TV Eye: Bitchiness in fashion

Elle magazine's Anne Slowey. Photo / The CW

As someone whose favourite item of clothing in the comfort of my own home is my dad's old dressing gown, I can't profess to any great fashion expertise, but I'm loving Stylista, which started last Friday on TV3. It's just so bitchy.

It was a golden moment when mean Megan said, "I was excited to use my brain." If only she started to use some self-awareness and saw how awful she is. But she is not alone ...

On the evidence of episode one, the 11 contestants on the Tyra Banks-produced show had limited chances to "use their brains" in their efforts to knock out their peers and win an editorial post for one year on Elle magazine. Or Hell magazine, if the frostiness of its editor is anything to go by.

All of the contenders are well-educated but some exhibit more brains than others.

As already noted, Megan is shaping up as a nasty bitch. In her former life, Johanna was a military analyst, surely the country's greatest growth industry. Kate is a first-class whiner with a big cleavage who drives everyone up the wall. Cologne thinks working at Elle would be, like, so rad. Big girl Danielle is the bespectacled Ugly Betty of the group. She seems nice.

As for the guys: not much to say at this stage.

But, like, they all use the word "literally" way too much.

The first task was, literally, so menial - fetch breakfast for editor Anne Slowey, who looks like Madonna's hatchet-faced twin. While the others scarpered off to Anne's favourite deli, Ashlie, who got lost and produced her platter in two minutes flat, won. Megan looked grim.

Next task: a fashion critique by Elle creative director Joe Zee, who ripped their style to shreds, especially Kate whose cleavage - "it's in my face"- was ruled inappropriate. The others sniggered.

Then they had to go shopping for three new looks. Task one winner Ashlie divided the group into three teams, and "strategised" her choices cleverly along divide-and-rule principles.

The shopping expedition was accompanied by a stern warning that their Choices Would Have Consequences. Fashion can be so scary. Literally.

The kill-or-be-killed dynamics began to emerge almost immediately, with conflict between Kate and everyone else, and Megan and everyone else, looking set to blossom. "The entire house is trying to change me," wailed Kate, aka Boobs.

The third task was to create a contributors' page, at which point Megan's bossy brain sprang into action, but wrongly. She ordered her team to create editorial copy totalling 30 words, when it should have been 30 per person. So her lot failed to follow directions, for which she took no responsibility, while Team 3's lurid yellow layout gave the editor a migraine. Naughty team!

Megan should have been given the boot on the grounds she is a personality disaster but Ronaldo was edited out for committing the biggest fashion crime: being boring. Not something you could accuse Stylista of being - so far. It was so funny to see the others sob as he packed up. What a bunch of fakes.