Making The Cut (Amazon Series)

[TaylorBinque]

Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are back. This looks like a great show actually. The elevation to 1M prize and perhaps a global shipping online store via Amazon looks like an actual good deal.

12 designers – 1 chance to make the cut. Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn reunite to discover the next global fashion brand. Catch the winning looks starting March 27, 2020.

 

[Scotty]

I am so excited about this! I'm actually watching Heidi's Project Runway atm (love Karlie too), however, Carine will be a much more interesting addition than the judges on PR!

 

[Nymphaea]

Yay, Tim is back!!!
I have to say the fashion in Next in Fashion is way better than in PR, hopefully in Making the Cut too and keep the complaining/drama at a minimum please.

 

[Benn98]

Odd group of judges and I don't really care for Heidi but will give the first episode a try on Friday.

 

[eugenius]

Just tuning in now.

I’d laugh if this Sander turns out to be better than that other Sander we’ve come to know and love in recent years.

 

[RedSmokeRise]

Okay watched the first 2 episodes - sort of blah in terms of talent or vision but highly recommend if you’re bored during self isolation / quarantine.

The talent level is bizarre - for example there’s this one “designer” that can’t sew. It’s literally just safety pins holding up a yard of fabric at one point.

Then there’s another designer who’s had successful collabs with adidas.

They aren’t giving Naomi enough screen time (so far!). We’re only watching just to see her critique!!

 

[GivenchyAddict]

Just by watching the trailer, "the next global brand is definitely {NOT} in this room".

 

[Scotty]

It's not that good. How do you go wrong with Carine and that budget? Karlie's PR def won.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Carine comes off so sweet and kind. Smiles politely and hardly says much. Naomi and her glare of death, on the other hand...

It’s silly fun. These shows are only interested in fulfilling the “character” quota.

Can already see the top 3:

Megan: Likeable, relatable middle-American mediocrity that looks up to the Queens of mediocrity Jennifer Lopez, Bey and Diane Von Furstenburg. How much more of a champion of the middle-America masses can you get???
Jonny: Entertaining gay that can either be a hero or a villain. These shows love a character like him. His “talent” is beside the point.
Esther: The only one with a genuine high fashion sensibility and the skills to pull it off. Obvious winner.

I did love love love Martha with her tacky 9yo girl approach to fashion: Just snatch up the tackiest and most over-bedazzled fabric and wrap it around a model with safety pins and call it Haute Couture LOL No talent and no skills— just trolling.

 

[vogue28]

Watched the first episode and not compelled to watch the second (although that might change over the coming days). Despite the likes of Carine Roitfeld, Naomi Campbell and Paris... the episode seemed to DRAG! I almost felt like I was sat for three hours watching it.

 

[Deleted member 1957]

I actually love it though I think Meghan should have been top 3 instead of the Skin Graft guy. Skin graft looks like the clothes we see on those stores that advertise on Facebook and Instagram

 

[eugenius]

Jonny’s clothes look like they were too inspired by Rick Owens. That style would be easy to sell at the All Saints store, but not Amazon.

Megan, however...her style would make some money at Amazon. It’s safe clothing, and I’m not convinced that shoppers who want more riskier styles would go their for their shopping.

I love Esthers personal style: head to toe black, with big chunky jewelry rendered in gold and not the usual silver? That’s a new look for me.

 

[eugenius]

And Jonny’s long black dress made it? I see an “online vs real-life” meme, and a s’load of returns with that one.

 

[helmutnotdead]

Esther was robbed last night. But what can we expect from that blonde girl and Nicole Richie? Come on...

 

[Nymphaea]

Moore From L.A.: Is Amazon ‘Making the Cut’ Winner Jonny Cota the Luckiest Designer in the World?
The online giant's fashion currency has risen dramatically since the pandemic has left much of the rest of the retail landscape in shambles.
Amazon “Making the Cut” winner Jonny Cota may be the luckiest fashion designer in America, if not the world, right now.

Not only does he have a $1 million prize, he’s got a global platform to launch his brand with one of the few retailers that’s come out ahead during the coronavirus, and arrives with a built-in fan base — all at a time when the future of showing and shopping fashion is very much up in the air.

“How weird we’re all in this global pandemic and every designer is struggling and I would be in that same situation except right now I’m having the opportunity of the lifetime?” said Cota, a 15-year veteran of the Los Angeles fashion scene whose niche Goth leather brand Skingraft has been worn by Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Beyoncé.

