Lemondrop

Thanks to its safe commercial sponsor (CoverGirl) and a spate of blink-and-you-miss-them winners, "America's Next Top Model" always gets dinged for having little, if any, fashion-industry relevance. Kind of like if the prize of "Top Chef" was a job at McDonald's.

So we were thrilled to see Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley take a seat at the Top Model judges' table for the duration of this just-completed cycle. Replacing the dramatic yet nonsensical runway coach J Alexander with the grandiose Talley was a bold move -- Miss J is a fan favorite -- and a smart one: In one fell swoop, Tyra and Company made things a hell of a lot more interesting, and for a TV show, that's way more important than whether your winner books a gig. Here, we look back on the five ways A.L.T made ANTM a lot more OMG:

1) The Caftans
Oh, sweet fabulousness. A.L.T. has always been larger than life -- his usual wardrobe at Fashion Week generally involves a series of ostrich coats, capes, and fur turbans -- and on Top Model he was no exception. Almost every week he wore a brightly colored meringue of a robe, styled similarly to real judges' robes, yet boasting sleeves so large they could house Jay Manuel. Unlike ex-judge Miss J's shtick -- bow ties and afros that got ever-larger as contestants were eliminated, for instance -- ALT's campy display felt totally innate, natural, and, well, right. We haven't loved caftans this much since the Golden Girls wore them on the lanai while eating cheesecake.

2) The Work Experience
No offense to noted fashion photographer Nigel Barker, but other than campaigning to save the seals, we're not sure what work he's done lately that doesn't tie back directly to ANTM. A.L.T. has Anna Wintour's ear, dresses starlets for awards shows and galas, is in with major designers like Oscar de la Renta, and can glide into any Fashion Week show and perch wherever he feels like it, and nobody will utter a peep. (Like, are you really going to tap a 6-foot-bajillion dude in a fabulous coat on the shoulder and say, "Um, I think that's my seat"? No.) Y'all, we finally have someone who can go toe-to-toe with Tyra's withered old "I modeled in Paris when I was 17" stories. Celebrate!

3) The Fresh Perspective
Talley's worldliness ups the show's intellectual ante, which gives weight to his opinions in a way that Tyra's past Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret work does not. (No offense, TyTy.) We're pretty sure that, in the history of "Top Model," no one before now has likened a model's picture to a Matisse painting, nor dropped the word "hinterland," nor referenced the seminal early-20th-century French fashion magazine Vu. A.L.T. also was the lone judge in favor of Alasia's episode-two photo in which she bared her naked buttocks to the camera, and his argument -- that he'd hang it in his salon (French emphasis his) while inviting beautiful and smart people over to discuss art -- is the sole reason she didn't go home. And what do you know? She then turned out so many good pictures that she made it to the Final Six. Also, we want to go to that party.

4) The Tyra Love
To be blunt, Ms. Banks sucks up to A.L.T. in a way we've never seen. At first it was like manic hostess anxiety, an unspoken but urgent, "SEE? SEE, ISN'T THIS AWESOME?" Then it morphed into a weird bit of peacocking, like laughing a bit too loud a bit too long, trying to prove in that awkward Oprah-like way that she and he are really super-duper-tight. And now it seems like Tyra gives Talley's opinion a bit more weight than anyone else's, which isn't entirely undeserved, except that Nigel Barker -- while perhaps not as gainfully employed as A.L.T. -- is no dummy, either. Which brings us to ...

5) The Nigel Skepticism
Maybe we're projecting, but it certainly seems like Nigel has noticed Tyra's deep affinity for the man sitting at her right hand, and isn't entirely at peace with it. Oh, sure, he's trying -- gamely incorporating A.L.T.'s "dreckitude" critique into some adorably lame wordplay, like, "That's not dreckitude, that's dressitude!" -- but even Nigel is not smooth enough to hide his eyebrows twitching irritably toward the heavens every time Tyra sides with her new toy. While we advocate peaceable cooperation in real life, we far prefer snarky snappishness in our reality shows, so if Talley's addition prompts a little man-on-man cat-fighting in the next season of ANTM, we'll be even more firmly on board than we are now. In other words, if you bring it, Cycle Fifteen, they will come.