Fashion Star is back!

Fashion Star is back on NBC with some tweaks, namely the host swap out (from Elle Macpherson to Louise Roe), Express replacing H&M as one of the retail buyers and also the format (designers handpicked by the mentors to be in their "teams", yada yada). Not to mention the way bigger and posher runway - they got money now...

I've only ever seen Louise Roe from her guest stints on Fashion Police, but I think she'll be fine.

I personally am not familiar with Express, but it's similar (enough?) to H&M, yes? Can't even access the site right now - either it's overloaded or it got hacked :P

I forgot how much fun watching this show is; mostly because the clothes that come down this runway is meant to be accessible to the hoi polloi and trying to be avant garde at the same time. It's too bad I watch alone or else I'd make a drinking game out of whether any of them get bought (at all), or by whom. 

I've come to realise that it's not hard to tell which items might appeal to which store (which might be what the designers intended, maybe...?) - Saks tend to go with the expensive-looking items, Express the accessible ones and Macy's... a toss up between the two poles.

Because I'm such a sucker, I'll keep tuning in.

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Fashion Star

Saw the first two episodes of Fashion Star, with Elle Macpherson serving as host, and with Jessica Simpson, John Varvatos and Nicole Richie as mentors to the designers. You know it's produced by the same team behind Top Chef because while Elle Macpherson is a natural choice to host, she also still has her Australian accent. I don't think it's fair for this show to be compared to Project Runway because fashion on Project Runway is supposed to be more avant garde, and not necessarily more commercial and accessible to the average Jane in a department store.

In theory, it sounds like a viable concept. It's just that...

• The music used for the runway segments was too loud, commercial (mostly recognisable Top 40 hits), and a bit distracting from the outfits on display. 
• The buyers from Saks, Macy's and H&M are (allegedly) not actual buyers. I wonder what their respective budgets are (if any) per episode.
• Tiny Oscar is annoying, to say the least. Glad he didn't make it. And, I know I've seen the dresses that he's sent down before somewhere else. 
• I thought that Elle and the contestants would be standing on a lazy Susan so that they don't have to actually turn around when it came time to face the buyers. I guess they don't have the budget after splashing out money on the music...

The show must have been shot earlier in Jessica Simpson's pregnancy as she still looks (Jessica Simpson) svelte. That, and there's no way they could expedite the winning designs to the stores if it was done in real time.

I'm okay with having multiple designers showing their designs simultaneously at this stage of the game - it's only a few pieces each.

As much as sadistic me enjoys seeing "NO OFFER" flash across the buyer's big screens for some of the puzzling designs down the runway, but a bidding war is fun to watch too.

I did check out the winning designs online... they look nice, but the cheapskate in me is not about to spend 3 digits. It's just how it is. And some of the designs are already sold out! Who's buying these and how many  pieces were made available?

All that aside, it won't stop me from watching this journey unfold.