Is the era of style critics ending? Fashion makeover show gets a makeover

The Star

24-05-2025

Stacy London and Clinton Kelly spent more than a decade critiquing style choices as the co-hosts of the TLC makeover show What Not To Wear , which ended in 2013.
Now, the duo is back with a new show and a new message: Wear Whatever The F You Want .
Streaming on Prime Video – with shoppable products accessible to viewers through a scannable QR code in each episode – the series focuses on helping participants achieve 'their fantasy ideal as opposed to what's palatable to America', as London put it.
After helping participants live out wardrobe metamorphoses as punk-rock gods and powerhouse divas, the pair talked about throwing out the old fashion rule book and encouraging people to find the most authentic version of themselves.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Who came up with the title for the new show?
Kelly: I did, after a television producer said they wished we would bring back What Not To Wear . I said, 'The world has changed so much since that show ended, the only show I would do now would have to be called Wear Whatever The F You Want , because that's what we all should be doing.'
Then I thought, 'That is actually a really good title for a show!''
Read more: How today's best-dressed men aren't just wearing style – they're shaping it
How do the shows differ in their objectives?
London: For What Not To Wear , you were nominated secretly by friends and family, then we showed up saying, 'Surprise!'
There's no gotcha here. These people are self-nominated and trying, like a lot of us are, to figure out what our style is, either in terms of identity or just post-Covid.
Nobody wants to wear hard pants anymore, and we don't need fashion experts the way we did before social media.
Kelly: What Not To Wear was us laying down the law, giving people rules and our opinions.
Here, we are letting our client share with us their hopes and dreams and style fantasies. We're much more encouraging than we are judgmental about what they may want to look like.
What does personal style mean to you now that it did not then?
Kelly: We are both Generation X and indoctrinated just like everybody else of that age. We worked at women's magazines where it was all about looking taller and thinner, how to attract a man or lose 20 pounds in a weekend.
London: It used to be, 'Oh, let's define your waist so that you look taller.' Now we say, 'Who cares about your waist?'
If you don't care about flattering, we don't care about flattering either. You can use style to say a lot of things that you might not know how to express yet yourself.
You lean into the joy of clothes and how they can make you feel. Do you think that was missing from the previous generation of makeover shows?
Kelly: As hosts, but also human beings, telling people what to do feels very emotionally primitive. It's fun to give your opinion without really any repercussions.
But it isn't the kind of thing that makes you feel really proud of yourself when you put your head on the pillow.
Now, it's much more about collaborating with a client and helping to instill a sense of empowerment while watching somebody give birth to a different and more authentic version of themselves
London: We had a lot of joy making this show, and watching the way that taking style to the extreme allowed somebody to see themselves differently.
Many of them don't think they can do it themselves. They're still looking for some kind of validation, they worry they don't know how to do it right. That's where we come in like guardrails.
You don't shy away from difficult life stories, including eating disorders and serious illness.
London: Not all of the stories are easy stories to tell, but they feel reflective of and culturally relevant to 2025. We are talking about things that we did not talk about before, like gender and race and sexuality and menopause because of younger generations.
And there's a multigenerational learning curve going on as older people take lessons from Gen Z.
People in their 50s and 60s who thought they were gay or didn't have a word or the language for pan or asexual, whatever it is, finally have something more to define themselves with, including with their wardrobes.
What are some of the more challenging aspects of doing this sort of work?
London: Because we were talking about things that are new in terms of cultural conversation, safety is very important.
Clinton speaks to this pretty dramatically in one episode – just because you want to dress the exact way you want, we never want to put you in a place where you're going to be in harm's way.
I think that is the only rule for dressing in whatever you want: to be mindful that there are still places that are not safe for you to be you.
Any little guidelines for viewers looking to get started on a similar journey at home?
Kelly: The first thing you have to do is ask yourself, 'What are the three adjectives that you would like the rest of the world to think about you without you ever opening your mouth?'
Style is nonverbal communication, so what do you want people to think about you?
Then go into your closet and anything that does not support those three adjectives, you might want to think about getting rid of them. That is a lifelong challenge.
Every few years, we really have to take a look at where we are and say, 'Well, we've evolved in this area. Maybe we need to evolve our style too.'
London: We say fashion starts in the brain, because it has to be undoing the belief system that you have internalized your whole life that told you – you can't wear prints, or you look awful in green.
What is actually true to you? What do you believe? And that's how you come up with those adjectives and change the closet into the person that you know that you authentically are.
Because often the thoughts that you have in your head about yourself are not your own thoughts. They are the thoughts that have been implanted into your head by the media, social media, your parents, your lovers, your classmates.
Read more: From gym to glam: Why the fashion industry is obsessed with sportswear right now
What do you want people to take from the show?
Kelly: This is the fashion education that we should be giving people: 'Who do you want to be today? What message are we going for?' Beyond just 'this fits me,' lets get people confident in using style as a tool in their arsenal to create more opportunity for themselves.
I often use the analogy that fashion is a buffet. You have all of this stuff to choose from, then what you put on your plate is style.
London: Would you take a pig in a blanket if you were a vegan? People need to use that mindset when thinking about style. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.