It was all about denim on last night's Project Runway. Well, denim and redemption.

At the beginning, crybaby Ricky lamented that none of the other designers seemed to think that he should be there and that they didn't treat him or his experience with respect. Of course, none of the judges seemed enamored with his work, either, and his experience wasn't really showing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For the challenge, the designers were ushered to a warehouse filled with Levi's 501s in various colors and styles and asked to create an iconic look that evoked the 501. They could grab as much as they could fit in a laundry bag in a certain amount of time. 

There was drama in the middle, as both Jillian and Victorya were working on coats, and both had some timing issues.

In the end, the judges had a lot of positive things to say. They liked Rami's dress accented with zipper trim and Christian Siriano's trucker-inspired outfit, which included a pair of jeans whose legs were made of the arms of jackets. Sweet P's slimming dress of several shades of denim also got high marks (good thing Tim Gunn steered her away from her denim wedding dress idea).

But the highest praise of all went to Ricky, who created a corset-inspired dress with impeccable stitching and fitting accented by a button fly down the front. The judges were thrilled that he finally lived up to his potential and his reputation as a lingerie designer, and he ended up the winner.

Victorya and Jillian's coats found them in the bottom (and Chris March's boring dress got him there, too, but not for long), but Jillian was saved for overreaching rather than appearing totally uninspired. So Victorya was auf'd.

It was interesting to note, though, that our Annapolis contestant, Christian, seems to be losing fans among his fellow designer. He got a lot of grief in interviews for being obnoxious and immature and seeming like a cartoon character. Ouch. That won't help much when the next group challenge surfaces.  

(Photo and video courtesy of Bravo)