Cota took top honors in the streamer’s first fashion competition show, starring Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, after a runway showdown against Berlin-based Esther Perbandt, who has a similarly dark, but more elevated and conceptual aesthetic. (For finale judges Klum, Naomi Campbell, Joseph Altuzarra, Chiara Ferragni and Nicole Richie, it came down to which designer had the versatility to become the next global brand; for the record, Klum and Campbell voted for Perbandt.)

Since the show wrapped shooting in September, Cota has been mentored by Christine Beauchamp, president of Amazon Fashion, who appears in the last two episodes of the series, during which designers had to prove their commercial chops by creating their own pop-up shops and presenting her with a business plan.

With guidance from her team on creating assets for the Amazon customer, including clean photography, clear size charts and product bullet points, Cota created the 20-look Jonny Cota Studio collection now available on the U.S. site, and rolling out internationally soon, with prices from $40 to $350. (Perbandt’s brand has been picked up by Amazon’s sister site, Shopbop.com.)

Cota’s clothes are certainly cooler than anything you’d expect to see while shopping for Tide pods and toilet paper. Mostly genderless and in a black-and-white palette, they include a blanket poncho reminiscent of his past work, motocross-inspired denim, and a butterfly-print caftan. Like Christian Siriano, another designer born of TV, Cota is quick with a quip and he has a story to tell, which should serve him well (as should his preshow celebrity following). But there are plenty of winners of fashion competition shows, including of “Making the Cut’s” older sibling “Project Runway,” who have not become global brands. However, they were not backed by Amazon.

The retail behemoth has been slow to the prestige fashion world, even though it sponsored the 2012 Met Gala, and Anna Wintour is friendly with Jeff Bezos, whom she cozied up to at the Tom Ford runway show in L.A. in February.

In a deep dive into Amazon Fashion’s apparel offerings, a January report from Coresight and DataWeave found the bulk of what’s listed are non-branded, or “generic” products, and activewear is the top-selling category. But the online giant’s fashion currency has risen dramatically since the pandemic has left much of the rest of the retail landscape in shambles, with Sears, J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and other major chains struggling and some nearing bankruptcy. (By contrast, shares of Amazon are at a record high.)

“What will limit Amazon’s potential is the fact it’s becoming clear to brands that it is a predatory partner,” cautions retail futurist Doug Stephens. “The next thing you know, they are private-labeling what you just did, and using your data to do it, and selling to the customers you just acquired.”

Still, sources say Amazon is preparing to expand its prestige fashion footprint further, has been working with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to help designers sell excess inventory, and could even step in with a new framework for a future New York Fashion Week. WWD broke the news in January that Amazon is readying its own digital storefront for luxury fashion, which could also open up a host of opportunities for content and commerce. Beauchamp would not comment on future initiatives.

What those initiatives look like could depend in part on the success of “Making the Cut” and sales of Cota’s collection (the designer won two challenges during the series, and both looks sold out, though it’s not clear how many were produced).

Amazon declined to share viewership numbers, or how much it has invested in launching Cota’s brand versus what he will get to invest in himself from the $1 million pot. But the marriage of content and commerce is a step forward for the platform, which has gradually been improving on its early QVC-like shopping segments with more slickly produced fashion entertainment programming and brand-building around personalities. In July 2019, Amazon exclusively launched Lady Gaga's Haus Laboratories beauty line with Amazon Live previews and tutorials, and in September, it produced Rihanna's Savage x Fenty runway show, bringing her lingerie collection to Prime Video members to watch and shop.

Amazon has not revealed plans for a second season of “Making the Cut,” but is still casting as if it will have one.

“I dreamt about what it could look like before the pandemic and I dream about what it could look like in the pandemic and after the pandemic,” said Klum of the show’s prospects, adding that the challenges could explore remote designing, for example.

“The more constraints we have, the more creative we become. There are few things less inspiring than a blank canvas,” said Gunn, along with a pitch for the resiliency of fashion: “We all need clothes.”

COVID-19 has put Amazon in the spotlight more than ever before — for better and for worse, as the retail giant, like its essential retail peers, has had difficulty keeping up with consumer demand and also has faced pushback from workers who have walked out demanding better safety protections in the warehouses where they continue to ship essential and not-so-essential merchandise to the quarantined millions.

“Amazon in one way or another has become a hero to a lot of people who are depending on essential goods to be delivered to them,” said Cota, who got a call from the show’s casting director the same day in March 2019 that he closed his Skingraft store in downtown L.A. after the landlord doubled the rent. “I wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity if it had happened a year, two years, or five years before. It was this moment where I had no idea what tomorrow looked like, no idea where the brand was going. There was no better time to say ‘yes’ to this opportunity.”

