Trinny Woodall has claimed that talks are underway regarding a revival of the popular BBC fashion series What Not to Wear.
Originally airing on the BBC from 2001 to 2007, What Not to Wear saw hosts Woodall and Susannah Constantine (referred to ubiquitously as “Trinny and Susannah”), deliver brutal fashion advice to unwitting women put forward by their friends.
Woodall told Lorraine Kelly on the Experience is Everything podcast that they had been approached about a potential reboot of the series recently – having previously shut down speculation that they could ever revive the show.
“We were, interestingly, recently asked to do it again,” she said. “It’s an interesting conversation, because it’s a conversation that’s slightly still happening.”
After initially responding that there was “no way”, due to other professional commitments, the presenter said that talks had continued.
There was an element of surprise, she added, over the reception of the show’s famously brutal tone, with elements of the series often being characterised as problematic in more recent readings.
In various clips that have circulated in recent years, participants on the show were seen being reduced to tears as a result of Woodall and Constantine’s criticism, which detractors have described as “body shaming”.
“But it was very nice, the people who came to see us, so then we just had a meeting with them,” Woodall added during the podcast appearance. “They had made the whole of their younger team watch all of the old What Not to Wear [episodes] and they loved it. I was surprised because there’s a real Y2K kind of, ‘How can you…?’
“We did things that were very extreme. We’d go and get a husband saying, ‘Yes, do put a camera in my wife’s dressing room so we can see how she dresses.’”
During its peak, What Not to Wear was a major ratings hit for the BBC, drawing over 7 million viewers for a Christmas special and becoming the subject of parodies on series including Doctor Who and Bo' Selecta.
Woodall described the reboot pitch as “very persuasive” and suggested that the pair have discussed ways in which a filming schedule could be made to work.
Constantine previously told Radio Times in 2022 that the show was “of its time” and “wouldn’t work today”.
“I can understand why. People are fed up of being told what to do,” she said.