It may look like a model hunt, but the objective of Sky Living's fashion reality show The Face is not really to find the next big (or tiny) thing. Producer and mentor Naomi Campbell is not interested in creating a new top model. She is there to sell the Naomi brand, and after three weeks of watching wannabes collapse at her feet in a dual state of adoration and panic, I'm buying it.
The Face could have been an America's Next Top Model lookalike, but it soon became clear that this is not the case. If the two shows were in competition, The Face would insult ANTM's mother and call it fat. There are similarities, of course – it's glossy, people walk in straight lines a lot and there is an abundance of challenges involving tall women having to look contemplative while, for example, squatting in a shopping trolley.
But setting aside the pouting and preening, there's a lot more going on. Take the format – the modelling ingenues are split into three teams, led by Naomi and fellow models Caroline Winberg and Erin O'Connor. The models' objective is to please their fearless leader, not fight for themselves. In a show such as The Voice, more than one mentor wanting you on their team may be a boon – in this set-up, it turns out to be curse. The teams compete against each other in challenges (squatting in shopping trolleys, walking on rotating catwalks), and the losing team leaders must each nominate a martyr, one of whom will be sacrificed by the winning mentor at the Altar of Arched Eyebrows.
In episode two, this led to Caroline eliminating Jessica simply because Team Naomi's stooge had rejected her. In episode three, we said farewell to sweet-faced Natalie rather than Naomi's Chloe-Jasmine, more, I suspect, because Caroline feared Naomi might throttle her with her long, famous fingers than because Natalie was the poorer model of the two. This means it isn't necessarily a failed Face who walks the plank but rather someone who showed hubris, or waved the wrong banner. In the fighting words of Naomi: "You got war, honey." War of the poses, perhaps, but those stilettos are sharp.
This is a reality competition that is as much about the egos of the judges as it is about the contestants. Unfair? Maybe. But this is the fashion industry. As with any other business based on youth, beauty and public perception, it makes pretty promises predicated on nothing. And then it breaks them. This is, finally, a show that is likely to teach the contestants the reality of the world they're entering. And Naomi Campbell is mean. She's tough. The model who survives her coaching will emerge primed and ready to kneecap anyone who dares ask them to smize. Compared with other reality shows, which place their contestants on pedestals so high they can never return to their day jobs (hello, The X Factor), The Face is brutal. But at least it's not wearing a mask.
• The Face is on Mondays, 9pm, Sky Living.
