IT was only a couple of years ago that a 35-year-old Rachel Zoe (pronounced “Zoh”) went from being an anonymous celebrity stylist – dressing the likes of Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton – to being a virtual celebrity herself.
First, she got famous because all her famous clients looked alike, and they all looked like Zoe: ’70s-era caftans hanging on underfed frames, topped off with oversize sunglasses and handbags.
Then she got even more famous when Richie publicly dropped Zoe – via MySpace, no less – calling the stylist anorexic, a bad influence and “RaisinFace.” Perez Hilton added Zoe to his rotating cast of characters, dubbing her “Chupacabra,” accusing her of actually being in her mid-40s and imploring her to get Botox. (Last year, she was also dropped as creative consultant for the relaunch of Halston.)
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There were, she says, “a lot of tears. I get hurt by what people say very easily.” She began to feel sorry for herself: “I thought: I’ve done blood, sweat and tears for 15 years – why am I the victim here? I have had the nastiest things said about me! I don’t understand.” At her lowest, she says she wanted “to scream at the top of my lungs at the top of Mount Everest. With a microphone.”
Instead, she pursued a more practical option: her own reality show.
“The Rachel Zoe Project,” premiering tomorrow night on Bravo, chronicles the life and times of Zoe, now 37, as she pulls dresses for clients, attends fashion shows, schmoozes with designers Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs, takes meetings in an attempt to “expand the brand” and mediates contrived squabbling between her two assistants.
The larger goal, however, is to transform her persona from that of a debauched, controversial tabloid figure into a friendly, wholesome, mainstream American style icon.
For example: True fashion emergencies come not by way of movie stars or fashion editors but by the tug of personal and professional demands. Here is Zoe, seated in a fluffy white bathrobe, messily sobbing and sniffling her way through hair and makeup as she laments missing her uncle’s funeral for a photo shoot.
“I know there are times I look really ugly on the show,” she says. “It’s OK. It’s OK. It is what it is.” Missing her uncle’s funeral, she says, was especially difficult: “And it was two days before the Oscars! My life is hard. It’s hard. Every day, it’s hard.”
Yet Zoe is an otherwise sunny, pleasant presence, and her enthusiasm for clothes and jewelry and beautiful things is infectious. She is shown neurotically debating with her husband whether to embark upon designing her own line – “I could never say no to Jen Garner! I could never say no to Demi!” He listens sympathetically while moisturizing after another red-carpeted night on the town.
Such are Zoe’s dilemmas. There is a decided lack of drama, and not much of a discernable narrative arc.
Not a problem, according to Andy Cohen, Bravo’s senior VP of programming and production.
“I don’t think anyone realizes just what a stylist does – I just think it’s fascinating,” he says. “It is just so fun! Seeing them flip through those dresses – it’s like fashion porn.”
Episode One revolves around Zoe and her team searching for a red-carpet gown for B-list actress Joy Bryant to wear to a Vogue event – or, in Zoe parlance, a dress in which Bryant will be able to “shut it down.”
Though Zoe is, as Cohen asserts, “a perfect Bravo character” – fitting in nicely among all the other reality design stars and wannabes – the show itself runs only six episodes, and there is a marked lack of A-list celebrity clientele on view.
“I told them, ‘I can’t promise you this-and-this celebrity; you’re not getting any gossip from me,’ ” Zoe says. “My clients, as long as I’m styling, continue to be my biggest priority.”
That’s OK: Cohen is perfectly happy with the celebrities who appear on the show: “You do see some A-list clients. She dresses Debra Messing. We also see Joy and Molly Sims. And,” he adds, “the dress Anne Hathaway wore to the Oscars!”