Fashionistas reacted with shock as word spread Wednesday that the groundbreaking runway series Fashion Television had been cancelled.
CTV confirmed the show’s end after host Jeanne Beker broke the news on Twitter, sparking a flood of protests and tributes from fans including Toronto-bred fashion personality Jay Manuel of America’s Next Top Model.
Bernadette Morra, editor-in-chief of Fashion magazine, said news of the cancellation blindsided many in the industry.
“This is really shocking, I don’t know anyone who saw this coming,” Morra said hours after word spread online.
“Usually in the fashion world we get sort of rumblings through the fashion grapevine… but this was a big shock.”
Beker broke the news on Twitter by saying “This dream is over: After 27 glorious years, FT production ceased today.”
“So sad to see some of my closest colleagues move on,” tweeted Beker, who has interviewed virtually every top designer through the show, including Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger and the late Alexander McQueen.
“But life’s about change! We have to embrace that. NEW dreams now. Looking forward to working with Bellmedia + evolving the FT brand.” Bell Media owns CTV.
The weekly half-hour series was one of the first to delve deeply into the fashion world by affording it serious coverage more typically reserved for news and sports beats.
Its broad reach made elite couture designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier household names in average Canadian living rooms and transformed little-seen runway shows into a new form of televised spectacle.
Created by Jay Levine in 1985, Fashion Television began as a local production of Citytv in Toronto but was picked up by sister stations across the country as its popularity rose. It jumped to CTV in 2008 after CTVglobemedia bought out its parent company, CHUM.
CTV says production on Fashion Television, which was also broadcast in the United States and Europe, was suspended Wednesday but gave no reason for halting the series. It said 10 positions would be lost.
“The iconic Jeanne Beker remains with Bell Media and the company looks forward to an exciting future with her, including the development of new projects,” CTV said Wednesday in a statement.
“Bell Media remains committed to the fashion genre and will continue to grow FashionTelevisionChannel to deliver a broader appeal for viewers, advertisers, and distributors.”
Morra suggested that growing competition from other outlets had eroded the show’s impact. She noted that Beker and her team was the only TV crew covering fashion on the ground when she started 20 years ago.
“Now, though, you can’t count the number of TV crews that are there trying to cover things. Fashion Television really was a pioneer and really that came from Jeanne and Jay Levine,” Morra said of the show, which also delved into the worlds of photography, architecture and design.
“For somebody who’s into fashion, there are different people that you can follow on the web or through Twitter. There’s just different ways of satisfying that hunger for a little bit of fashion eye-candy.”
