Cross-promotion does its job

I am going to watch a beauty pageant this weekend. I never watch beauty pageants. I'm against them for all of the reasons everyone has heard a million times, so there is no reason to repeat them here.

Of course, they do have their cheesy charm--the shaking hands when the winner is named, the wide-open smile (check out the photo of Miss USA, Tara Conner, who will be competing this Sunday in the Miss Universe pageant), the "talent" competition, the proclamations of hoping for world peace. There is something just a little irresitable about all that. But still, I have steadfastly kept my distance from pageants since sometime after the age of 12, and I wasn't really looking forward to putting an end to my moratorium any time soon.

So why am I watching Miss Universe this Sunday? Really very simple. I want to see how Kayne and Robert's dress from this week's episode of Project Runway looks. Will it be exactly as it was on the show (only fitted for Tara)? Will there be a lot of stylistic changes? Remember, the designers only had $300 to buy all of the materials for the gown, and only a couple of days to put it together. Will they recognize the need for refinements? Although the show likes to imply that the winning design will be worn as is, in the past they have made changes. (Remember when Nancy O'Dell chose Wendy Pepper's orange dress to wear to the Grammy's? It was changed quite a bit before Nancy actually donned it.) But Kayne and Robert's dress did look pretty good to go, so maybe it will remain in its original form. And of course, the biggest question might be--how will it compare to the other dresses? I need to know!

And so, I will watch.

Update: I watched! Well, I didn't watch it all, but I did watch the top five, and Miss USA was wearing her Runway dress. It looked exactly like it did on the show--really no changes at all! She did seem to have trouble walking in it, but it doesn't really look like a dress that was made for walking.