Last night’s season premiere of Stylista kicked off with 11 aspiring trend-setters vying for the chance to be a junior editor at Elle magazine.
While the contestants — who’ll be judged on their sense of taste and style as well as editorial ability — waited in the bullpen for their first set of instructions, they took a moment to introduce themselves to one another.
Some of the first episode standouts were: Kate, a former law student with absolutely no background in fashion, who gets heavily criticized for the size of her breasts. Megan, the spoiled rich girl who has nothing nice to say about anyone (“There’s something about fake boobs that screams insecurity,” she said about Kate). The only other person capable of getting along with Megan is DyShaun, who is equally annoying. Danielle, an overweight but fashion-savvy clothing store manager who is ignored by everyone else. Johanna, a military analyst-Chinese linguist who decided to give up job security to follow her passion. Arnaldo, who has a degree from Columbia University. And Devin, a 19-year-old editor-in-chief for New York University’s fashion publication.
For their first assistant task, the contestants were given $45 dollars and the address to the local deli. Their mission: put together a breakfast tray for Anne Slowey, Elle’s fashion news director, in under 40 minutes. All the contestants managed to hail a taxi together except for Ashlie, who got lost and couldn’t find the deli. By the time she returned to the Elle offices, all the other contestants had practically finished putting together their trays. Yet Ashlie — who only had a couple of minutes to arrange her tray before lining up in front of Anne — won the task for the simplicity of her presentation.
The interns were then sent over to Joe Zee, Elle’s creative director, to develop their own personal style the Elle way. His three tips: 1. First impressions are important. 2. Understand the current trends. 3. Have a functional and versatile look. Jason was given the thumbs-up for his all-black ensemble but lost a few points for his Michael Jackson-esque glove. Danielle — who thought she’d be criticized because she’s “someone who can’t dress a certain way because I’m not a certain size” — was pleasantly surprised when Joe praised her choice of color. Kate, on the other hand, was ripped to pieces for wearing cleavage-baring clothes deemed inappropriate for work.
For their first editorial challenge, the contestants were placed on three teams and tasked with coming up with three different office looks for each team member — with $1,500 to spend among the group at H&M in under 45 minutes. The teams then presented their looks to Anne in a fashion show held at Elle’s offices.
But the challenge didn’t end there. Using one photograph per group member from the fashion show, each person had to pen a 30-word write-up on their fashion and create a group layout in the form of a contributors’ page to present to Anne. Team No. 2, comprised of Megan, Danielle and Arnaldo, failed to follow directions and created a trend page instead of a contributors’ page because know-it-all Megan insisted that the write-up only had to be 30 words total. And even though Arnaldo knew better, he went along with Megan just to keep the peace. Well, that certainly cost him dearly. Although it was Megan’s fault that the team did the assignment incorrectly, it was Arnaldo who was given a box to pack up all of his worldly office possessions — all two of them — and leave Elle. – Alondra Hernandez
Tell us: Did you like Stylista? Who was your favorite contestant? Who annoyed you the most?
David M. Russell/The CW
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