I'm sure Gabby Applegate, the 19-year-old designer of Witches, is a very nice girl. And as an older female I don't enjoy pulverizing the plucky spirit of the youf unless there's a cash prize but I just saw her 2010 spring/summer lookbook hoping to see dewy-skinned, clear-eyed promise and sadly didn't.

This stuff is fugs. And for the most part it's not her fault since it is a very specific Los Angeles flavor of bad.

Like that weird, ren-festy, softgothrock where lace-up closures negate the need for draping, construction, sewing or basically anything even closely resembling talent other than an opposable thumb that can punch grommets into things (though any decently big animal with a hinged jaw could make this happen) and the wherewithal to push fabric in any consistent direction through a serger. Though threading a serger is no small task so bully for her and/or the underpaid Latin person who actually made the final product.

I want this girl to get better. She gets shine. She is sweet in interviews. And she's been at it for a year which for most of us is the length of time divided by two since we last hit the gym but for her is a sizable fraction of life. There is one cute dress in the bunch but I'm fairly certain she used elastic for the waistband and just gathered the fabric around it which unless you are making a scrunchie is not something you should ever find yourself doing in life in the construction of human clothes. Here's a neat rule of thumb: If it's the "hot" where any member of Lorenzo Lamas's family would wear what you are making, kill it dead with fire. Then douse it with holy water. Real holy water, not the bullshit Anglican church kind. Fucking sellouts.