Wednesday February 11, 2009
Catfights over a job on Stylista
By S. INDRAMALAR
TV reality show Stylista offers loads of drama from its catty contestants.
Voyeurism is alive and well on television and the proof of this pudding is the growing number of reality TV shows that are on the air. Even if you are not a fan, chances are you would have caught one or more of these shows at some point, maybe even become a fan.
From talent shows such as American Idol, Rockstar: INXS, Making the Band and America’s Got Talent to job searches like Project Runway, The Apprentice and America’s Next Top Model to dating shows like The Bachelor(ette) and Beauty and The Geek and shows that track the lives of celebrities — Keeping up with the Kardashians and Living Lohan – we’ve got them all on TV now.
The latest to join the ever growing list is Stylista, which has been dubbed as a cross between The Devil Wears Prada and The Apprentice.
The series follows 11 aspiring fashionistas as they compete for the coveted prize of a junior editor’s post at Elle magazine, a year’s lease in a Manhattan apartment and a clothing allowance from the H&M label.
Stylista is a new reality show that combines the premise of blockbuster movie The Devil Wears Prada with the drama of reality show The Apprentice. Eleven aspiring fashion enthusiasts vie for a muchcoveted editorial job with top fashion mag, Elle. To win, the contestants have to perform weekly challenges (usually two a week) that are judged by a panel led by Elle’s fashion news editor Anne Slowey.
At the end of each episode, two losing teams face a panel of judges (Slowey is joined by Elle’s creative director Joe Zee and a guest judge) for a critique of their performance and the weakest member of the weaker team leaves with Slowey delivering the show’s farewell tagline: “You’re not the right fit”.
The show has potential. Project Runway is, I think, hugely successful in that the contestants are really put to work having to come up with ingenuous designs in stimulating challenges that really weed out mediocre designers from those with potential for something greater.
Stylista could do the same — suss out and help produce a fashion editor who can handle the task of basically dictating beauty and fashion standards.
The show’s executive producer Ken Mok shares some insight on the show.
“Stylista is about the people who cover the top models, go to fashion shows, and help influence mainstream opinion about what’s going to be hot and what’s not.
“We really wanted to delve into that world to see how that opinion is shaped. Take Anna Wintour (Vogue editor-in-chief) for example, she is arguably the tastemaker in the world of fashion. She can make or break the career of a designer. She can anoint people to tell us what is in and what is out and everyone will lap it up. I think that is the incredible power of the fashion magazine and its editor.
“Through Stylista, viewers really get to have an inside look into how that world operates,” explains Mok in a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles.
Mok is a well-known producer of reality TV series and is also responsible for America’s Next Top Model, Making the Band and The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll.
Though the show has potential. But it’s hard to tell if it will achieve its aim as the weekly challenges seem a little hollow (the first task was assembling a US$40/ RM150 breakfast tray!) and the contestants don’t all seem qualified for the job.
One of them, when asked to come up with a 30-word write-up almost broke out in hives and said, “Like, let’s start thinking of, like, big words. Like ... how about imbecilic?”
Granted, the challenges get better as the series gets along and some of the contestants actually seem to be learning something about fashion and putting a magazine together but there is never a “Oh my God, how did they manage to pull that off” moment.
And then there is Slowey. Maybe there was too much pressure on her to channel Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada), but she came off as just a bad actress reading out bad lines: “That dress makes you look like a Buick”.
And is it me or is she struggling to walk in her heels half the time? Though she is icy and melodramatic at times, there are moments when she lets her guard down and seems to almost smile.
But Slowey, Mok assures, is not acting a part. She is eccentric and she can be quite scary.
“I’ll tell you a funny story about Anne that I didn’t include in the show, because it’s just too outrageous. Anne keeps a megaphone in her office at Elle and when she wants something, she barks at her assistants through the megaphone! It’s so over-the-top that if I used it in the show, people would think we made her do it.
“She’s a combination of a lot of things. She can be incredibly tough, but she’s also very goofy and funny. As you watch the show, you’ll see the many colours of Anne come out,” he says.
The show’s contestants may not all be qualified to become junior editors, but they’ve definitely got what it takes to create drama.
The catfights started within 10 minutes of them meeting each other — there is Megan, the nasty, well-off 22-year-old bully who owns her own boutique; there is Kate, the “boobs out” girl (she was criticised for exposing too much) who cries incessantly; the overweight Danielle; the peacemaker Johanna, and of course, the catty gay guy, DyShaun who teams up with Megan to terrorise Kate.
Whether Stylista is successful in developing future fashion editors is unclear, but if you are keen on some girl-on-girl action (purely catfights, people), Stylista is the show to watch.
Stylista airs on Channel [V] (Astro channel 714) every Sunday at 8.55pm.
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