Next in Fashion

Tan France and Alexa Chung are delightful hosts but we needed to see less of them. Same goes for the designers' backstories which are laboured rather than engaging. It's be so much more interesting to see them at their craft rather than seeing their primary school photos. The production is over engineered. The jump edits, the fake 'three, two, one, GO!', the confected judging conversations - are all unnecessary distractions. Frankly, I don't even understand the need to start the competition in teams of two and finish as individual competitors. Kudos though to the runway stage designers; their work looks great. The heavy handed, host-centredness of the show is particularly galling because the fashion is so good. The design sensibility and, in most cases, construction seems so elevated compared to its OG - Project Runway and its infinite spin-offs. By the last few episodes I was fast forwarding to the runway segment because it's bookends were completely tedious. I hope Netflix finds a way to recraft the show so that the design work (not the hosts, the guests, the editing or frankly even the designers) gets to be the superstar. Five of my seven stars is for the fashion.