M&S: Dress The Nation review: Ready, thready, go! The Apprentice meets The Great British Sewing Bee, writes ROLAND WHITE
M&S: Dress The Nation (ITV1)
The big prize for ten amateur fashion designers in Dress The Nation is a job at Marks and Spencer.
‘We want someone to think slightly outside the box,’ said M&S marketing chief Anna Braithwaite. ‘At M&S it is all about pushing the boundaries.’
Wait, are we talking about the same Marks and Spencer here? The one that shoppers love for being reliable rather than radical? Where thinking outside the box means a dramatic new shade of beige?
Apparently we are. And before you accuse me of fashion snobbery, I’m currently wearing a pair of black stretch cotton M&S underpants, and a smart blue M&S summer suit hangs in my wardrobe.
The star of this first episode — a cross between The Apprentice and The Great British Sewing Bee — was Tendai, who is originally from Zimbabwe and described herself as ‘a girl who just likes sewing’. She came second in the first challenge, to design a summer dress, and then led a team to victory in the Create A Collection challenge.
M&S: Dress The Nation is a cross between The Apprentice and The Great British Sewing Bee, writes ROLAND WHITE (Pictured: Julie, Daylan, Sandeep & Maria)
Vernon, Maddie and Tendai. Tendai, who is originally from Zimbabwe and described herself as ‘a girl who just likes sewing’, is the star of the first episode
She dresses well too, which is always a good sign in a clothes designer, matching yellow nails with a stunning green dress.
By contrast, office manager Chris was in pink dungarees. He had earrings so large they could virtually be seen from space, and outsize Harry Potter spectacles, possibly to protect his eyes from those earrings. At least he’ll stand out, and his designs were equally colourful and eye-catching.
Tendai’s rivals shouldn’t be too worried about her early success. Things change very quickly on these shows.
Fellow Zimbabwean Daylan wowed the judges in the first round with an outstanding pleated dress, which he made without wasting a single piece of fabric. But the team he led in the Collection challenge performed so poorly that he found himself in danger of eviction. His dress was a hotchpotch of orange, pink and white. What was he thinking?
But it was Julie, the oldest contestant, who was given the boot. She runs her own alterations service, and works so quickly that she managed to produce two dresses for the first round after deciding her first attempt looked like a nurse’s uniform.
Her second dress proved too bland even for M&S. When the experts decided her summer blazer was old-fashioned, her fate was sealed.
Contests embrace each other on M&S:Dress The Nation. Pictured: Sandeep, AJ & Anna
The clever twist to Dress The Nation is that the finished products go on display for M&S shoppers to judge. Pictured: Julie
But there is a clever twist to Dress The Nation, which puts the finished products on display for M&S shoppers to judge. More than half of the customers’ panel liked Julie’s jacket. What do experts know, eh?
The show is presented by AJ Odudu and Vernon Kay, who specialises in dad jokes like ‘Ready, thready, go’.
They are joined by two M&S experts and a special guest. For episode one it was Scary Spice Mel B. That’s quite a line-up. In the final rounds, there’ll probably be more people on the payroll than contestants.
