What is it? A model-search audition show with a difference.
Why you’ll love it: It’s a strange impulse, the burning desire to “be a model”. The participants of these mannequin audition programmes are united in their desire for the spotlight, but the contestants here are also looking for acceptance. None fit the fashion mould that would allow them past the door of any traditional agency. They come from all over the world, their pictures uploaded to a website, then whittled down to 40. And they are all very much not model material in the standard sense, being too short, too fat, too freckly or too unique in some way that precludes them from sample sizes and bone-jut perfection.
Brooke Hogan (Hulk’s daughter), is the statuesque host who gees them up, dishes out the tough love and often gets wobbly lipped when they cry. The judges are four fashion designers willing to use the winners as brand ambassadors for their next marketing campaigns.
This show’s heart is in the right place, but the overall production is not quite there yet. Producers force-fed reality tropes cannot resist rolling out every single one here, misdirecting contestants, making them wait, tricking them in a way that feels at odds with the show’s inclusive spirit.
The opening episode attempts to introduce at least some of the 40 finalists, but that really is too many for an audience to invest in. Among the contestants are some extraordinarily beautiful people who seem thrown in for good measure, but it’s never clear why they qualify for this competition.
Platitudes about not judging a book by its cover are bandied about and the initially blindfolded judges talk about the importance of hearing the contestants’ voices before seeing the outer packaging. But they still have to look good in clothes and makeup and outer packaging is their stock in trade. Even so, my cynicism about this dissolved slowly over the series.
If you stick with The Fashion Hero until episode eight (the final) you have to plough through a lot of silly obstacle courses and tests of the contestants’ resolve, all very loosely tied with the kind of personality they’ll need to be a model. Of course you need to be able to sleep in a teepee on a raft and go to the toilet through a hole in the deck in order to carry couture on your back. Stands to reason.
Producers haven’t quite done the work to make me believe any of this is necessary when a quick audition and some test shots would achieve the same result. The justifications for the stunts and trials are paper-thin, but we do get to know more about the contestants’ dreams, the real hook of any reality format.
A modelling competition that actively seeks faces and bodies belonging to realistically proportioned humans is a wonderful thing and should be applauded. Not only for attempting to change an industry so entrenched in a single aesthetic ideal, but for reaching through the TV/laptop screen to teenagers doubting their worth because of what they see in the mirror.
Before series two, the format needs to lift weights, tighten up all over and cut away the loose fat, perhaps finding a better way to get to know the contestants than forcing them through an obstacle course in ill-fitting stilettos.
Where: Amazon Prime
Length: One eight-episode series available to stream now.
Standout episode: Episode eight stands out for the wrong reasons when producers OD on reality tension and mangle the format completely.
If you liked The Fashion Hero, watch: Miss Representation (Netflix), Happy Man (BBC 3 on iPlayer).
