TCA: Stylista's Slowey Has History of Bad Hires

Anne Slowey, fashion news director for Elle magazine and aspiring reality show star, is just like us. Slowey, who worked her way up from the dreary ranks of assistantdom, only has a handful of “expensive things hanging in her closet” and she’s known to make dubious staffing choices.

Slowey is one of the judges on The CW’s upcoming reality competition Stylista, which pits aspiring fashion industry grunts in a Darwinian competition for an editorial job at Elle.

At a Q&A session with reporters Saturday morning at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Slowey–dressed in a black silk Bottega Veneta dress–claimed to be decidedly un-glamorous when she’s not in the Elle offices.

“On the weekends I wear flip-flops and jeans and T-shirts like everyone else,” she said to a roomful of (mostly) sartorially challenged TV critics.

As for the Bottega Veneta, Slowey intimated that she chose the dress for its forgiving tailoring: “I’ve been eating a lot of French fries lately.”

(When she let slip that her mother is 85 years old, it set off a debate among a small contingent of critics trying to gauge her age.)

And while Slowey will select the Stylista winner who will be rewarded with a job at Elle, her personnel choices have not always been prudent.

“I don’t have the perfect-looking assistant,” she offered. “People [at Elle] are like: ‘Who did you hire now?”

“I once hired someone who worked nights in an S&M club.”

Stylista premieres Oct. 29 at 9 p.m.