“King Of Style”, the first Roundtable reviewed

The first episode of “King Of Style” (KOS) has been released on Michael Jackson Official YouTube Channel.

The Roundtable is hosted by June Ambrose, a stylist and designer; with panelists John Branca, Co-Executor of the Estate; Michael Bush, Michael Jackson costume designer; Rushka Bergman, Stylist and Editor of Vogue Italia; and Kamini Chin Loy, model and Fashionista.

The roundtable talks about Michael Jackson’s influence in the fashion industry and celebrities, until today. This is the second roundtable organised at the beginning of the year in New York. Maybe the Miami one was just a test or they will release it later on as it might be done by topic and not chronologically.

While it is going through Michael styles throughout his career, short films and awards shows, the content is very light and there will be nothing that the diehard fans will not know. It’s very quick and not going into too much details.

A surprise is the amount of pictures of Michael within this 23 min video. While nothing unseen, I wish they used better quality pictures for some of those. After all, they are the Estate, they should have much better quality pictures.

As for the beginning of the video, the intro montage is cool. A lot of thoughts and time went to it and it shows.

When June introduce John Branca, I felt uneased. “John Branca, Co-Executor of the Michael Jackson Estate, Co-Producer of the Movie “This Is It”, the Broadway “MJ The Musical”, “MJ Immortal” and “MJ ONE””. I know this was maybe just a plugin to all the different Estate’s Projects but it felt very self-gratification on Branca’s part.

The gratification continues in the credits where all three key people of the Estate are marked as “Executor Producer”: John Branca, John McClain and Karen Langford. While most documentaries, videos or movies will bulk the names of producers under one line, they all three get “Executive Producer” above their names.

For those who do not know Karen Langford, she started as “archivist” for the estate but quickly got involved in Merchandise licensing and designs, involvement in the creative process in some of the Estate projects: Production Counsel on “This Is It”, Executive Producer of “Slave To The Rhythm” (hologram), Producer of the “Michael Jackson’s Halloween” cartoon and Project Manager for “Thriller 40”.

Another unnecessary element is the fake clapping and cheering throughout the video. We can all see the audience present are not moving but yet, soundbites of cheering audience have been added on the top throughout the roundtable.

Prince Jackson is also in the audience but hasn’t been involved in the discussion or even been given a voice.

within the discussion, John Branca confirmed that the “Thriller” documentary is coming in few months and also asked Bush to re-publish in book “King Of Style” which I believe we will see soon with a new cover and … for sure the logo they created for this project.

The video ends with a montage of pictures and videos of the after-party that followed the roundtable.

Overall, this is a cute project for the general public to discover or understand a bit more about Michael’s thought process in his fashion statements throughout his life. But as for us, the fans, as I wrote in our opinion piece, it’s not for us. It really feels like, despite Michael’s imagery is present, he is falling behind Branca’s wannabe fame. It is a clear staging for the upcoming Biopic and make sure the general public know who is John Branca (and co).

You can watch the roundtable below and let us know your thoughts: