“Diversity – there it is!”: Heidi Klum is once again focusing on a trend topic in her model show and also allows candidates who would not have gotten a place on the catwalk before.
Heidi Klum fails at her self-imposed goal after just a few minutes: “It’s difficult for me,” she says after she broke her resolution, again talking about “girls” (phonetically “Meeeeedcheen”) and not models.
Shortly before, she had greeted two gray-haired, 66 and 68-year-old women on the red carpet, asked if they should be called on a first-name basis – and stated: “We are all no longer girls. Should I just say models?”
Diversity is king
No more «Meeeeedchen»? That’s never been the case in 16 years of “Germany’s Next Top Model”. Season 17 of the endless ProSieben show, which starts this Thursday at 8:15 p.m., wants to make it clear in the first episode: Something is very different here. Klum screams: “Diversity – there it is!”
Diversity, the trend topic that now also allows women over 45 kilos to “walk” on catwalks and have photos taken of themselves – last year it gave the show the most successful season in twelve years, like ProSieben broadcaster Daniel Roseman says. A year ago, transgender model Alex Mariah Peter beat curvy Dasha in the final. And all of this was so successful from the broadcaster’s point of view that they now want to build on it and go one step further.
This year there are not only candidates who weigh more than the average model or have scars on their bodies. But also women at an age when, as the candidate Paulina says herself, one is actually in model retirement: namely 32. And even over 60.
There has never been so much diversity, emphasizes Klum in a ProSieben interview. The candidates are said to be between 18 and 68 years old, between 1.54 and 1.95 meters tall, and wear sizes between 30 and 54.
The clothing size is unimportant
That presented the show with completely new challenges: It was difficult to find designers for the new season. “A lot of well-known designers have canceled us,” says Klum and asks: “Why don’t the big fashion labels just go along with it?”. “It’s your job to dress people, and size shouldn’t matter.”
One fashion designer who hasn’t let that deter him is Jean-Paul Gaultier, one of this year’s big names. Guest judge on episode one is none other than pop superstar Kylie Minogue.
And the new mix is quite good for the mood, as ProSieben emphasizes: “We’ve never had so much harmony.” But in the format, which is now approaching 20, it was never about catfights anyway.
At the start of the season this Thursday, “GNTM” is up against quite a heavyweight in the fight for the quota: the RTL “jungle camp”, which is currently trying its hand at prime time on Thursdays.
The beginning of the first top model episode almost looks like a greeting to the competition from RTL. Heidi Klum is waiting on a red carpet for the candidates who get out of the car and say things like: “I’m so excited.” Similarities with the dating show “The Bachelor” are purely coincidental, emphasizes broadcaster Rosemann.
Source: Stern
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