Project Runway: Fashion Startup Is the Shark Tank Rip-Off You Probably Don't Need

The first episode features the accessories brand WXYZ—who made that gold-framed visor Beyonce wore in her “7/11″ music video. The twist to make this show slightly less like a total ripoff of Shark Tank has the owner Laura Wass opening a pop up shop featuring lower priced items to prove to the investors that her business is viable. This, I found, was the best idea associated with this show because, as the investors wondered, how many people are really going to pay $400 for a gold crown you can only really wear at Coachella once.

The other two designers/entrepreneurs were pushing a odd, not at all functional sweatshirt and tote bags made out of jerseys. The panel includes Birchbox founder Katia Beauchamp, Christine Hunsicker of the plus-size subscription service Gwynnie Bee, Rebecca Minkoff and fashion businessman Gary Wassner.

I think the problem here is that Shark Tank manages to be interesting almost solely off of the strength of the personalities of the sharks and the occasionally compelling stories of the entrepreneurs. As a concept, fashion startup doesn’t strike me as particularly interesting and the negotiation process with the panel is very tame. NBC similarly tried to combining the business of fashion and actual fashion with Fashion Star and I bet you can guess how that turned out.

There’s also the fact that Project Runway spinoffs (other than All-Stars) are unnecessary and bad. Project Runway is a perfect television program and there’s no reason to mess with it.

While Project Runway: Fashion Startup is certainly not a good show, it’s far from completely unwatchable because it’s pulling from two highly watchable shows. All that to say: I will almost certainly let multiple episodes pile up over the weeks and binge watch them all as I clean my apartment on Sundays.