Despite some really bad press that the show has received I’m really enjoying the new reality TV series, Design for Life, that started on the 14th September and is shown on BBC2. I’m afraid I can’t tell you what day or time it is on as I always miss it, but you can watch it on iplayer if you live in the UK.
The series is basically based on Philippe Starck’s hunt for the next big British Designer. The aim of the series, according to Starck, is no less than to create an ‘English style’ as he believes that the Brits haven’t had a new national design aesthetic since Terence Conran opened his first branch of Habitat in the early 1960s.
Slightly ironic I would say that a French man is trying to create an English style and exactly how English it can be if it has been created by a French man I do not know.
The series started out with 12 eager designers, all chosen by Starck himself, to compete against each other for a six-month placement working as part of his ‘tribe’ in his Paris Studio. In the program, which is basically Philippe Starck’s version of The Apprentice, Starck sets the designers creative tasks and each week he eliminates the weakest.
I must say I was very pleased to see Polly Firth in the programme as I had picked her out as a designer to watch from New Designers 2008. I was also happy to see Nebil sent home so early on. I found him somewhat over confident, but luckily Starck had him sussed, much to his surprise.
I shall be catching up on the programmes I have missed tonight on iplayer and at this point in time I would have to say that my money is on Ilsa Parry to win the series.