Nicole Richie returned to Prime Video’s fashion competition show “Making the Cut” for a third season this summer, teaming up with designer Jeremy Scott and executive producers Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn on a quest to find the next designer of big fashion in the industry.
“It’s really important for me as a judge to not just look at something like it’s my personal aesthetic or not. I’m not for that,” said Richie about judging this season. “We’re trying to find the next global brand, so there’s a lot that plays into that. It’s more like, can you sew? Are you getting notes from all your mentors coming to you? Are you able to find a way to create an accessible look that is cohesive with your high-level look?”
The third season finale of “Making the Cut” airs Friday, crowning Swiss fashion designer Yannik Zamboni as the winner of the $1 million prize and mentorship from Amazon Fashion. Zamboni is the first non-American designer to win the competition show.
The designer was up against British designer Georgia Hardinge and Brazilian designer Rafael Chaouiche for the coveted award. The designers’ final task was to design a concept store for their brand and create a 10-piece fashion collection with four accessible looks and two menswear. They were also tasked with pitching their business plan and concept store to Christine Beauchamp, Amazon’s senior vice president of North American Stores, who heads Amazon Fashion.
Zamboni wowed the judges with his monochromatic and avant-garde collection, which featured styles where traditional fashion pieces such as trousers, dress shirts and jackets were repurposed into different types of clothing.
This is Richie’s second season judging Making the Cut, after joining the judging panel for the show’s first season. She explained that this season felt different from the first — which was filmed at the start of the pandemic — because the designers were able to be stationed in Los Angeles and work out of a long-term studio.
“As for me as a judge, I don’t know if there are too many challenges,” said Richie about the season. “I think we just have to look at everything and try to get to know the designers and really understand where they’re coming from and what their eye is. Sometimes, we have to spend some time with them and talk to them to really understand where they are coming from when they show their current designs.”
This season also included some topical challenges, such as one creating festival-inspired outfits and another that involved creating a TikTok to show the vision behind the designers’ creations.
Richie said her favorite week was the TikTok challenge because the platform is not something she is very familiar with.
“I found it really interesting and funny because there were really some videos that I didn’t get at all,” she explained. “I think [musicians] Chloe and Halle were our guest judges that week who, obviously, are young and this is probably their world. It was really interesting to see that there were things that I didn’t understand at all and they were like, ‘Oh, that video is so amazing.’ I find those moments so eye-opening because you get a different perspective on what people are attracted to.”
While the fourth season of “Making the Cut” has yet to be announced, Richie said she would be excited to see what the challenges are and how a new set of stylists would tackle them.
In the near future, Richie is continuing to grow her fashion brand House of Harlow, working with Revolve for the retailer’s New York Fashion Week event, and has several other projects planned for this year.
