Oh, Rachel Zoe

(For those in the know, it’s pronounced Zo, not Zoey)

Rachel Zoe, “stylists to the stars,” once famously Nicole Richie’s friend and eating disorder pal, has, like a host of her vain celebrity friends with too much time on their hands, got herself a reality TV show that follows her fascinating life in fashion for the rest of us who are clearly desperate to know what she does day-to-day - the Rachael Zoe Project. And it’s just as brainless as she is.

This makes it an almost mindless delight. I’ve only watched one episode, on a lazy Saturday afternoon whilst channel surfing with nothing better to do, and indeed if you have no better way to fill your time, this may just do. If you take none of it seriously – and fear not, Zo does that more than enough for you – it’s a hoot. She “dresses” her clients by giving her opinion on their outfits, drools all over designers such as Oscar de la Renta, never seems to have enough time to get ready, but always has “20 minutes” to go shopping, where she inevitably buy countless dresses she probably won’t wear (“I’ll look at it”), will tell her husband she “had in the back of [her] closet” and will no doubt lead to yet another fight with said (increasingly frustrated) husband, who has been contacted by the credit card company for “suspicious activity.

• “I see it, I want it, I grab it…I pay for it later” (she says as she pulls clothes off a rack)
• “I can’t keep anything alive except a cactus…and that died” (walking upstairs with flowers her husband gave her)
• “Brad, we’ve got to give her a coat or she’s going to wear god-knows-what”
• “I am, like, perpetually confused…about where I’m going with my day.”

Then there’s all the tension with Taylor, ex-assistant, who has moved onto Vogue, who hates the gay but charming underling Brad, who used to work under her and now has replaced her.

• Taylor: “Does Brad not f---king know how to use a telephone?”
  Friend: “I don’t think so.”
  Taylor: “Things like that infuriate me.”

Brad is one of the things that makes this show worthwhile; the other is the fashion. During NY Fashion Week, Zoe gets to attend all the glorious shows we plebs dream about, which are, believe me, gorgeous - but completely out of your - and my - price range.

Oh, (as Arielle likes to say) to be young and beautiful and fabulous and completely lacking in depth.

x
JAG