A California native, Cota started out making costumes for a San Francisco vaudeville circus troupe (he himself was a stilt walker) before launching his fashion business in 2005 with a collection of leather jackets made from vintage remnants (hence the name, Skingraft). Earning a following for motocross jackets, drop-crotch pants and leather holster bags, he showed his collections, which have a high-end price point from $100 to more than $1,000, at both L.A. and New York fashion weeks. A retail pioneer, in 2009, he became one of the first to sell high-end clothing in downtown L.A. at the first of two storefronts he had before moving to his current space at Row DTLA. He also had a store in New York’s NoLIta in 2013.

“I had a friend who cast ‘Project Runway’ for years, and I always said, nope, not for me,” said Cota, 37. “Specifically, a lot of other shows are heavily reliant on sewing. Even though we had to sew a lot on ‘Making the Cut,’ the fact it was a show about entrepreneurship and being a creative director, that spoke to me and my skill set.”

Like many fashion brands, his has gone through several lives — initially wholesaling to speciality stores such as H. Lorenzo and Opening Ceremony; then taking on investment from venture capital group Innov8 (the partnership ended in 2016); then shifting to a direct-to-consumer model with see-now-buy-now collections of more accessible items, such as hoodies and T-shirts. When he got the casting call, he was at an inflection point.

“I went [on the show] to get exposure for Skingraft, I went in there to help discover the next chapter of our company,” said Cota. “We were switching to an online model as a brand and we needed to reach a global audience. So I thought, get me through three, maybe four episodes. That will be enough exposure to give us a new opportunity.”

Cota earned points on the show for his willingness to listen to judges’ critiques, to soften his aesthetic, incorporate color and print and more accessible shapes, including feminine dresses. He even agreed to change the name of his brand to Jonny Cota. To underscore his journey, he titled his final collection “Metamorphosis.”

“I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished with Skingraft, but even when I have spoken on social media, it has a tone, the tone is cool and unapproachable. That worked for what it was, but it was definitely an armor to hide behind. When first going on ‘Making the Cut,’ I started giving them Skingraft silhouette after Skingraft silhouette. And the judges could see right through it, that there was more there. Naomi Campbell dragging me through the coals after the couture challenge, and being like, this is derivative, this is boring, show me more. I thought it was the worst day and it turned out to be the best day. I had to do a lot of soul-searching, let go of a part of myself and my aesthetic.”

Funnily enough, since the show started airing in March, Skingraft has seen a halo effect, to the tune of a 500 percent increase in sales from March to April: “Since the judges critiqued the name Skingraft, it’s made our fans come out in full force and it’s our best month in sales of our career.” While Cota initially planned on folding the Skingraft collection into the new Jonny Cota Studio collection, now he plans to keep them both going — and available, as soon as retail reopens, at his L.A. store.

“Niche followings are so unique. Skingraft customers, they really cherish the all-black Goth-y side of Skingraft and they don’t want to let that go. At the same time, you can tell they are so proud of me and of themselves feeling like they were onto something before the rest of the world. We get a lot of messages like, ‘I’ve been going to your store for 10 years in DTLA and finally the world gets to see what I saw.'”

Since the show wrapped, Cota has spent most of his time in Bali overseeing production of the collection (he’s long produced his clothing there). “Skingraft will always be the little Goth-y stepchild doing its thing, but the focus for the rest of the year will be on Jonny Cota and the Jonny Cota for Amazon collection.” (Whether his relationship with Amazon lasts beyond that is uncertain.)

Even with the gloom and doom the pandemic has wrought on the fashion industry, Cota said he never really considered taking the $1 million and cashing out (and chances are, Amazon would have nixed that idea). “I know it will be a well-funded year and I’m going into this without caution and full steam ahead. I’m excited to invest the majority of the prize into the company. But also, Jonny Cota has been underpaid for the last three years. He always pays his team first. It’s time to have an adult salary for a change.”

Someway, somehow, he’s feeling good about the next chapter. “The show launched from this moment of entertaining people at home while they are trying to stay safe…and we’re launching a brand that has never been more accessibly priced for me. The timing is perfect — let us entertain you, let us make you feel optimistic, offer you a piece of us at the most reasonable price we can, let’s get through this together and move forward together.”
wwd

 

[Nymphaea]

My two cents...
Is was really great to see Tim back, such a lovely guy. But during the entire show he seemed constantly nervous and sometimes very emotional. (His testosterone level must be very low lol.)

