Pilot Review
Fashion Star reality series unique premise for designer-themed shows. Buyers from H&M, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue bid for the best designs to sell at their retail outlets IMMEDIATELY during the show. Television viewers can then buy the original design online after the show or next day at one of the three retail stores.
It is unprecedented!
However, Fashion Star totally overproduced like the talent series The X Factor. Flashy stage. Flashy lights. Flashy-Flashy-Flashy. The show felt like a reality game show.
Project Runway made the audience understand the fashion industry. Its demands. Its highs. It lows. Impossible tasks for a designer within a limited time. Absolute RUSH of the designer to watch his or her collection walk down the runway during fashion week.
Fashion Star did not feel that way. Felt like a concert with all the lighting. Show began the moment host Elle Macpherson stepped on stage, well almost. Elle first self-promoted her own line of lingerie. Then the judging began.
If the buyer liked a design they placed a bid. Anywhere from $50,000-$80,000.
If a buyer was not interested the designer received a “No Offer” and then subject to elimination. Each week one designer leaves the show.
Top prize $6 million to the winning designer of Fashion Star.
Celebrity mentors included a very pregnant Jessica Simpson, Nicole Richie and John Varvatos. The behind the scenes mentoring vignettes did not allow the viewer to witness a garment constructed from start to finish.
Something Project Runway does very, very well.
The thrill of the show was the simulated real-time (you know this was done weeks in advance) clothes created on TV, then ready to buy online or at a retail store.
Did any designs from the pilot sellout online. Yes, they did. But will the audience maintain an interest?
Will Fashion Star produce a designer like Christian Siriano? That depends if the show lasts a full season.
Good luck designers. This show may be a hit or a complete and utter miss. One thing was clear, the buying and selling was immediate and real.
Update: Fashion Star was renewed by NBC.
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