We were pleased, on some level, to learn that the latest winner, Mallory Hagan, hails from Brooklyn (which is our longtime home, though we can’t claim it as our hometown), but we’re a little confused by her latest WWD interview…

She confirmed that she won’t be attending FIT until another winner is crowned (OK, we get that) but refused to take the opportunity to promote some of her favorite designers, saying:

I will keep that to myself for now. When I’m done being Miss America, I will tell you a myriad of names.

…while listing Forever 21, Zara and H&M as her favorite stores (yeah, right). Then the interviewers asked her a more sensitive question: why will she be wearing only Canadian label Joseph Ribkoff at all of her public appearances as Miss America? We think this is a good question from a PR perspective, but she quickly shut the query down:

“It shouldn’t matter where the clothing comes from,” since her Miss America mission is more about broadening education and empowering women.

The answer: she’s wearing Ribkoff because it was one of the pageant’s main sponsors, along with cosmetics brand Amway Artistry. We don’t mean to go all nationalistic here, but isn’t it a little strange for a Canadian brand to sponsor the Miss America winner, much less the pageant itself? Surely there’s an American brand willing to step up and embrace a great PR opportunity like this one, right?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Women’s Wear Daily goes so far as to call her “Condé Nast’s most powerful gatekeeper”; she spent more than two decades at the company performing PR duties for such names as David Remnick and Tina Brown and mentoring much of the industry’s younger talent. Before joining Condé Nast she worked at ABC News alongside Barbara Walters and others.

Brown says “She’s more than a publicist. She’s a consiglieri. No one can see all the angles like her”. Tough to find greater words of praise for anyone in the business.

Earlier this week an internal email revealed that Perl would be leaving as a result of Condé Nast’s decision to hire the Rubenstein agency for all media relations concerns. This move comes about because the company looks to further establish itself in “the scripted TV and feature films arenas”. Robert Green, executive producer of Huffington Post Live, will be the company’s new senior vice president.

No word on next steps for Perl, who has “no intention of retiring.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.