Leanne & Jerell

We kind of thought Leanne made a strange choice in Sharon Needles. Sharon comes off a lot harder-edged than Leanne's "Judy Bernly in the 21st century" aesthetic.

How were we supposed to know she'd pull out a "Judy Jetson in the 21st century" look? And do it well?

Although we still maintain that Sharon wasn't the best choice for the look.

Leanne likes her pleats and ruffles and she did a good job of taking that signature style and applying it to an over-the-top drag dress.

Instead of noodles, we got an origami-inspired space age look that's miles away from what Leanne normally does, but still maintains a certain Leanne style to it.

We loved the bodice and the skirt - especially the use of shiny contrasting fabrics to give the look some glam.

We're not super-crazy about the collar, though. It didn't quite come off the way (we assume) she wanted and looks too bulky and distracting.

Still, it was an interesting, eye-catching, semi-glam look and that alone is to her credit since it's not really her thing and she did it fairly well.

Here's another choice we didn't quite get. LeMay said she loved vintage fashion and we assumed Kenley would have been all over that, but instead Jerrell picked her.

Then again, Jerrell did that "Bo Peep in the '40s" look for the Olympics challenge, so we figured he might have the chops to do something crazy with a vintage flavor.

And he kinda-sorta did, didn't he?

It's a flapper dress with a weird, sort of sci-fi collar to it. The problem is, the combination just didn't work.

To be honest, we thought the judges came down a little too hard on him, especially in light of some of the other looks walking the runway. We actually really liked the colors he chose. They weren't the cliched neon and candy drag colors one normally thinks of, but they were shiny and they did in fact evoke a vintage feel.

It's the collar that really screws up the look.

You don't draw attention to a drag queens broad shoulders and squat neck. You make them look smaller and longer. It's all about the illusion and Jerrell didn't quite get that.

The overall effect just kind of flattened her out. She looked a little dumpy despite the sequins.

And the fringed hem was kind of blah, although we didn't hate it as much as the judges did.

It wasn't a fantastic entry by any means, but we didn't think it was worthy of the judges' ire, either. To us, it would have been a middle of the pack look. We suspect that judges were really counting on Jerrell to bring the whacky and he just let them down.


[Photo: Barbara Nitke/Bravo - Screencaps: Projectrungay.blogspot.com]