Amazon's Making the Cut Exposes the Dark Reality of Being a Young Fashion Designer Today
In this op-ed, Renée Reizman argues that Making the Cut’s goal to launch the next global brand is actually its greatest flaw.
After taking a brief hiatus from the world of televised fashion competition, Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn have returned with Making the Cut, which premiered March 27, on Amazon Prime. Using the full power of Amazon’s deep pockets, shopping algorithms, and manufacturing and distribution pipelines, Klum and Gunn have shaken up their Project Runway formula to challenge 12 designers from around the world to create the next globally lauded fashion brand. But is it possible to launch a worldwide brand without glamorizing the flaws of fast fashion?
Amazon’s generous budget puts $1 million on the line — four times the prize money Project Runway gives to its champion — and an exclusive, limited-edition fashion line that will be sold through the retail giant. Each episode’s individual winner gets their winning look sold, in limited supply, immediately after the show airs. Amazon quickly sold out of Esther Perbandt’s series-premiere-winning look, a loose, black V-neck dress, cinched at the waist, and Ji Won Choi’s episode-two winner, a sporty, oversized white dress with inverted seams.
The designers get to travel to Paris, Tokyo, and New York City to find inspiration and set themes for their challenges, wandering around the Louvre Palace or getting lost in Harajuku alleyways. Klum and Gunn balance out the assignments by granting the designers more autonomy than Project Runway or Netflix’s Next in Fashion does because they want to emulate the real world of fashion as best as possible — and that’s where the show takes a turn.
What sets Making the Cut apart from other fashion reality show competitions is its focus on the designer as a brand rather than the craft of fashion design. The judging panel takes on a Shark Tank vibe and allows designers on the chopping block to argue why they deserve to stay in the competition. During the first elimination, when Gunn said the challenge was to “represent your brand identity,” While the judges praised Jasmine Chong, a body-positive designer who makes clothing for women of all sizes, for the body types she put on the runway, they didn't have much sympathy for the garments themselves. Chong argued that her looks were about empowerment, but the judges insisted that her barely-there dresses were shapeless, poorly constructed, and too simple and sheer. Though Chong believed her garments were versatile and could flatter anyone, the judges didn’t think the clothes would sell, stating how hard it is to sell completely sheet dresses. Spoiler alert: She was sent home, showing the cutthroat nature of the show, where the mission behind the brand doesn’t always matter if the judges don’t think it will sell. (Though Chong was sent home, Amazon does provide sizing up to a U.S. XXL for winning looks sold on the site.)
Challenge winners aren't necessarily the judge's favorite looks, but instead what might be easiest to mass manufacture. In episode two’s haute couture challenge, avant-garde designer Sander Bos got praised for hand-making a high-fashion, silver-ringed red carpet dress; but his accessible look, a black and white zig-zag minidress with gray feathers, was criticized for being too difficult to wash. On the other hand, the first two winning looks, from Perbandt and Choi, shared similar elements, like baggy silhouettes and exposed seams to break up the midsection, which makes me wonder if the show’s objective is to launch the career of a distinct, groundbreaking brand, or more about simplifying the supply chain.
Gunn reassures his competitors that they are not in a sewing competition, and to prove it, everyone gets a seamster who magically sews the designer’s clothing overnight. This better reflects the reality of today’s fashion industry because, now, most designers can become quite successful without knowing how to sew, and, for some, an internship at a clothing company can be more fruitful than attending fashion school. But, so far, the audience hasn’t caught a glimpse of the seamsters or learned anything about them. For the first six episodes, they are treated like any other garment worker: faceless and uncredited. (Though, according to Amazon, they are introduced in later episodes.)
Those anonymous workers are a mirror into the real world of overconsumption and fast fashion, which Making the Cut doesn’t overtly address. By collaborating with Amazon, the show appears to swap out the designers’ fabric choices, most likely to make the clothes cheaper. When Perbandt shopped for the first challenge, she told the sales assistant that she only wanted to work with natural fibers, like cotton, silk, and wool, but the consumer version of her winning look was made from polyester, a cheaper, petroleum-based synthetic material that isn’t biodegradable. The winning looks sell on Amazon for under $100, an affordable price point, but at what cost? Amazon has been accused of unsafe working conditions (which the company has denied), low wages in its overseas factories, having a negative environmental impact, and we have little information available on how the clothes from the show are actually made. Teen Vogue has reached out to Amazon for comment regarding fabrics, price points, and origin of the clothing.
Making the Cut attempts to give its audience a look at the real world of fashion by depicting breathtaking runways, global inspiration, and the promise of financial success. But it also embraces the darker sides of the industry that appear to prioritize profits over inclusivity and individuality, use anonymous labor, and continue to adversely impact the environment. Amazon is donating all the profits from the winning looks directly back to the designers, which is admirable, but this does nothing to sustain the workers who transformed the sketches into mass products. Klum and Gunn’s dream to launch the next global brand is aspirational, but misguided; there’s no way to scale their production without relying on a corporate behemoth like Amazon, and leveraging that power hurts everyone working to make their dream a reality.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
