Gok's Clothes roadshow: a fashion fix too far?

So I would like to preface this post by saying that I LOVE Gok Wan. He has single handedly brought fashion back onto our TV screens, his shows are light hearted, easy viewing, and he never ever says that anyone needs to lose weight in order to look good.

BUT

His new series 'Clothes roadshow' is really starting to annoy me.
The whole premise behind the show (in case anyone hasn't delved into Channel 4 recently) is that he pits the UK high street's clothes up against the worlds biggest designers in order to prove that anyone can look and feel amazing on a shoe string budget. Sounds good right? And it would be, if he actually used cheap high street clothes. Instead he uses heavily customised clothes, that are just as un-obtainable for the average viewer as the designer garments he tells us to shun every week.

Case in point - on tonights episode he fashioned a tartan dress out of two old picnic blankets, and customised an American Apparel top with £300 worth of crystals that took over 40 hours to be painstakingly glued on. If I tried to walk out the house in a blanket fashioned as a couture gown I would look like I was ill, and needed to head straight on back to bed, and I just don't have the time or the funds (an lets be totally honest the skill), to glue thousands of diamonte onto a mesh top.

Now I am not saying his designs don't look beautiful - they do. (The pictures below show how he transformed a plain blue jersey maxi, into a stunning evening gown.) But there is no way I, and I am guessing the majority of viewers, could recreate them at home. Instead of heralding our British high street stores, he seems to be quietly implying that there is no way you could ever look good by just wearing the clothes as you buy them.

Simple jersey dress one minute

£100, and a professional seamstress later is a lust worthy evening gown

So what do you think? Are going to be whipping out the glue gun and picnic blankets to put together your next ensemble, or do you wish Gok would return to attainable clothes that his viewers could actually wear.