I stopped watching America’s Next Top Model a long time ago. The cattiness, the asinine challenges, and the poor quality of the contestants took it from being a fun escape to a form of frustrating, self-inflicted torture. I loved Miss Jay, but soon that was not enough.
During this next season, real life fashion maven Andre Leon Talley will join the panel. After Janice Dickinson left, the show lost a lot of its craziness and fun. Twiggy was respectable, but a bit too neutral. She was a phenomenon of her times, but was not necessarily someone who had worked her way through the fashion ranks. The gorgeous Paulina Porizkova soon joined the cast, but was quickly shuffled off. After this second, important member of the panel was excluded from the show, ANTM lost much of its credibility to its viewers and critics.
With the addition of Mr. Talley, Vogue’s Editor at Large, ANTM might actually gain some of its credibility and relevance in the fashion industry back. Also, Tyra Banks, the show’s host and creator, has started changing her over-the-top, drag queen style to a cleaner high fashion look.
It is not surprising to find out that Mr. Talley had been offered this position before, but had subsequently turned it down. He has been quoted saying that he was not sure that the series would take off. One has to wonder where the show would have gone had Talley taken the initial offer. After his star turn in the September issue’ with ‘A Famine of Beauty,’ there is no denying the force that Sir Andre is. This makes us beg the question, “what will he make of the contestants on ANTM?” and suddenly there is renewed hope for this next season of ANTM.
