane VOs that fashion designers manage to find new inspiration by surprising you, and they show her in a new outfit. To me, that seemed to indicate that Jane had repurposed some of this other outfit to create something new and daring and stylish. Right? That's totally where it sounds like that is going, isn't it? WELL...

Outfit #2

... I don't see it. At first I thought maybe she'd put the belt on the jacket somehow, but no. It's just a totally different outfit. So basically, she surprised us by... deciding to change her clothes. Which happens at least three times an episode. Not surprising. Also, welcome to being a teenager. And a twentysomething. And, so far, a thirtysomething. Also, I hope those are pants.

Outfit #3

I included this shot because every episode contains at least two shots of Jane running somewhere in heels. Because, see, she's BUSY. SO BUSY YOU GUYS. That woman in pink, by the way, is Nanette Lepore. They have Jane stop, turn, backtrack, and wave, then run off again. Like this happens every day to Nanette, who frequently hangs out her shop door while on the telephone. Parenthetically, I wonder if this means Erica Dasher and/or Andie Macdowell will go to Nanette's show at Fashion Week. I can ask Erica how it feels to run all the time in heels. Do they look like a pump but feel like a sneaker, Erica?

Outfit #3

This is the rest of the outfit, which was paired with those hot pink shoes (which had electric blue heels, by the way). Again, I feel like this is a bit switcheroo'd on us -- wouldn't the edgy leather and black-and-white thing have been more Fashion Job, and the girly short skirt and floaty yada-yada been more high school? She looks older in the other outfit, which is supposed to be half the point, since Fashion Job thinks she's an adult.

Also, can we talk about this scene? Jane takes it upon herself to go lecture Modern Empress -- who is, seriously, presented to us as the Anna Wintour of Japan -- about how the company's clothes are NEW and FRESH and GREAT, and actually begins her speech with, "I respect your opinion, BUT." And Modern Empress never once has her slapped. Can you imagine if, like, Zac Posen's assistant cornered A.Dubs and was like, "Anna, you're smart and everything, BUT you're totally wrong about these clothes. They're GREAT." And can you FURTHER imagine that A.Dubs would say, "Okay, let's go to dinner and we can talk about it," or whatever? NO. A.Dubs would give her a withering stare, say "How NICE for you," or something, and then sweep out of there and go watch DVDs of Roger Federer playing tennis.

Outfit #4

THIS, however, is total teenager. It seemed like Jane's (Formerly) Deadbeat Brother knew Blane would be there practicing and sent Jane there to bring them together; I'm surprised he didn't take one look at her in a bra top and a tiny skirt and go, "Wait, 'swing you feelings' was not supposed to be a euphemism. You can't hit balls in that. ALSO not a euphemism." But J(F)DB might not know what euphemism means.

Outfit #5

J(F)DB is kind of cute, though, so I should probably learn his name. However, if he were a better brother, he would have told Jane that romper is a) hideous, and b) a ROMPER. Except I'm actually not completely sure that it is -- it feels like I can see through the bottom of it (yikes), like it's a skirt, but something about this angle coming up...

Outfit #5, still

... made me think maybe it's shorts. It's the way it fits her butt. If it's NOT a romper, then it's WAY TOO SHORT to be sitting in class all day, in desks where a hundred other kids sit. I can't wait for the episode where Jane finds out she has genital warts because she didn't dress herself properly for school desk chairs.

Outfit #6

And this. This is basically just fancy tights and a black dress. I'm GLAD she did not try to pull off The Great Romper Debate of 2012 at her job, but why couldn't she have just worn this to school and saved herself the backseat quick-change? And where did she DO it, now that she and Duckie aren't speaking and he was her driver? I hope she changed in the subway. The episode where she gets genital warts because she had to put on panty hose on the 6 train or whatever is going to be really special.

Outfit #7: Montage

When Andie decides Jane has to join British Designer Dude -at dinner with Modern Empress (I think I was calling him Stef, in honor of his smarm), Jane immediately runs to the clothing department for a montage, and proceeds to put on a mix of pretty boring clothes considering they're supposed to be from a fashion house's stash. The star of this montage is her hot pink bra, which she totally would have taken off to try on this dress, by the way. But she could NOT have taken it off to try on this dress:

Outfit #8

Without the bra, this dress is just flowers and nipples.

