Rihanna to produce and star in Project Runway style show Styled to Rock

Pop megastar Rihanna is bringing her passion for fashion to the small screen in a brand new reality series on The Style Network titled Styled to Rock. The show will feature 12 aspiring designers hand-picked by Rihanna competing against one another in weekly challenges involving the styling of guest A-list celebrities.

“Fashion has always played an integral part in my life and career,” said Rihanna in an official press release. “I am so excited to partner with Style Network and share my creative insight with these 12 designers and give them this opportunity to showcase their work.”

“Rihanna is a trailblazer, a trendsetter and the epitome of style. She has a powerful and unique point-of-view that transcends every aspect of pop culture, including fashion, and is a leading creative force,” said Salaam Coleman Smith, President, Style Media. “On the heels of our successful network rebrand, Styled to Rock and Style’s new partnership with Rihanna will reinvent the fashion competition genre, fueling our viewers insatiable appetite for all things style.”

The Style Network has already begun accepting applications, so if you think you have what it takes to sew up the title, click here and get to applyin’ right now!

The US version comes on the heels of Rihanna attempting the same concept in the United Kingdom earlier this year. That series flopped due to low ratings.

So what do you think? Will people tune in to Rihannagized Project runway?

There is a brief preview trailer on Style’s site (link at the bottom of the post) but for some inexplicable reason it’s not embeddable.

Here’s the full press release:

STYLE MEDIA JOINS FORCES WITH MULTI-GRAMMY WINNER RIHANNA TO SEARCH FOR THE NEXT FASHION DESIGN SUPERSTAR ON “STYLED TO ROCK” SET TO PREMIERE IN 2013 ON STYLE

Music Meets Fashion in Style’s First-Ever Competition Series from Executive Producer Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Providing Up-and-Coming Designers a National Platform to Showcase Their Talent in Creating Trendsetting Designs

The Fashion Designer Search Kicks Off with a Nationwide Casting Call on StyleNetwork.com, Beginning December 5.

LOS ANGELES—December 5, 2012 — Style Media today announced the search for America’s next groundbreaking designer with its first competition series, “Styled to Rock,” executive produced by and starring multi-Grammy Award winner and fashion icon Rihanna. Slated to premiere in 2013, the hour-long 10-episode series will give 12 up-and-coming designers, hand-picked by Rihanna, the opportunity of a lifetime – to create unique fashion pieces for A-list celebrity talent. The stakes will be high as these budding designers vie for the title of America’s next trendsetting designer.

“Rihanna is a trailblazer, a trendsetter and the epitome of style. She has a powerful and unique point-of-view that transcends every aspect of pop culture, including fashion, and is a leading creative force,” said Salaam Coleman Smith, President, Style Media. “On the heels of our successful network rebrand, ‘Styled to Rock’ and Style’s new partnership with Rihanna will reinvent the fashion competition genre, fueling our viewers insatiable appetite for all things style.”

Rihanna is inviting innovative designers who believe that they represent the future of fashion to sign up to be considered for the new competition series at Style’s website, StyleNetwork.com/StyledtoRock.

“Fashion has always played an integral part in my life and career,” said Rihanna. “I am so excited to partner with Style Network and share my creative insight with these 12 designers and give them this opportunity to showcase their work.’

The series launches with a nationwide search on StyleNetwork.com for cutting-edge designers looking to take their craft to the next level. Rihanna will personally select the 12 designers who will compete for the coveted opportunity to dress some of the biggest names in entertainment. To help the designers reach their ultimate artistic potential, Rihanna will enlist the guidance of top experts from the fashion industry to serve as mentors. Each week, challenges will push the designers to their creative limits when they are tasked with styling an A-list star. Each week’s celebrity guest will determine which designer best achieves their vision – and advances to the next week of competition. Faced with the threat of elimination, the remaining designers must meet with the mentors to discuss where they fell short and ultimately who will be sent home. In the end, one designer will be named the winner of “Styled to Rock.”

Rihanna has taken the music, entertainment and fashion industry by storm. An accomplished performer, she has sold 41 million albums worldwide and 150 million digital tracks worldwide making her the top-selling digital artist of all time. Her seventh album, “Unapologetic” gave the singer her first number one album on the Billboard 200 album chart. In addition, she has achieved 12 number-one singles and won six Grammy Awards. In 2012 she took her talents to the silver screen with her big screen debut in “Battleship.” Rihanna was recently crowned the most-likeable star on Facebook.com with 63 million ‘friends’ on the site, more than any other celebrity. In addition, she has created a fashion empire with the successful launches of her fragrances Reb’l Fleur, Rebelle and Nude as well as two capsule collections under the Armani umbrella and a collection with River Island for their spring/summer 2013 collection.

“Styled to Rock” is executive produced by Robyn Rihanna Fenty and is produced by Shed Media US, Overbrook Entertainment and Marcy Media Films. Nick Emmerson and Dan Peirson of Shed Media US, James Lassiter of Overbook Entertainment and Jay Brown of Marcy Media Films also serve as executive producers. Sarah Weidman and Merah Chung executive produce the series for Style.

For updates on “Styled to Rock” visit StyleNetwork.com, follow @StyleNetwork on Twitter and like Style on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StyleNetwork.

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