The untold truth of What Not To Wear

For more than a decade, Stacy London, Clinton Kelly, and a whole slew of makeover artists helped regular people who were a little lacking in fashion sense (okay, a lot lacking in fashion sense) get some style advice and a full makeover. Based on a British TV show, What Not to Wear, the gold standard and longest lasting of all makeover shows, aired more than 345 episodes and handed out a fortune in free clothes to the stylistically challenged. Here's a look at what was really going on behind the scenes.


The format of the show was accurate, for the most part

Like most reality shows, What Not to Wear (WNTW) followed a standard, reliable, and comforting formula: a participant is nominated by a loved one or coworker, Stacy and Clinton sweep in with a $5,000 gift card with which to buy a new wardrobe, and the contestant's old clothes are disposed of. This is all true. Participants really did get five grand (and two days) to amass a new wardrobe. (They didn't get cash, however — makeover recipients went shopping with a production assistant who used corporate credit cards to pay the tabs at the stores and boutiques.) And the show's staff really did dump all of the subject's clothes, donating them to charity. One thing not usually seen: while their homes were being raided for ugly clothes, the subject got put up in a fancy hotel.

Stacy London and Clinton Kelly weren't around much

While some participants of the show have confirmed that London and Kelly were around for the two-day shooting schedule and were generally kind and supportive, others say that the actual shopping for clothes was conducted by the show's personal shoppers and stylists. One What Not to Wear contestant said the only time she saw the hosts were when they saw her try on her new clothes. It seems it was done that way to ensure genuine reactions.


It forced participants to address deep-seated psychological issues

There are a lot of reasons why people dress badly — everything from economics to not caring about clothes to body issues plays a role. According to one participant nominated for What Not to Wear by her boss, she dressed badly because of body dysmorphia. She says she hid out in body-obscuring, oversized sweaters for years because she was deeply unhappy with the way she looked. Being forced to see herself on camera was hard enough, as was looking at herself in 360-degree mirrors, trying on clothes in public, and attempting to break free of psychological trauma in front of strangers.

The clothes are off the rack, but not necessarily

What Not to Wear contestants bought real clothes from real stores, and they always magically seemed to fit in the big reveal. If it were that easy, a lot of participants wouldn't have needed to go on the show in the first place. As it stands, a lot of the clothes were tailored and mended to perfectly fit the episode's subject — the cutting and sewing just isn't shown on camera. (If you want to watch people messing with sewing machines, watch Project Runway.)


The $5000 in spending money doesn't go very far

While getting five thousand dolla dolla bills to spend on clothes sounds like it'd go a long way, contestants reported that the money actually ran out pretty quickly. Former contestant Addie Broyles revealed, "$5,000 doesn't go as far as you think it would when you're hitting New York boutiques."

Another former contestant revealed on Reddit, under the username joannati, that she had to pay the taxes herself. Luckily, the $5,000 belongs to the contestants and they aren't required to spend all of it. She wrote: "One of the producers told me the first day to NOT spend all $5000 and set aside some of the money for taxes." She further explained that it's not as easy as you might think, considering that "as you are shopping, someone else has control of your money. It isn't like you are walking around with 5 G's in your pocket so it is difficult to know how much you have spent and when to stop. I constantly checked in on where I was money wise!"

Joannati further revealed that taxes aren't the only out-of-pocket expense to account for when spending the $5,000. "The other thing NO ONE sees on air is that a huge chunk of your money goes towards tailoring. Literally EVERYTHING you buy is later tailored to you," she wrote. "At the end of the week the seamstress comes to your hotel room, you try everything on, she pins and marks it all and a few days later everything is all returned to you with the perfect fit. You pay for that service out of your $5,000."


Filming each episode takes a loooooong time

Lest anyone think that being on What Not to Wear was a walk in the park with a 5K shopping spree, each episode was time- and energy-intensive. The film crew reportedly had to attend to details that were incredibly time-consuming. These details are apparently way over the head of anyone who's not a member of a camera crew, according to former WNTW contestant Amanda Rodriguez, who revealed some behind-the-scenes secrets on her blog Dude Mom. A week's worth of long days are later condensed into the one 45-minute episode that actually goes on air.

Repetition was the name of the game, and former contestants revealed that they had to say and do things multiple times so that the cameras could get the perfect shot. One former contestant revealed on Reddit that the camera crew had him do multiple close-up reshoots, and that every time he pointed at something during the course of the show, they'd do a reshoot later that focused solely on his hand. "We learned towards the end to just stop pointing," he said.

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