Project Runway-The Miss USA episode..

Last night's episode of PR was excellent. As an example of how far the series has come, Vera Wang was one of the judges. Wow. She was an excellent choice to judge an episode of evening gowns given her design talent and history. And she'll be judging again next week. Yea! Contrast Vera with the 'I've never heard of them" designers from season one-- we've come a long way, baby.

Meanwhile, some observations--last night's episode certainly showed that Angela is annoying. She doesn't "sketch". Apparently the fact that she doesn't sketch meant that during the 30 minute time period for sketching, it was perfectly okay for her to harass Kayne while he was trying to sketch. For a brief moment I feared that Kayne--the guy with the most experience and understanding of designing pageant-wear-- might not make the cut because Angela distracted him during that key time because she wouldn't stop trying to convince him to pick her as a partner. I was dee-lighted that Kayne picked Robert, snubbing Angela. It was a great pairing for Kayne.

Kayne won, and deservedly so. He understood that pageant-wear requires sequins and sexiness. Almost everyone made a pretty dress (although the color palates were waaay boring) but only two dresses had any glitz. Miss Universe pageant has a much higher sexiness quotient than say, Miss America. Also, Kayne took a risk on color--I always thought the "earth tones" idea was hooey. Typically, you don't see brown on the stage in a pageant as Malan now knows. The neckline was the dress' best selling point, which unfortunately you can't see very well in the picture above.

I loved the design Laura showed and was glad she was picked as a team leader. For some reason, I imagined the dress completed in a midnight blue. Just an hallucination, I guess, because the sketch was always colorless. Laura and Michael executed the dress perfectly. The dress fit the model like a glove and was glitz and glamour to the max. Unfortunately, they made it in white. Didn't Miss USA specifically say no white? Because it doesn't look good on stage?? I think they could have won if they'd just used another color.

As for the Vincent/Angela mess. I WISH we could have seen the runway talk in it's entirety. I know, that would be ridiculously long but I would have loved hearing the whole argument. In the edited version, Angela said next to nothing while Vincent made numerous remarks about what hell he had been through with Angela. Considering that Vincent kept telling people that Angela would knife him in the back in a second, it was ironic that all the really nasty stuff came out of his mouth. While Angela annoyed me in the episode, I hardly think Vincent was innocent. He wouldn't give her anything to do. He ignored her input (weak though it was) and he acted superior to her throughout the task.

As for the other teams--while most made fairly attractive dresses they didn't have any pop. Boring colors, no sparkle, not sexy--Uli, Keith and Jeffrey all created dresses that didn't emphasize Miss USAs fabulous figure. Jeffrey's reminded me of a red carpet dress and was a wrinkled mess. Keith and Uli went for layers of chiffon. They demonstrated no understanding of what a pageant-dress needs to be.

So, why did Malan go instead of Angela? I have to say that PR surprised me by aufing Malan. I thought Angela would be the one to go because Malan is such a character he makes good television. I forgot that Angela is annoying, though, see Santino effect from season 2. In the end I think it came down to this--Angela was annoying, negative and not a team player but her personality flaws didn't ruin Vincent's dress. Malan's dress was ugly and unfinished. The hem wasn't completed and there were threads hanging off the bottom. Poor construction got Zulema kicked off, too, if I remember correctly.

I didn't really believe the story Malan told about his mother dissing his early design efforts. It seem manufactured. His weeping in the end and his admission of feeling shame were heart-rending though, weren't they? I felt sorry for him and I hope this show leads to some opportunities for him.