The Rachel Zoe Project jumped into awards season last night — the biggest, most stressful time of the year for Team Zoe. Rachel puts her husband, her life, and her sanity aside to put famous actresses in dresses and jewels for all the world to admire. In between the chaos she finds solace in prancing around with Brad as they try on expensive clothes and jewels and flirt with their celebrity clients. Poor Rodger is left to his football and his beer and the babies of his friends that he wishes were his. And the takeaways from last night’s episode follow.
Things We Learned About Life:
• “Looks” may be pronounced “lukes” in self-congratulatory settings, which is what Brad does when he insists Rachel go shopping with him for new “LUKES” at Fred Segal to celebrate Taylor’s firing.
• It’s okay to shamelessly enjoy the departure of a co-worker who was mean to you. You can tell Brad loves that Taylor was fired because he plainly talks repeatedly about how she was not just let go, but “fired.” He also drags out the word “fired” to “FI-YARD,” and says Ashley is a great replacement so far because she hasn’t stolen anything, relishing his possible sullying of Taylor’s reputation.
• Losing a sour co-worker is liberating and empowering. “I feel sexier without her around,” Brad says. “I feel like I burned my bra.” What was it he was saying in the earlier scene about feeling like a lesbian?
• Enter a new job with a good attitude! Ashley goes on and on about how Rachel is the “biggest, most well-known stylist in the world.” What a fantastic pre-suck-up technique she has there.
• Enter a new job with a healthy amount of skepticism! When Ashley arrives on the first day she tells Brad she’s excited to be here, but when she says the words it looks and sounds like she’s smelling bad cheese.
• Let your partner be during busy work times. Rodger acknowledges that during awards season Rachel doesn’t have time for him or to pay attention to things he says to her. He deals by going off with “the guys” and being “straight.”
• Stealing nice things from hotel guests in L.A. is easy as pie! Just go to the desk, say you have a pickup, and see what they give you, because this is how Rachel almost loses a Versace Atelier gown. If anyone in Malibu has time to do this today, do report back in the comments.
• Pilates trainers are therapists. Brad isn’t really doing a private Pilates session to get in shape for short-shorts season — he’s there because everyone knows private fitness instructors are really paid to listen to and care deeply about stories about their clients’ personal lives. Unfortunately, most gyms fail to mandate that these pairs work out in private rooms for the sanity of everyone else in the gym who keeps their therapy and fitness routines separate. But in this regard, Brad and his earpiece get it right.
• It’s okay to be brutally honest with your man. “In just, like, two days I’ll love you more,” Rachel tells Rodger when he whines that she’s not giving him enough attention. It’s the middle of Golden Globes prep, silly goose.
• Brad: “I bring the gay man’s aesthetic … But I don’t wear women’s clothes.”
• Rodger: “The fact is, I’m heterosexual.”
• Heterosexuality doesn’t have to be tolerated for the sake of allowing your man to feel manly. Rachel tells Rodger when he’s watching sports on TV, “Babe, I’m so over your heterosexuality and this whole man thing you’re trying to do right now.” Beer doesn’t have to be tolerated, either. Rachel: “Oh my God, you’re drinking beer, too?” This show is heaven sometimes.
• Women are afraid having babies will hurt their career. Rodger wants a baby, but Rachel wants to keep building her brand, which Rodger sees as merely feeding an addiction to fashion. Maybe Rachel could make it work, though. If he wants the kid so badly he can sit home with it and nurse it and change its diapers. He just sits around and drinks beer in front of the TV anyway.
Things We Learned About Fashion:
• Dressing while pregnant can go two ways, Rachel explains: Either you wear something condom-tight and flaunt the bump, or an empire waist to merely tent the bump. Rachel wants to show off her belly when she’s pregnant, and we agree, because when else in life will a giant stomach be considered a beautiful thing to society?
• Mix up red-carpet looks, as long as they’re current. Rachel wants Cameron Diaz to wear something elegant to the Golden Globes because she wore “over-the-top” Chanel couture last year. Cameron agrees, but goes so far in the low-maintenance direction that she wears something from a past season. [Winces]
• Don’t send big movie actresses down the red carpet in see-through Versace. Rachel requests to have Jennifer Garner’s Versace Atelier pick lined so she doesn’t look like some misguided red-carpet ho.
• The stylist’s client is always right. Ashley: “There’s no ‘we didn’t get this’ in our world.”
• It’s okay to have a different point of view from the head stylist. Ashley wants to tent Paula Patton’s baby bump with an empire waist, which isn’t the direction Rachel would take. BUT the dress Paula ended up with, which looked pretty damn good, was something in between, so they came to a great compromise.
• Dressing for an event for a charity that helps children dying of horrible illnesses is not the same as dressing for the Golden Globes. Because people don’t go to charity events that require the aid of a stylist for personal publicity, obviously.
• Metallic nail polish looks awesome. Loved Rachel’s.
• Stylists steal dresses during awards season, and hoard other things so no one else can wear them before their clients. Rachel fears that the Versace dress she called in for Cameron Diaz was stolen by a competing stylist because the hotel gave it to someone who asked for a “pickup.” “It’s petty, high-school bullshit,” Rachel explains. And yet it occurs in her own office. Enter Brad: “That’s major theft. Somebody did that intentionally.”
• Don’t let other people’s successes make you feel bad. Rachel is pissed that Taylor got a Golden Globes client, but Rodger wisely tells her, “Well, you know she’s gonna style people. It’s like, whatever.” Yes: WHATEVER! It’s not a big word, but it means so, so much.
• Don’t make drama a bigger deal than it is. We thought, when Rodger said the above, he didn’t really care about the Taylor-Rachel feud, but then he compares Taylor to a terrorist: “If you negotiate with terrorists it’s like they’re winning.” Really?
• Keep cleavage tasteful! Molly Sims rejects a gown for the Art of Elysium event because it’s too low-cut, instead opting for something that just gives her bust a nice little hoist up. It was a tasteful choice.
• Dancing around while explaining why you’re wearing what you’re wearing is a great way to get attention. Brad, have you met our friend, ham?
• Posing is damn near impossible without a train, says Rachel. Clearly she’s never ridden the L train.
