Philippe Starck’s ‘Apprentice’ show set to air

A BBC reality TV show in which young designers compete to win a work placement with Philippe Starck will air on BBC Two next month (www. designweek.co.uk, 12 June 2008).

Philippe Starck’s School of Design finished filming on 1 December 2008, Design Week understands. The winner is currently working out a six-month contract at Starck’s Paris studio, having seen off competition from 11 other British contestants during the ten-week series.

Echoing BBC reality TV series The Apprentice, the show sees five female and seven male contestants living together in a house in the Paris suburbs. They range in age from 19 to 32 and most have product design backgrounds.

The youngest contestant is 19-year-old Lachlan Robertson, a product design student from Dundee University, while the oldest is former sign fitterturned-furniture design graduate Robert Richardson.

Another contestent, Ilsa Parry, is a lecturer in 3D design at Liverpool Community College whose design ideas include a space-saving vertical coffin.

The first episode’s challenge will see the contestants search a hypermarket for products displaying good and bad design qualities. Advised by his wife Jasmine Abdellatif, Starck gives the five worst-performing students ten minutes to repeat the hypermarket challenge on the Internet, before finally dismissing two of them.

Philippe Starck’s School of Design will be shown on BBC Two in late March.