"ANTM" Getting Fashion Makeover, Recruits Cavalli, Posen As Guest Judges

"America's Next Top Model" is trying to live up to its boast of being high fashion. Executive producer/host Tyra Banks has lured some of fashion industry's biggest names to be guest judges for the next season, including designers Roberto Cavalli and Zac Posen.

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Last season's newest recruit, fashion editor Andre Leon Talley, and longtime judge, photographer Nigel Barker, will still return to the panel, but Banks has also recruited recognizable names to sit alongside them.

Among the featured guest judges are designers Cavalli, Posen, Diane Von Furstenberg, Patricia Field, photographers Patrick Demarchelier, Matthew Rolston, Francesco Carrozzini, and models Margherita Missoni and Karolina Kurkova.

Aside from getting new faces, Banks also anted up the prize and asked fashion bible Vogue to take part. Well, it's Vogue Italia, but it's still Vogue, a definite upgrade from teen magazine Seventeen.

Although the show is a ratings winner and has spawned international versions, it has constantly been criticized for claiming it is high fashion when its boasts of a spread on Seventeen and a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics as prizes for the winner hardly qualify it as such.

It was also criticized for its failure to produce any actual supermodels.

"ANTM" seems to be really serious in its quest to be taken seriously. With the new guest judges and Vogue's inclusion, it looks like they are finally drifting to the right direction.

The show's 15th cycle will premiere in September.