Even if Crimes of Fashion: Killer Clutch faithfully sticks to the general template of a mystery film, that doesn't guarantee its quality. It may have structure and suspects and motive but it doesn't inject its own color into the expected story beats. Maybe it's a consequence of the film being made for a network that only really shows "safe," sanitized programming, but there isn't a particularly strong sense of danger here despite the threat of violence being established from the very beginning. And while the movie has fun with individual outsized characters meant to show off how outlandish and how expressive high fashion can be, they fall to the background and are unfortunately diluted in the rest of the film's bland tropes.

Every side character here that comes from the fashion world is admittedly little more than a modified stereotype, but it's still refreshing to have these people break the monotony of this ordinary mystery. It's a shame that the film doesn't integrate these characters into the plot beyond having them be interviewed every so often by the protagonist (and her obligatory love interest working with the French police). As a result, it can't help but feel like the movie is situating itself outside this much more interesting world, when it really doesn't have any reason not to be more creative, more fun, and more knowingly camp.