(S03E02) The absolutely stunning special guest Miss USA, Tara Conner, asked the designers to create a dress for her Miss Universe appearance. Her only requests: yes to earth-tones, no to white, backless is a plus. What an amazing opportunity! Especially this early in the game. All fourteen designers presented sketches to Tara, but she chose only seven to be created. The seven chosen designers had to pick teammates. Angela was incredibly annoying because she kept bugging at Kayne to pick her. Everyone in the room heard her, so she ended up being chosen last... by Vincent (and she had to correct him when he called her "Alison"... Insult to injury, yeah?).

Each designer chose a model this time around (with the ol' Elle spread incentive). The guest judge was Tara, and Michael Kors was substituted by gown goddess Vera Wang.

Follow along by checking out the designs on "Rate the Runway".

Jeffrey Sebelia; Alison Kelly: Jeffrey pitched the idea of making Tara look like an independent woman. He didn't really "get" the whole pageant scene and I thought it really showed in the dress. It was intentionally wrinkled and patched together... Somewhat deconstructed. Definitely not something for the put-together look of a beauty queen. I mean, it was pretty cool, but I don't think they had the client in mind. At least it was earth-toned.

Kayne Gillaspie; Robert Best: [WINNER -- Kayne; immunity] Kayne said that he would have picked Angela if she hadn't kept bugging him. Somehow, I doubt that. Anyway, Kayne and Robert were both so wonderfully flamboyant. Kayne won Tara over during the pitch when he told her that he was a pageant freak and absolutely adored her. Even though Tara asked for earth tones, Kayne found a purplish organza that he really liked at the fabric store and went with it. On the runway, it had a really pretty effect and Tara fell in love with it. The neckline had some great rhinestones and jewels. Perfect for a pageant. Although it would have been weird for both Kayne and Robert to get immunity in the next episode, I felt as though Robert didn't get enough credit (only a simple "You're in"). Sure, it was Kayne's idea, but it wouldn't have been the same without Robert.

Keith Michael; Bradley Baumkirchner: Keith had immunity from the previous episode, so he could do whatever the hell he wanted. And he kind of did, in a way. He was being pretty creepy towards Tara during the pitch. Was anyone else reminded of the Daniel Franco lingerie pitch to Heidi from last season? I thought their dress was really beautiful, but a bit too "goddess-y". I couldn't imagine it on a pageant stage.

Laura Bennett; Michael Knight: I expected a really mind-blowing clash of styles between these two, but... no. The end result was a really Laura-esque dress. It was simple, classic, and very shiny. Well-done but nothing remarkable.

Malan Breton; Bonnie Dominguez Katherine Gerdes: [OUT -- Malan] Poor Malan. He had such a cool idea... He wanted to create a nice dress that gave Tara an hourglass figure. Unfortunately, he picked a really ugly fabric color ("earth tones" doesn't mean "shit brown") and did way too much ruching, making the dress look heavy. Tim said that it looked like it had been carved out of a tree. At first, Katherine was really happy to be working with Malan, but that feeling died once the product started coming together. When asked which team member should be Auf'd, Malan suggested himself. I liked that it wasn't an act of self-sacrifice or anything but just pure honesty. It was his idea, his failure, his fault. Good guy. I'm truly disappointed that I won't be seeing him again (especially after he explained that PR was a way for him to show his doubtful mother that his artistry would really amount to something one day). What a character.

Uli Herzner; Katherine Gerdes Bonnie Dominguez: The two of them worked very easily together. The dress was extremely nice. The layering of colors and modern styling won over the judges. Uli and Katherine came very close to winning... I think they should have fitted the top a bit more, though.

Vincent Libretti; Angela Keslar: [ALMOST OUT -- Angela] Vincent was really neurotic, Angela was really annoying. Worst. Team. Ever. Well, at least Vincent had sketches to show Tara. Angela only approached Tara with a sketchpad and some questions... probably because she spent her thirty minutes of sketching time bugging the hell out of Kayne. Their final product was a really simple green dress with strange cap sleeves that made me think of 60s sci-fi films (Tara said it looked a little too "space cadet"). Nina Garcia (and I) thought that the back of the dress was really cute though. The thing that really bothered me was how Vincent was such a freaking drama queen during the judging. He called his experience with Angela the nightmare of his life. Whatever. It's not like he was being particularly nice to Angela, shrugging her off when she was trying to suggest things. After a while, Angela didn't want anything to do with the dress. It was this lack of teamwork that made the judges come very close to booting Angela.