Commentary: Why Stylista Makes it One Too Many Shows

When Project Runway burst on the scene it essentially made the highly unimportant seem so much so by parading women, a gay man and one lone straight guy around in a sort of Canterbury Tales-like atmosphere. The characters went from place to place designing, creating, snarking, bitching and doing a combination of all 4 in unison, sometimes to the detriment of those who took “this thing of ours” seriously. As the show progressed each season, things got more and more absurd, but still there was a need to watch even with all of the copycats and also-rans. There have been many some shows, I can’t even remember but in no particular order there was Tommy Hilfiger’s show, America’s Next Top Model, the laundry list of shows on Bravo and now Stylista.

Stylista is supposed to be a battle for the next Junior Editor of Elle magazine. Apparently Elle was left out of the running for the most recent edition of Project Runway and the decision makers at the magazine felt they needed their own show. I haven’t watched it yet, but I am going to make a single point on why this show may prove to be the “jump the shark” moment for reality fashion tv shows. Here you have several contestants (because that’s essentially what they are) vying for top spot as a JUNIOR FASHION EDITOR. I put that in all caps because last I remembered, junior fashion editors do a whole lot of squat. Associate editors and assistant editors have a whole lot more to do than a junior editor.

While that may not be the case at all magazines it certainly is the case for a good handful of the majors that I’ve seen over the years. So why am I invested in seeing someone succeed to be a glorified intern with a $28,000 salary? There’s a better way in looking at a the comings and goings of editors at a magazine and it’s called WWD. David Hinckley of the New York Daily News gave it 3 stars too many out of 5 stars. His take is that the nuts and bolts of the show is less important than the character that Mr. or Ms. Junior editor will be working for, Anne Slowey.

But I’ve heard about Slowey and though I don’t know her personally the bitch that Hinckley describes it not the Slower heard commonly talked about in fashion circles. It also begs the question what kind of challenges are we going to see tonight writing for a junior fashion editor position? Designing a fashion page? Is that really exciting? What I am particularly looking forward to is the P-diddy-like get me cheesecake moment where the contestants have to guess what Slowey wants for breakfast and get it for her.

That challenge seems deliberately setup for the contestants to fail. Ditto for the show.