Heidi was her usual self, overconfident. On a side note her finale dress was really tooooo much, cheap. All I wanted to do was pierce those boobs so they would deflate a bit lol.

It was very obvious from the beginning which designers were good and which were mediocre. It seemed like a mix of Project Runway and Next in Fashion contestants. During the whole show I found Sander to be the best designer with the most interesting ideas, but his finale was very disappointing because he did an almost 180 U-turn. His finale pieces were too simple, dated and not fashion forward. His previous designs were so much better with some elegance, something new etc. I think he can really benefit from someone who will guide/coach him while designing.

Esther creates great outfits but it was very soon obvious that sticking to black won't make you a global brand, but only niche. Also, she is very literal the brand, too much imo. What she is wearing she is selling. You can only conquer the world if you use color besides black.

I would have ditched Jonny before the final. All his designs look just a tad dated, aren't fashion forward, everything he designs you've seen before. But it was very obvious that Amazon/Making the Cut was looking for a designer with generic designs a la H&M/Zara and he fits that bill perfectly. I don't expect to hear much from him after Making the Cut, I expect him to blend in in a team of designers like behind H&M/Zara. The winner of the last Project Runway, Geoffrey Mac, was better and more interesting than the top 3 of Making the Cut.

I found it weird that Carine was a judge in the beginning and suddenly disappeared with a one-line explanation by Heidi that Carine was too busy with other runway shows. She probably cashed her generous payment and quit? Also, the recurring moment 'did any of the judges change their minds?' was annoying, didn't contribute anything to the show. Naomi's comments were good, she didn't disappoint.

They filmed in Paris, Tokyo and New York and the winner won one million dollars, but the series didn't feel in comparison very high end/expensive, probably due to the fact that it's Amazon.

Seamstresses sewing at night was a weird element, just let them work during the day with the designer.

I think Making the Cut fits in between Project Runway on the lower side and Next in Fashion at the higher side. Basically, they are searching for a designer designing fast fashion generic outfits that are on the cheap side. I like high end fashion and therefore Next in Fashion tops Making the Cut.

 

[Lola701]

The magic of quarantine....I end up watching that show. The production was really weird and despite a quite interesting panel of judges, there was IMO a disconnect between the judges, the designers and the prize.

Richie does not have a global brand. Altuzarra has a small but healthy brand that is more in a high fashion market. I like the idea of Naomi and Carine for the legitimacy. I think Chiara made sense...

But some of the designers were really good...Even too good for the show. Esther and the other young one who was in the final 3 could have applied for the Festival de Hyeres. And maybe Esther could have done Project Runway...
That young guy in question did two fabulous looks based on a pant and a T-shirt! Heavenly!

Because let’s be honest: 1M is great buy being attached to amazon is not necessarly great if your clothes don’t have a instant commercial appeal. And I think Project Runway provides more freedom in terms of size of operation you want.

And I Hate go be that person but the way Heidi was dressed for the entire season kills any type of credibility.

Overall, I think Project Runway is still the best show in terms of production and judges even if I think that things like « unconventional challenges » are too detached from the reality to be taken seriously.

 

[RedSmokeRise]

Justice for Esther!

 

[Phuel]

I've never watched Project Runway so this sort of show is my first. It's entertaining enough-- for times like these... and nice to see the lack of manufactured drama/fights. Personality-wise, Esther and Meghan seem like such charming ladies.

It’s irrelevant to criticize the “talents” for shows like this because it’s never about supporting the strongest talents. Esther is literally the only most skilled and experienced talent whose designs remotely resemble HF amongst the lot. Frankly, her designs are on the side of redundancy when viewed within the context of HF since every one of her designs look familiarly like I’ve seen it before. Her talent is being able to produce all these familiar designs into a cohesive selection that flatters and is accessible to a woman's form.

Jonny is so generic-101 fast fashion, but I suppose his sales proved he’s marketable for middle-America consumption— since Making The Cut products are only available to the US. The same consumer that buys up cheap Target-collabs will shop Amazon Jonny. Looking at his Amazon-store, these are some seriously AliExpress-level of branding. Even the photography doesn’t bother to hide how cheap-looking it all is.

(I wonder what happened to Carine…??? She was dropped and they never mentioned her again.)

 

[Phuel]

I love Esthers personal style: head to toe black, with big chunky jewelry rendered in gold and not the usual silver? That’s a new look for me.

I see you're not familiar with Neneh...

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