Outfit #9

This one doesn't even fit. Which it seems like they did on purpose, which is smart. Jane is tiny but there's no way she'd fit every single sample size in the world, because she's also not 5'10 and a double zero.

Outfit #10

This feathered skirt is the bottom half of an outfit we've already seen -- it was on the mannequins in the episode where Jane had to save the day via matching accessories to clothing, and then her prom dress made it into a fashion show. So it's understandable that you might not have noticed it, since a bird's ass can't really stand up to Elephantitis of the Tutu. The top half of this outfit steals the show from Jane's pink bra. Why?

Outfit #10, still

Because it IS a bra.

Outfit #11

Back to bra! Seriously, why would you leave that thing on? She wasn't planning to wear it to the restaurant like this, surely. Or... was she? Is this montage full of ANY helpful suggestions for her? There is nothing more frustrating than an unhelpful montage. Why does she NEED the help, anyway? Jane has no problem getting fancied up every other day of the week. Stylist Guy s all, "GIRL, I thought you'd NEVER ASK," except her having poor personal style has NEVER been a subplot on this show -- quite the opposite -- so I don't even know. Clearly whoever wrote this episode was on a Devil Wears Prada kick.

Outfit #12

This was her and the stylist trying to understand how to put a giant tarp on her body and have it look like a dress. The answer is, you don't, because it won't. Trust me, Sienna Miller has tried.

Outfit #13

Jane turns up at their fancy French business dinner having told the stylist she wanted to wear this dress: It's Stef's piece de resistance, the one he thought would best impress Modern Empress. He is of course thrilled, because that's what Jane does to people. And she DOES look good in it, and the bag is super cute, but I have a hard time believing that is supposed to be this guy's marquee design. It's fine, but NEW and FRESH and the company's first-ever cover of Modern Empress it probably is not.

Outfit #13, still

Up close it almost looks like she tied a sheet over a giant candy wrapper. But, you know, a FANCY one. Stef sure is lucky that Andie's plucky assistant can wear clothes. But she should've put her hair back. Although I guess that might have negatively impacted the ending, when she tells Modern Empress to let her hair down and relax and they all go eat hamburgers and then EVERYONE WINS. I really, really want to be there the day Zac Posen's assistant make A.Dubs go to the Shake Shack. With my cell phone camera blazing.

Fug the Show: Jane By Design, episode 4

Montage! This brings our Poor Little Stitch Girl Costume Count to a whopping 39 (and our Poor Little Stitch Girl In Fancy Clothes Montage Count to two). That's a lot of fashion ground to cover in just four episodes. Well done, show. Plotwise: The company has to impress the editor in chief of Modern Empress magazine in Japan. Naturally, Andie is in London, so this means Jane and her British cohort at work have to do the wooing, and of course, he is all smarm and she is all gawky charm and she ends up saving the day like five times -- including by making the woman go eat a diner hamburger -- and getting the company's dress on the magazine's cover. Because I'm SO SURE that NOBODY in the company's top management tier would rush back to NYC to wine and dine the Anna Wintour of Japan, if she's so coveted. Come on. London to New York is not that bad a flight, AND the time change works in your favor. Jane's Deadbeat Brother spends a bunch of time reflecting on high school, popularity, and life, and then dispenses lots of advice to Blane and Duckie and even Jane. See, Jane is really upset that Duckie has been dating her nemesis Lulu, and decides their entire friendship is founded on LIES, DIRTY LIES, because she's not melodramatic at all. Eventually she backs down and admits she misses him and needs him. Blane, meanwhile, is under Jock Pressure or something boring like that, so while he's at the batting cage swinging his feelings, Jane shows up to swing HER feelings -- on her brother's advice -- he asks why she ditched him at the dance, and she half tells him (which, was that so hard? She said it was something for her internship -- couldn't she have said, on the night, "Hey, I have to do double duty tonight so I'll be coming and going, but wait for me"?), and they decide to have sex sometime -- I mean, "go for coffee."