Pilot Reviews: Mad Fashion, Fashion Hunters

Mad Fashion (Tuesdays at 10:00 on Bravo)

Chris March has long been a favorite of Project Runway fans since his outrageous styling was first seen in the show's fourth season. He touted himself as a designer for drag queens with a flair for the incredible, and he certainly demonstrated that in his final collection (though he ultimately ended up in fourth place) by using human hair, leather, thousands of safety pins, and red velvet in his Bryant Park showing. But it was his winning personality and charming demeanor that won viewers over, so it is with great anticipation that I awaited his new show, Mad Fashion.

Chris has developed a name for himself post-Project Runway as a designer of somewhat demented, over-the-top couture clothes. He and his staff of merry minions, in the first episode, are tasked with designing a "Bond girl" outfit for shoe designer Ruthie Davis to wear to the launch of her new collection. Chris takes "Bond girl" and runs with it, a little bit past the mark in my opinion, designing a black leather dominatrix dress with spiked heels for shoulder pads and a metal cage hoop skirt mounted with neon shoes. It's certainly an interesting look, and one you probably wouldn't get from anyone other than Chris March. Whether you find it tacky or fabulous will depend on your personality, but there's no denying how entertaining Mad Fashion is. Chris is full of funny sound bytes, and his laugh is infectious. The process by which such complicated garments are created is interesting, and at only thirty minutes of runtime that's what the majority of the show features. You will obviously need to make your own judgments regarding the fashion, but the show itself is light and fun and worth the watch.

Fashion Hunters (Tuesdays at 10:30 on Bravo)

I wish the same could be said for Bravo's other new show, Fashion Hunters. It's an insanely boring (shocking for a show on this network) half-hour of stuck up women who run a high-end consignment shop (I know, oxymoron, right?) in New York. In this first episode they visit a socialite's closet and take some garments for their shop, and they host an "authentication" for a designer dress without a label. This consists of Simon Doonan of Barney's NY saying, "This is very linear like a Carolina Herrara dress, so it must be a Carolina Herrara dress!" Because no one else has ever used clean lines in their designs. And everyone with a Carolina Herrara dress removes the label, AKA the most important part.

It's a silly excuse to show pretty clothes for thirty minutes, though unlike The Rachel Zoe Project no one in the cast is interesting or entertaining. Don't bother with this one.

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