Tuesday, January 10, 2012

24 Hour Catwalk preview

Hulu+ posted the premiere of 24 Hour Catwalk early. I started it last night and finished it today, mostly because the first half was kind of a snooze, but I was pleasantly surprised by the second. Since it hasn't offically premiered yet I won't give away names and winners, but I will tell you the basic of the show and some high points.
James Laforce, Cynthia Rowley, Darek Blasberg, Alexa Chung

The show in general is sort of Chopped meets Project Runway meets something with a deadline between the two. The show starts with four designers that must make a cocktail dress in 2 hours after which two will be cut and the remaining two will do the 24 hour catwalk challenge. The element of Chopped is the mystery trunk with contains an inspiration item that they must incorporate into their look. The 2 hour challenge is made only for a form and must use some sewing.

The 24 hour catwalk challenge has inspiration items in a trunk as well. The designers sketch three looks and have three stitchers (they call them sewers when really they're drapers, first hands and stitchers all in one) to help create their looks. This is where I got really interested because one of the designers has some major issues with one of this stitchers, or rather the reverse. The stitcher knows the designer is being dumb about his process and causes her to basically waste 10 hours. As a stitcher I can't say I'm as confident as this stitcher was, but I trusted her rather than the designer about his process. I believed her method made a lot more sense (he basically had her make the design too big so they could take it in which is dumb and way more work than necessary when you have an experienced pattern maker, draper and sewer). At the end of the day he blamed the stitcher for his dissatisfaction for a design that looked exactly like his rendering.

Alexa Chung as the host is fine, she has a nice repore with the designers. The other judges, James LaForce, Darek Blasberg and Cynthia Rowley are all very knowledgeable and I don't mind any of them.

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