Takes us deep into an unknown world: Channel 4’s Inside Missguided reviewed

If it’s a test of a good documentary series that it takes us deep into an unknown, even unimaginable world, then Inside Missguided: Made in Manchester passes with flying colours — especially for the more middle-aged viewer.

Missguided, it turns out, is a fast-fashion company, which means that it spots what celebrities are wearing online and then designs, makes and sells much cheaper versions within days — all while indignantly denying the outrageous charge that ‘we just rip off other people’s designs’. The target market apparently consists of young women obsessed with Instagram and Love Island. And so, on the whole, does the staff, who have names like Treasure, Zee and Karolina, and are keen for us to understand how excited they are at all times.

‘Manchester: the greatest city in the world!’ yelled the narrator (a Missguided receptionist) at the start, in the kind of stage Mancunian that only a true Manc can pull off. On a more sombre note — although just as loudly — she also stressed the company’s feminism. ‘It may be owned by a man,’ she conceded, ‘but it’s definitely us women who run the show. We drink pints and we swear and we get our tits out if we want to, because we’re empowered.’

We joined these employees, or ‘bad-ass bitches’ as they prefer to be called, at a time of financial difficulty, after a disastrous 2018 in which the company lost £26 million. Their recovery plan was two-fold. The first part was to launch a new line with Jordan Lipscombe, as I hardly need remind Spectator readers, a YouTuber with 1.9 million followers. Jordan was duly photographed pouting extravagantly as she leant against various walls.