project runway: Ven's sweet win

Ven discusses his design on Project Runway Season 10 Episode 2

Brilliant. This guy, a seemingly unlikely designer due to his ... calm and quietude, has got skills. Here, he took rock candy and liquorice whips and made what looks to be  an elegant cocktail dress. And magically when everyone else lost candy as their model walked the runway, his broken bits of candy stayed put in their respective panes. Ven makes women look beautiful ... he's who I picked to win last week too. Actually the dress that he whipped up to compliment his stunning white suit looks like a cousin to this winner. Fantastic!

Too bad that his model didn't understand that on a television show when the designer is defending his work that the camera is continuously on ... the model wearing the dress. She's a beautiful girl, styled to confection, but she's got that look on her puss that looks like she's wearing sour balls, not sweet rock crystal.

A few others sweets design from episode 2

Guess who's is the middle dress? My fave ... Kooan! I was disappointed in his showing. He should have knocked this one out. The top is funky but then with the use of cotton candy, it literally fell apart below the waist. It's definitely a candy dress, but I think, and we are going to see this a lot from him, it went too far. Way too much is going on ... I will want to see something less apocalyptic from him by the end of the season. But he's so darn cute ... well, whacky. And I love to watch his expressions and reactions to everything that is going on around him.

The judges really liked Sonjia's blue/green number too. I like the shark candies around the neck and top of the dress, but the bottom? It looks like an apron to me. The same effect is the back of the dress. That ruined it for me ... and next to Ven's dress, it looks over-worked. Too much is going on ... if Ven wasn't in the competition, this would have won I suppose. Oh yes, Dmitry's dress (left) is a stunner and it floated down the runway, but he didn't use enough candy. Essentially, he sewed a dress, strung candy to look like beads, and called it a day. It wasn't a CANDY dress.

The designers purchased the candy at Dylan Lauren's (Ralph's daughter) candy store in Manhattan. She was also the guest host. I wonder how she ever got into candy? I guess that she had to come up with something ... she wasn't a particularly dynamic judge. And honestly, this week, I was surprised at how Nina Garcia reacted to the dresses ... she actually liked a few of them! OK Nina, who is always so ... critical.