Next in Fashion (Netflix)

For people in the New York area:

Tan France announced on his Instagram today that they will be shooting "Next In Fashion" in Brooklyn during the month of May and are offering free tickets to the fashion show portion of the episodes! If you're interested, he is giving out the details on how to get them in the bio section. Any NY FORTers want to check it out?

I watched the first three episodes and here are my thoughts.

The Good:

- They got rid of that horrible team format that screwed over so many people in the first season. There's a group challenge for the second episode but everyone is judged on their own merits.

- I have to admit a good decision was made in hiring Gigi Hadid to co-host. She's engaging, has smart comments about the designs like construction, fit, materials, etc, and gets on with Tan and the other designers. She is definitely NOT a "I'll wear that" sort and I am so glad for that! I'm liking her a lot in this.

- Even though some of the designers don't have the pedigree or experience of the designers in Season 1 personality wise this is a great bunch. It's a lot of wildly creative people that you root for and want them to be great. No Diesels in this bunch!

The Not-So-Good:

- Remember when I said a lot of the designers don't have the pedigree or experience as Season 1? Well...you can tell...a lot because there are some designers that after 3 episodes are in the forefront while others....*sigh*

- There are people who you will root for that aren't the best, but you want them to do better. There are folks where you'll say "Okay, you deserved to go" but you feel bad about it because you can tell they're great people? This is a design competition, I can't let personal feelings get in the way!

- Some of these folks are just doing too much, and not in a "omg, Avant Garde" way but a "throw everything AND the kitchen sink in the design" type of way.

- There was a challenge that was way too close to PR's Flower challenge but thankfully the designers handled the materials differently. However, the next challenge was to crate something out of thrift shop clothes in 4 hours that was far more interesting because it's amazing what some designers created in that time period.

Overall, I'm really enjoying it.

I'm on episode 8 and quite frankly I don't know if I have the heart to finish this? The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

I love Tan and Gigi. However, there are obvious Netflix manipulations going on with season and none of it is good.

First of all, no foreign contestants that gave diversity in design points of view and were such a joy to watch in the first season. There was no reason for this since they casted for this last May and most of the travel restrictions from Covid were lifted. The result was an American cast and I think the show suffered as a result.

Secondly, these are all good kids. You want to root for them, they're doing their best. Unfortunately they went for age over experience this time around and while the cast is young the lack of experience is glaring; I'm willing to bet that quite a few are only a couple of years out of design school or have been self-taught for a few years and it shows. I would like to see some of them in 5+ years when they have more experience under their belt; the talent is there but the majority of these looks scream "Junior year at art school" (where you have the basics down but still working to develop your skill level and point of view). In fact, considering how they abruptly announced the casting and rushed through this process I would be willing to bet they send an SOS posting out to alumni from design schools asking them to apply. While some are better than others, the whole lot of them...need seasoning.

Thirdly, the cheapness of it all. While the stage projections have stayed for the actual fashion show, corners have definitely been cut. In the first season they had an array of fabrics to choose from, and a lot of them were quite lux and expensive. This season you can see the cheapness in the fabrics they chose for these contestants and the result was the end product looked cheap. Also, the actual challenges set a lot of them up to fail; asking someone with 7+ years experience to whip up a dress in 4 hours can be done, but not with people this green behind the years. I believe they had more than 1 challenge with ridiculous time constraints as well and I'm willing to bet the whole filming schedule was shorter compared to Season 1 because Netflix didn't want to do more than the bare bones for this season.

Basically, they brought the show back but did it in the cheapest, most bare bones way possible and it suffered massively as a result. How disappointing, because I was really excited about it coming back.

Finally watched season 2 of Next in Fashion.

I did enjoy season 1 more.

I didn't realize until another poster mentioned due to COVID that the second season was limited to the USA. I did feel the range of what types of designers was limited. I do not like street wear, I think it is stupid and unwearable, and it looks ugly yet there are two street wear designers; Deontre and Nigel, that both Gigi and Tan drool over. I don't get it. Aren't boxers, and baggy jeans so over?

I was not impressed at all with Nigel's unfinished edges, and patchwork material. It looks ugly. Both Deontre and Nigel have no sense of color and seem to like brown on brown, or denim on denim.

Can they ever have a fashion competition without denim?

Nigel's final collection looked dirty and raggedy. Deontre's had better color.

You have two streetwear designers who do menswear and have never designed or made a garment for women until this competition in the final?

The comments about gender neutrality and fluidity from the one guest judge just did not need to be made. I am so over this subject. I would have felt different if I watched this season before all the transactivists got so vicious on YouTube.

Overall I enjoyed the competition but seriously nothing any of the designers made would be anything I would wear or buy. 

City Proms are interesting because a lot of times it's the teen's first formal event and "formal" is different to many people. So we had the girls who wanted to rock the "sex bomb" cutout looks, girls who bought their dresses off the rack, creative girls who were lucky enough to know a seamstress or designer talented enough that they could show them a picture of a designer dress and say "Make me this," rich girls who could afford something designer and formal, and the quirky girls who find the perfect vintage dress and rock it. There are specialty shops on the North Side for prom dresses and some of those looks....let's just say they make Bao's creation look tame by comparison, I'm talking super tacky and garish. And people buy them!