It took all of about two minutes of watching Tommy Hilfiger and his schtick in The Cut to consider that I was watching a bleeping clone of The Apprentice. It was like Agent Smith jumping out of himself in The Matrix and standing there and Nemo trying to figure out which code to disembowel. It was The Apprentice without the charm of Donald Trump. And since Hilfiger trumpets himself as a child of the '60s and makes a big to-do that he featured a Rolling Stones song in his show (in an odd end-of-the-show voiceover and album promo) and all that kind of cool stuff... to say that Donald Trump, the older guy with the tumbleweed on his head, has more charm than Tommy is saying something. Most of the time Tommy walks around like an android EST facilitator: "We have to talk..."

By David W. Taylor (Email Me)
Reality Reel Media
06.12.05

But as Tommy Hilfiger fairly honestly acknowledges, his rise — as he ominously divulges amid murky shadows and a rigid stare (like he just sacked a neighboring country, while on Botox) — to having "built a multi-billion dollar fashion empire" probably has more to do with his tacky marketing impulses and all that malarky than his creative flux in fashion. Let's just say he's more Donald Trump than Picasso. And I think this is no secret, even to him.

In an infamous 1986 stunt, as he teases us with midway through The Cut, an irked nation heckled him because, as a relative unknown in the fashion industry, he put up a billboard in New York declaring to the world that he was a designer in the same titanic league as Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein. And, as they say, the rest is history. And, as they say, Tommy also laughed... all the way to the bank. And Mount Olympus.

Yet, on The Cut, a curious statement cut loose at "The Style Forum" ending — which wraps up each team’s destiny with “discussion, debate and, ultimately, final judgement” — further establishes Hilfiger's wont that all meaningful progress comes through self-promotion and advertising. In his show opening spiel to the gathered teams he says, "with some talent and great marketing you can literally build a fashion empire." Seems to me "some talent" is somewhere way south of "great talent" or even "good talent." Hilfiger's magic bullet is "great marketing." This is a burdensome admonition.

What can one say?: much of this hype is indeed truth. It is an essential weed in our competitive American landscape — especially in our lurid culture seemingly awash in an unrelenting media godhead. I mean, how else can you explain a woman of straw, like say, Paris Hilton? She has herself built an "empire" (a "nether-world"?) so to speak, on little more than her last name, her looks and traipsing across our television screens like an ignorant dopey slut. For many, this loathsome worthlessness is an accomplishment. Well, I guess, at least she doesn't eat people.

And beyond this strangeness we have the many instances where The Cut seems surreally cued into The Apprentice. Almost morbidly so. I almost don't feel right pointing out that Chris C. actually stated, at one point, "I've got the street smarts but I've also got the book smarts." That's almost mind-boggling plagiarism. And morbid. And a little late...

But, besides the ubiquitous New York parallels that pop up at almost one flashback per minute; and teams meeting on jammed New York avenues (and yelling, "New York, baby!") and Tommy Hilfiger holding court on some crowded street corner... the camera work and editing have very much the same Mark Burnett professional feel and pacing. And there's that $250,000 annual salary and that "designing a collection under my label" offer of employment. Also, needless to say, the first two Cut challenges that involve designing a Tommy Hilfiger billboard and "tricking out" an SUV for a hip-hop idol (episode two) are essentially retreads for contests run in last season's Apprentice. One, though, must concede that a blank slab of concrete on the side of a building begging for hip-hop graffiti is not exactly, um, a billboard. Right?