I am not a particularly fashionable person. During football season, most of my outfits are coordinated around the merch of my favorite team (Sköl, Vikings!). That’s a longstanding theme throughout my youth; I was lucky that my school colors were purple and yellow, so I basically just wore Minnesota Vikings stuff all the time. Look at a picture from my childhood—or today, let’s be real—and you’ll likely see me in football stuff.
I’ve tried to expand as I’ve gotten older and more comfortable in my body, playing with patterns and bold colors, but I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Still, that desire to be wearing cutting-edge, fashion-forward stuff always lingers in the back of my brain.
All that is why shows like Netflix’s Next in Fashion have a particular appeal to me. I barely even know what a sewing machine looks like, so watching people whip up outfits I couldn’t begin to conceive of is incredibly entertaining. As someone whose fashion vocabulary doesn’t go much further than “T-shirt” and “jeans,” watching shows like this feels like voyaging into a whole new world.
Co-hosted by Queer Eye’s Tan France and nepo baby/supermodel Gigi Hadid, Next in Fashion is a show without filler—every single one of these competing designers makes impressive stuff. Choosing someone to eliminate each episode seem like a nearly impossible task, one that only the most discerning stylists’ eyes could make.
There’s a particularly special episode of Next in Fashion Season 2, which premiered last Friday, that establishes it as one of the best reality competition shows. Most of all, it highlights the queer experience, focusing on the actual competitors far beyond surface-level.
While the show is a design competition, the fourth episode of the season, “Childhood,” takes the focus away from the contest itself and places it onto the competitors. Somebody’s still going to go home, and a garment still must be made. But things get personal, in a great way.
The task requires a lot of introspection: The designers must reimagine their own childhood through fashion. For an added layer of difficulty, they’re required to draw from an outfit featured in a specific childhood photograph. As France notes, the goal is to completely reimagine the look into something unexpected.
There’s an interesting dichotomy between the queer and non-queer contestants for this challenge. Most of the non-queer folks are excited to dive into their pasts and re-frame their outfits in new, exciting ways. But for two of the queer contestants in particular—James and Danny, who goes by his last name, Godoy—this offers a tough opportunity to face their pasts head-on.
James reveals to co-hosts Tan and Gigi that he’s transgender. Even looking at a photo of his childhood, he explains, brings up a lot of pain. The photo itself is striking: James wears a dress, looking at his two older brothers in male-coded clothing with a longing gaze. He explains that “he threw a lot of fits when I had to wear dresses,” knowing he was different since he was 3 years old.
He continues that he used to wear women's clothes because he didn’t want to embarrass his family, but he hated the experience. “You feel so vulnerable, and this is not who I am,” he says. Though his childhood was tough, James admits with such pride that “after my gender transition, I finally felt comfortable, and only then did I understand that you can just be yourself.”
As Tan observes, it's an exciting opportunity for James to create a design that his childhood self would have worn, if he could have lived authentically.
The same goes for Godoy. Godoy has big plans, choosing a photo from his 15th birthday. The whole family gender-swapped, allowing Godoy to wear a dress. Though Godoy now works as a drag queen as well as a designer, this was his only opportunity in his childhood to really feel at home in his clothes.
Godoy explains, “When you are a first-generation Mexican American, you are taught customs that your family brought back from Mexico. And a lot of the time, to be flamboyant is not OK in the culture…The kid in that photo definitely had wild dreams and aspirations for their life, and I can proudly say that I’m achieving them now.”
Planning to create an epic quinceañera dress, Godoy takes the opportunity in stride to turn a childhood full of uncertainty into a magical opportunity: “This outfit that I’m making is little Danny’s inspiration for the future.” He’s ready to bring the wow factor, and we can’t wait to see it.
When the runway moment comes, it’s euphoric. While James impresses, it’s Godoy that sends the judges into the stratosphere.
They are blown away by Godoy’s outfit, giving his male model a sweetheart neckline, and a bustline with shimmery shoulders. (These are the judges' words, not mine. I don’t know what they mean, but I absolutely adored everything about the outfit.) It’s a stunning collage of gender identities, as the dress is complete with Oxford shoes and a tie. It’s a moment of magic.
What’s special about Godoy’s outfit going down the runway is that the show isn’t interested in over-the-top dramatics or edits that have become a staple of reality television. Think of how Drag Race, or especially The Real Housewives of literally anywhere, handles big moments like this. Instead, Next in Fashion has no tantalizing cuts, no rattlesnake noises nor obnoxious musical cues—just an honest reaction from the judges. The show lets the work speak for itself, without distraction.
Besides RuPaul’s Drag Race, how many other reality shows really take time to get to know the contestants? Shows like The Voice treat their contestants like an afterthought compared to the celebrity judges. Competitions like Project Runway and The Voice are laser-focused on the tasks themselves—I’ve watched tons of both shows and would be hard-pressed to name more than a few contestants. But Next in Fashion gives its contestants space to breathe and be themselves, and it’s all the better for it.
By allowing Godoy and James to reflect on how their fashion was used to fit in, when all they really wanted to do was break out and be fully themselves, the show allows for great intimacy. It even led me to reflect on my own style. I wasn’t out in high school, though I’d known for a long time I was different, even if I didn’t have the right words for it.
My decision to dress almost entirely in Vikings apparel from head-to-toe (yes, I had Vikings-themed shoes, and they were incredible) was because I loved my team, yes. But it also provided a hyper-masculine shield, behind which I believed people would question my sexuality less, if I looked like some sort of frat bro. This wasn’t always successful—slurs were hurled at me fairly regularly—but that apparel did provide a sense of security, like a layer of armor.
As queer people, we’re used to feeling second-rate growing up, worried that we’ll be exposed, and nobody will love us anymore if we reveal all our secrets. Sure, people are certainly luckier than others, but even when we’re embraced by their families from the get-go there’s still a lot of fear in coming out. It requires a vulnerability and fortitude that most will never understand.
The “Childhood” episode successfully conjured up images of my own childhood clothing, allowing me a moment of catharsis I never expected from a reality competition show. I felt a deep connection to both James and Godoy, thrilled that they were now able to dress the way they want and create things that bring them joy. As James says pointedly, when discussing his outfit with the judges, “That kid needed to wear something else, and it was important for me to make that outfit.”
The winner of the episode is Godoy, which isn’t a surprise, but it doesn’t need to be. Next in Fashion is far less interested in shock value than it is in getting its contestants to create their very best work. That’s a tremendous relief—while most competition shows shower things in twists and turns, Next in Fashion keeps those to a minimum.
The episode ends perfectly. Godoy sits on the winner's couch in the dress he created. He looks liberated—a person freed own the shackles of their past. He beams from ear to ear, and he says, “This seems right.” It sure does.
