I don’t watch much TV, but one genre I like is what I call gentle competition. They are shows with contestants, but they are helpful to each other and the shows emphasize camaraderie rather than competition. Think The Great British Baking Show (you can tell when I last watched that show) or Sugar Rush. I prefer the ones that are a season long, eliminating one person per episode, but the latter’s format of four teams per show and one winner at the end of each show is fine, too.
My bestie, K, also likes these kinds of shows. She has a stressful job and it’s her way of relaxing. We talk about them and recommend shows to each other. She told me about the bartending one, which I really liked. Drink Masters, it’s called, and it’s on Netflix. I don’t love the fact that they feel the need to hire comedians for the emcee/host and feed them tired old jokes (for all the shows), but I’ve accepted that is part of the genre. Tone Bell is the host of Drink Masters, and he’s probably my favorite of all the hosts across all the shows. He’s much more laidback than the others and has a warmth that feels authentic.
I watched the first season of Next in Fashion, another Netxflix show, despite my skepticism. I am so not a fashion person. I mean, it would not be too much to say that I am the anti-fashion person because I just don’t care what I look like. Also, because my gender is undetermined at this point, I can’t with the hyper male/female emphasis in fashion. K and I talked (outside of this show) how we both were more comfortable with androgynous people in general. I have talked at length about my current identity (agender), which is mostly because gender is not important to me. I don’t see how I need to act or dress in a certain way because of my perceived gender, and it’s really hard for me to be all GIRL POWER when it’s based on something that is hyper-feminine. I’ll get to that more in a minute.
To my surprise, I really enjoyed the first season of Next in Fashion. There are a few reasons for that. One, the chemistry between the two hosts, Tan France and Alexa Chung, was strong. They seemed like two buddies who would go out and grab a meal together, just to chat about life in general. Yes, there were cringe-indiucing humor that wasn’t funny, but they seemed to be equals. I put that out there because I want you to remember it when I get to talking about the sceond season.
Another reason I really liked the first season is because the winner (spoiler, obviously), truly was different, fresh, and something that hadn’t been seen before.
*SPOILER*
Minju from Korea was the winner. The fact that she was an Asian woman meant that I was predisposed to root for her. There was another Asian woman on the show, Angel, and they were paired up for several of the episodes (I forgot that there were teams for many of the episodes), and I rooted hard for them. Minju broke my heart because she was so talented, but felt like she was failing her family. her sister was her business manager and the hard -nosed one in the family. She admitted at the finals that she was too hard on her sister.
Minju was very much into femininity and softness, but not in the hypersexual way that it usually means these days. Being traditionally Asian, she struggled with making her outfits sexy, but they were definitely feminine. She did not design for men. Her pieces were light and airy, and whimsical in nature. I would actually wear some of her pieces, whic hI cannot say for many of the other designers. At least the ones who design for women.
*UNSPOILERED*
Because on both the seasons, the ones who design for women for the most part made the clothes sluttier than fuck. Like, there was about the same amount of fabric needed to cover one leg in the whole outfit. I’m not against revealing clothing, but I find it stifling to say that a woman can only be sexy/powerful/empowered with her ass hanging out.
Side note: One of my favorite songs by Lizzo is Tempo, in part because Missy Elliott is a massive crush/hero of mine. I love that Lizzo is so comfortable in her body and that she can wear form-fitting things as a plus-sized woman and say, “I am a goddess.” I also, love, though, that Missy wears and has worn tracksuits and other more adrogynous clothing while still looking fly at any weight. When she got thinner, she didn’t sudenly change what she wore. She’s only a few months younger than me and my jaw dropped when I saw her in Tempo. She looked so good and more to the point, so damn happy.
Anyway, back to the show. I was really mad this season that Alexa was repalced with Gigi Hadid. I had a hunch it was an age thing. Alexa and Tan are the same age–39 now, so 35 or so when the show was filmed. Gigi is a dozen years younger. And, let’s face it. Fashion is a young person’s sport. She was the upgrade, so to speak–like a trophy wife. And that’s not being fair to her. When she talked about the clothing or the business of fashion, she was knowledgeable and showed she really knew what she was talking about. But, when she was interacting with Tan, it was a very different story. She called him ‘Tanny’, which made me do a full-body cringe. K poincted out that it was infantilizing to Tan as well, probably because he was a gay man. And a minority. There was no way she would have called a straight white dude a diminuitive. Like ‘Chaddy’. That was not going to happen.
In addition, it felt very much like a big brother/bratty littel sister dynamic–which was not good for her. Tan didn’t help by acting as if he were older than time. I will say that they did an episode about fashion through the decades and they had models from each decades–1960-1990. That was cool. But in general, the blatant ageism on this show was gross.
It’s the sexism, though, that really bothered me. A great deal. In the second season, all the women’s clothing was ‘how little clothing can we get away with’? There was an Asian woman, Bao, as a contestant. She had dyed blond hair and blue contacts. It was pretty clear that she was trying to literally fit in. She had two daughters and talked constantly about strong women and empowering women. But there was no way in hell I would wear her clothing, not oven when I identified as a woman. Not because it was slutty, but because it would look horrible on me.
It’s funny that the show is called Next in Fashion, and they keep pounding the point home that they’re looking for something fresh and new. At some point, I yelled, “Next in Fashion? How about designing clothes for actual people! Do it, you cowards!” Because as long as you aren’t designing for people who are bigger than a size 0, you are not designing for all people. Or even most people. The average size of a woman in America is a 14. And the average bra size in a DD.
Rent the Runway is a sponsor of this season. Fashions that normal people can rent! Yeah, no. That’s assuming that ‘most people’ don’t have an ounce of fat on them. The women need to be a size 0 and the men need to have six-pack abs. Let’s not even mention the fact that fashion still seems to believe there are only two genders.
I feel vaguely bad for slagging on them so hard because I liked many aspects of the show. The contestants themselves are very diverse (except age) and they are so supportive of the talent. You can tell that the hosts care abotu the contestants rather than just shoving them through the hoops. I appreciate that they are giving people with disadvantaged backgrounds the chance to shine.
But. I can’t get past the rampant sexism. And, again, yes, I know that’s the industry, but shouldn’t those who are in the position of power try to change that? You can’t say that the show is looking for the Next in Fashion when the industry itself is so mired in rigid gender roles and exhibits so much fatphobia.
In the end, I probably won’t watch the third season unless they make some drastic changes. It’s a shame because I like the show itself quite a bit.