Alexa Chung's 24 Hour Catwalk: the verdict

The oft photographed UK Vogue cover girl, fashion commentator, and supposed beacon of what's fabulous about current British style has been trying to break the American market since 2009. That summer she launched "It's On with Alexa Chung" on MTV. It was a show intended to make use of web content to encourage audience interaction, using Facebook and YouTube for some of its content. It was also intended to make Chung a star.

"It's On" was cancelled after just six months.
Alexa Chung: My new TV show is incredibly mean
Chung's new show "24 Hour Catwalk" debuts Tuesday night on the Lifetime cable channel, although a "sneak preview" was available earlier this week. Even Chung will admit that she's still feeling her way, as she says in an on-air promotion:

"I am Alexa Chung. I am a TV host, fashion journalist, a model; a jack of all trades, master of none."
While Chung's star has continued to rise in the UK, Americans still have no idea who she is or what she does. Chung's appeal is likely to remain a mystery to American viewers - even the fashionistas among them - if "24 Hour Catwalk" is anything to go by.

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Yes, Chung looks great in clothes. It's true Karl Lagerfeld et al insist she is in the front row at their every show. The editors at British fashion magazines clearly love her. When her capsule collection for Madewell , a sister brand to J Crew, launched the label's website crashed due to demand. But Chung's studiously "cool London girl" charm will be lost on American viewers in this lemon of a vehicle that's a direct rip off of "The Fashion Show" (hosted by Isaac Mizrahi), which in turn was a rip off of "Project Runway".

In "24 Hour Catwalk", four designers are given the task of designing an entire collection in 24 hours. As Chung encourages them to open a chest of items to inspire their collection she says, "Take a snazzy Seventies suit and turn it into a sexy cocktail dress." Can you "make that green look serene?" she asks. Nothing good can come of fashion that fast.

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The four contestants are quickly whittled down to two during the first challenge - which is to design an outfit in an hour.

Chung's first show is themed "vintage". In the final challenge three outfits are meant to represent a decade each. One has to incorporate old newspaper as part of the garment.

A contender - 26 year-old Chris from New York - says in a B-roll section: "Chung is a fashion industry icon and I've admired her for years." But during the hour-long show, Chung is stiff, uncontroversial and uninspiring.
Reviewers have not been kind. "Host Alexa Chung looks like a Dickensian waif sporting a strange, starving English choir boy look in the premiere episode," wrote Variety .
Alexa Chung's fashion comeback

"I like the print and I like the silhouette but the belt is sort of jarring," she says appraising a ruffled dress.
Her team of judges, which are optimistically called "four fashion powerhouses" include designer Cynthia Rowley, James LaForce a fashion publicist and Derek Blasberg, an upwardly mobile New York fashion writer who made his name after leaving Style.com amid accusations of allegedly taking payments to attend parties and write about them. He is now Editor at Large for US Harper's Bazaar and Senior Editor of V magazine .

"It's a fun girl dress with a grandma belt," says Blasberg at one point. During the runway finale he tells us, "I like this one it's very referential but I'm into a baggy high trouser pant."
Shoppers crash Madewell site to buy Alexa Chung's new range

The runner-up - who has had trouble building a pair of padded sleeves on a jacket in the allotted time - is told his collection is "too technical, not emotional enough" by Cynthia Rowley.

What American viewers won't know is that "24 Hour Catwalk" is an anathema to Chung's cool London brand. We don't even see her sporting any fabulous clothes. It's a tired format that won't be enlivened by a 24-hour deadline premise. Even the contestants seem tired from the outset (one has been designing in Philadelphia for 35-years and appears world weary).

Chung says, deadpan, "welcome to the fickle world of fashion" to the beleaguered designers. But the world of television can be just as fickle and it's going to take longer than 24 hours for Chung to make her name in America. Just ask Cheryl Cole.



BY MELISSA WHITWORTH | 10 JANUARY 2012
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9003674/Alexa-Chungs-24-Hour-Catwalk-the-verdict.html