Winnie Harlow Joins Making the Cut As a Judge

The Canadian-Jamaican model will be joined by legendary fashion disruptor Jeremy Scott in season two of the fashion design competition.

Supermodel, self-esteem advocate and FASHION‘s November 2020 cover star, Winnie Harlow, is adding yet another title to her bio: judge on the fashion design competition Making the Cut.

In the second season of Making the Cut, hosted by Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum, the hosts and guest judges finds themselves in Los Angeles with a whole new roster of designers on a quest to create the “next big global brand.” Harlow, 26, will be helping discover them, alongside legendary fashion disruptor, stylist and Moschino designer Jeremy Scott. There’s no premier date for the upcoming season yet but like the first, viewers will be able to stream the series on Amazon Prime Video.

Amazon has said that “additional surprise judges” will be making cameos throughout the season. While the last season took place in New York, Paris and Tokyo, it’s unclear if this season will stay in one location, given the current global pandemic.

A diverse group of 10 talented entrepreneurs and designers will be battling it out to become the next household name in fashion. But it’s so much more than just designing — the winner will need to helm a viable company, and foresee the future of fashion.

The winner will receive a mentorship with Amazon Fashion and $1 million to invest in their own brand. Lovers of the show will be able to shop the show’s winning looks on Amazon Fashion’s Making the Cut Store. Season one saw designers creating high-fashion runway looks as well as more accessible, ready-to-wear outfits while frequently collaborating with fellow competitors. In one episode, they were challenged to build looks out of leftover fabric.

“Designers need to keep making this poetry that we can fall in love with,” Klum told FASHION last year. “There needs to be every day stuff, and there needs to be some special pieces that keep us dreaming.”

For the series, Klum and Gunn select from a pool of people who already have their own clothing labels. Aside from being witness to the birth of a brand-new mega-company, viewers are also treated to a course in what it takes to be a successful designer. “I hope that they cease looking at fashion as being all about sewing,” Gunn told FASHION when discussing season one of Making the Cut. “There’s a larger rubric of components that are so critical to being successful.”

Harlow first made waves in the fashion world when she was a contestant in the 2014 season of America’s Next Top Model. Known for embracing her autoimmune disorder and skin condition, vitiligo, the Canadian-Jamaican style star has modelled for big-name brands like Nike, Victoria’s Secret, Marc Jacobs and Moschino.

But her start happened right at home in Toronto after her friend encouraged her to go to a casting call for the annual Fashion Art Toronto event. A sales associate at La Senza at the time, Harlow wasn’t sold on the idea. “I thought I should at least try,” she told FASHION in her November 2020 cover interview. “I got off work one day and took a bus to the casting; I was in a ton of shows that week. It was encouraging, and I’m really happy that I listened to my friend.”