OMG Fashun Review: Julia Fox’s New Show Proves Sustainable Fashion Is Fashion
When Julia Fox announced she’d be hosting a new TV competition series, OMG Fashun, we were expecting a contemporary version of America’s Next Top Model (ANTM); not so problematic, but just as iconic. But we also got an exciting Monday watch for sustainable baddies. OMG Fashun feeds our craving for hilariously candid television and seeing sustainable fashion design in action.
Known for finding and supporting new designers, Julia Fox brings her eye for talent and her avant-garde sensibilities to the forefront of OMG Fashun, providing a platform for emerging designers to showcase their creativity and push the boundaries of fashion. Each episode features three "disruptors" who are first challenged to upcycle a garment the night before the competition. The next day, they present their designs to the judges for initial evaluation: Julia, iconic stylist Law Roach, and a guest judge. Their final challenge is to create a look for Julia using “materials and techniques that would make fashion’s so-called gatekeepers squirm.” If the judges dislike a design, the disruptor is "canceled." The winner gets $10,000 and Julia models their design. (Yes, we are *screaming* at the language they use because it’s so internet-coded; it serves as a reminder that sustainable fashion girlies are just like you— chronically online, funny, and self-aware.)
We as sustainable baddies have something else in common with Julia Fox. Certain people, whom she refers to as “fashion’s gatekeepers,” seem to think that our work isn’t fashion, that it’s just a kind of subgenre. You know…there’s “real” fashion, which contributes to trends, waste, and overconsumption cycles…and then there's “sustainable” fashion, a fringe side of design that could never become mainstream. However, sustainability is not a trend, but a necessary evolution in the industry that addresses the urgent need for ethical and environmental responsibility.
The show isn’t explicitly branded as a sustainable fashion show. It’s just a fashion design show, which is exactly what we love about it. It doesn’t feel the need to boast about sustainability because it showcases that existing, unconventional, and discarded materials can catalyze creativity. I mean, Julia puts her disruptors to the test by asking them to work with materials like earth and plastics in the first two episodes and to design around themes like sexual wellness and gender fluidity in later episodes.
One of our susty mottos is that limitations enhance creativity. Sustainability is a practice that is rooted in love and care, and it is, in many ways, a necessary limitation that inspires us to work with what we have to innovate in fashion and other industries. We can’t go on mining resources and producing endless products. That’s not true abundance; it’s excess.
Julia closes her intro to each episode by asking her audience, “Which of these designers will take a sledgehammer to norms and craft the new norm?” Julia Fox is a trendsetter (and she knows it!) We have yet to see if OMG Fashun attains the fame or cult status of other competition shows like Project Runway or ANTM. But, it’s already making a significant impact by challenging traditional perceptions of fashion and proving that sustainability and innovation go hand in hand.
Have you seen the show? What were your thoughts on it?