Make It Work

(AP Photo/HO/Bravo)

By "it" we mean "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style." We really wanted to like the dry-but-tasty "Project Runway" mentor's new Bravo makeover show, but after watching a preview screener of the first two episodes, we felt the same way about "Guide to Style" as we felt about anything Vincent Libretti ever designed: Ehhhhhhh. In each episode, Tim Gunn and Veronica Webb teach a fashion victim some rules, let her make some bad decisions in a fancy store, correct her, give her an expensive haircut then encourage her to make her friends and family feel jealous and/or ugly. Touching!

The whole show is scandalously reminiscent of "What Not to Wear" — the slight bland American version on TLC, not the biting British version on BBC America. Such copycatting makes us wonder if Keith Michael had anything to do with this venture. The biggest difference in "Guide to Style" is that Gunn has this hand-dandy checklist of clothing items that every woman must own. Trenchcoat? Who knew?! Beyond that, there's not much innovation here. As Gunn might say himself, "It's a little ahhlarming." Hopefully, this makeover show gets a makeover if it continues.