Amanda Gullickson: It’s Getting Down to the Wire on ‘The Face’ [Season 2, Episode 5]

As we go to our next campaign, Team Lydia is lucky to still have three girls, but we will need to work that much harder to make sure we don’t lose anyone. The first thing Nigel [Barker] said when we saw him was, “We are halfway through the competition.” It’s a great feeling to know that I’ve already made it this far! Things are getting down to the wire and it’s important that we start to win! We were told this week we need to create a viral video using handbags for the German brand, Liebeskind.

Initially, I was excited that this week’s campaign involves showing your personality, because that’s one of my strengths. I was a little worried about how we would do as a team because we were performing a dance routine – and I’ve never seen Ray or Allison dance. We didn’t have much time to get our routine together, but we did the best with what we had.

I got nervous when I first heard the music we’d be dancing to; it was very fast-paced and it was hard to tie down our moves on the right counts. Finally, Lydia [Hearst] came to help us out — which we definitely needed. She had a dance in mind and we started working on it right away.

It was not the easiest, but I knew I just needed to be positive and focus on getting the moves right. I could tell [my teammate] Allison was struggling, but I figured with the little bit of time we had left, she would be able to get it down. Toward the end of the rehearsal, the amazing Karen Elson came around to give us her input. Unfortunately, she was not the biggest fan of what we had going on. But, like Lydia said, it was already too late to change it. We just had to make the best of it.

Time was going by so fast and I knew we were doing the best we could with the time we had, but it was not going to be pretty at all. I could tell Lydia was disappointed, and I felt bad that we couldn’t pull through for her. After all the videos were finished, the client chose Team Anne and I can’t say I disagree with her decision.

The toughest part of losing a campaign is it means time for elimination. Lydia was very upset with us, and I can’t say I blame her. She made the decision to put up Allison. I really liked having Allison as a teammate and she can be such an amazing model, but her mindset had to change. Being that she had just been in the elimination room and promised Anne she would not be back, I did not expect her to make it through. But still, it was tough losing her. Team Lydia is now a two-girl team — and so is Team Naomi. This episode was a gamechanger. Seeing Lydia so upset and disappointed did something to me; I refuse to let her down again. I shouldn’t have waited so long to get started, but now it’s really game on.