According to Hollywood Reporter, Fox TV Studios is about to produce a new entry in the "docureality" genre -- one modeled strongly on NBC's The Restaurant. Entitled Making the Cut, the show will focus on a group of apprentice hairdressers, fresh out of cosmetology school, who go to work at a new hair salon In downtown Manhattan being opened by top New York hair stylist Rodney Cutler.
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Like The Restaurant, the show has a charismatic and already-successful figure setting up a new business in NYC. In addition, the hair products giant Redken is a primary sponsor, so Making the Cut will feature a lot of product placement of Redken products, just as The Restaurant featured American Express, Coors and Mitsubishi.
However, unlike The Restaurant, the focus of the show will not be on Cutler, but will instead be on the rookie stylists. Fox TV compares this aspect of it to American Idol, although a much more apt comparison might be to the BBC/PBS show Vets in Practice, which follows a group of young vets in their first jobs after leaving veterinary school.
Oh, and in a twist certain to make TV executives happy, the best of the trainees will get to work with Cutler, who is a star within the fashion industry, at a big event such as a fashion show or a photo shoot at the end of the series. Probably at something a little more classy than The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, too. No wonder that, although Fox TV is producing the series, it is being shopped to networks in addition to Fox.