the twilight zoe

Nausea Brings Team Zoe Together Again

In this week’s episode of The Rachel Zoe Project, the tables have turned. Rachel — who dresses actresses — is an actress, for Ashton Kutcher’s Internet TV series Blah Girls, which apparently is a real thing that exists. On top of Rachel’s performing duties, she also has to style her co-stars. You can dress Demi Moore on a regular basis, but you haven’t made it in Hollywood as a stylist until you’ve pulled dresses for tiny cartoon people. Meanwhile, the tables have turned at Rachel Zoe Inc., where Joey does more actual work than Brad this week, which is truly a feat. Taylor is the rock of the episode, with the same charming disgruntled attitude that is at once the wind that rips them apart and the glue that holds them all together. It was as enlightening an hour as ever.

What We Learned About Fashion:
• Being a stylist is kind of like being a D.A.R.E. counselor. Rachel tells Glamour magazine, for the story she’s styling about how to wear Piperlime clothes, that she doesn’t wear skinny jeans because she doesn’t like the way they look on her. Just because one person is smoking crack doesn’t mean she has to, too.
• Brad astutely likens one of Rachel’s furry vests to a bath mat. Which brings us to today’s DIY lesson: When in need of a furry vest in a pinch (who hasn’t been there?), cut two holes in your bath rug and you’re good to go.

• The eighties are making a questionable fashion comeback. An episode can’t go by without Rachel dressing at least one glamorous actress. This week she has to dress four: Internet TV characters the Blah Girls and herself. Apparently Ashton Kutcher makes this Blah Girls show, and asks Rachel to guest-star in and style an episode. When Rachel tells him the eighties are back in fashion, he rightly raises his eyebrows and says, “Are they really?” Think about it — of all the decades the industry could have picked, why that of leg warmers, jelly shoes, and pleated acid-wash jeans?
• Taylor is Rachel’s better styling half. Apparently Taylor and Rachel “style the same,” according to Rachel. Yet we have never seen Taylor wear, handle, or go bananas over a furry vest. And that is one of many reasons we want her to be our soul sister.
• Stylists don’t have much control over hair and makeup on shoots. But Joey needs work to do from time to time, so Rachel interjects with editors and keeps him busy when she can to justify his constant presence.
• Sequins are great for dates in the fall. “Who doesn’t want sequins?” No one doesn’t want sequins, obviously. Not sure about her, but we eat them for breakfast (carb-free!).
• A Cynthia Vincent faux-fur shrug works for everyone, says Rachel. She forgot about those who feel the same way about furry vests as they do about, say, ticks.
• How to go “boho for work,” according to Rachel: jeans, high boots, a colored blouse, and a bath mat. Sure, if you forever want to be known as the chick who wears that ridiculous vest to work.
• When sick, wear the finest clothes you have. Rachel is overcome with a terrible bout of nausea, but looks anything but sick in her Louis Vuitton jacket. It’s good impetus not to throw up until you get home and into your less fussy but no less glamorous white terry robe.

What We Learned About Life:
• The office of Rachel Zoe, Inc. is one big happy family. “Brad and I are like children and Rachel is our mother. And we’re very immature — we like to antagonize her,” Taylor says. “I get no respect. None,” Rachel says. That’s what Roger is for (he’s also her best shopping buddy, of course).
• The first assistant is entitled to a major attitude when the boss (Rachel) says this: “Brad and I are like dumb and dumber half the time.”
• Ashton Kutcher needs publicity.
• It is okay if you don’t understand half the things that come out of Rachel’s mouth, because Rachel doesn’t, either. “I need a translator for my everyday language,” she says.
• If you didn’t have an imaginary friend as a child, you will not be a very good actor. This is the problem Rachel professes to have when shooting her Blah Girls scenes. Right — instead of imaginary friends, she had bath mats and an imagination.
• “Working in Hollywood you just never know what your next job is going to be,” Rachel says. “Today I’m styling three animated girls. What’s next — Minnie Mouse?” We’d say the Muppets are more now.
• When the working members of your staff need things, ignore their calls to talk to the hairdresser who has nothing to do but walk down the sidewalk. Rachel juggles calls from Brad and Taylor in the car but tells them to hold so she can tell Joey how stressed out it makes her having to get back to people. If she weren’t stressed, we wouldn’t have a show, people.
• The best way to drink iced coffee is with the plastic cup tucked inside a paper Starbucks cup. Did you notice Rachel and Taylor do this on the photo shoot? A furry vest isn’t a furry vest when matted with condensation!
• Rachel is very funny! She tells a model she’s dressing, “You just turned 17 last week? Me too.” It was funnier on TV.
• Brad has a dog with a pacemaker. Grooming said canine is more important than working at Rachel Zoe, Inc.
• Rachel would love to pull Chanel out of her vagina. She says Karl Lagerfeld would be okay with this because this would make him the father. It’s a good thing Roger wasn’t in the room when this conversation went down.
• Ashton Kutcher needs publicity. He shamelessly plugs The Real Housewives of Atlanta, humoring Brad when he asks Ashton whether he’s seen Nene in Atlanta yet. Ashton says no, shamelessly.
• Nausea strengthens sisterly bonds — and keeps assistants from quitting. Taylor returns to the studio to find Rachel keeled over in a violent bout of nausea. Taylor had planned to whine to Momma Zoe about how she’s sick of unpacking boxes and wants to work on bigger, better projects. But she can’t do that to a woman crippled by illness. Instead, she rushes her home to Roger. Wrapped in her white robe, Zoe tells Taylor, kneeling at the foot of her bed, that if she had kids and died she would leave them to her (while Brad prances about and picks flowers and takes his dog for haircuts) because Taylor is her “blessed jewel.” Taylor (who is thanking the dear Lord Rachel has no kids) tells Rachel she is her “blessed jewel,” too. Aw, they really are a family!

Nausea Brings Team Zoe Together Again