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Oh, Rachel Zoe—welcome back into our lives, into our living rooms, into our souls. Now that season three of her Bravo reality-fashion-fest—The Rachel Zoe Project—has premiered don’t things just seem more right in the world? We never intended to fall in love with Rachel, to want to be, like, her best friend. We actually thought we’d kind of hate her and revel in opportunities to mock her and her staff. But we ended up falling seriously hard, and we really missed her.
But! She’s back, and August just got shorter and happier and a whole lot more pleasant (even as the air around us, thick with haze and heat and summer-in-New-York-stench, is totally disgusting).
So, the earth was already shaken to its very core months ago when Rachel’s drama-mongering shrew of an assistant, Taylor, reportedly left the company some time between the second season’s taping and its airing. But, we never knew why—assuming that the whining, churlish brat had simply quit; disappointed that in her long professional tenure she hadn’t yet ascended the ranks and been crowned, like, President of Fashion.
Well, that wasn’t it. Taylor was actually a remorseless thief. And we’re assuming that when Rachel-husband-Rodger professionally sidestepped the issue (taking the Taylor-never-traveled high road) by simple saying “figures weren’t adding up” that she wasn’t just stealing costume jewelry or scarves or the occasional dress.
Yeah, we’re gonna say it: Taylor is a big, fat embezzler. Try and hide that behind your Wayfarers, sweetie! And good luck with that branding career—what top shelf brand wouldn’t want you on their product development team? Your phone must be ringing off the hook!
Anyhoo—that was basically the episode. Taylor betrayal and a post-Taylor universe in which Brad is now a Style Director, Rachel is hiring, and the crew pulls off a hot/hilarious Demi Moore photoshoot with piles of Marc and McQueen and a giraffe on the beach. It all goes off without a hitch; none of that signature Taylor drama. Fancy that.
And, with that, our top ten moments:
10.) Brad is now doing sort of a cowboy thing. Cue a major run on lumberjack plaids and skinny suspenders that will end up grazing the backs of Brad-obsessed gay hipsters of the land.
9.) Rachel doesn’t own flats, but the Demi shoot is on the beach. Naturally, the best way of dealing with this is having someone carry you on to the sand and gingerly place you on a little husk of wood that you perch on authoritatively for the duration of the afternoon.
8.) Oh, to be able to scan some images of available photoshoot props and demand the live giraffe.
7.) Demi: She was a major pro, wasn’t she? Especially considering all the posing on a random spiral staircase swaying in beach sand while wearing McQueen’s 12-inch armadillo pumps and trying to feed said giraffe.
6.) That shipment of Chanel that Rachel was frothing over and psychotically trying on! Who died when they saw that green tweed jacket with gold threading and matching handbag?
5.) The interview montage: Hilarious. We would’ve gone with the ruffly-blouse-suit girl. She seemed to fake having a clue best.
4.) No literalies or bananas or dying spells to speak of but “so major” must be the new office catchphrase and more babes and omigods than we can shake a stick at.
3.) Can we talk about the Rachel Zoe brand of extreme emotion? She’s too emotional to talk about Taylor or share the news but not in the sobbing-so-hard-and-so-enraged-she-can’t-speak kinda way you might expect from someone who has had their heart ripped out (or embezzled—you say tomato). She remains virtually expressionless and totally robotic and it’s just so good.
2.) Oh, basking in all that ongoing universal Taylor haterade was delicious and satisfying. We were especially tickled when a friend of Rachel’s lets her know that Taylor was after some styling job. Her response: “Shut the fuck up.”
1.) Speaking of which: Brad and Taylor’s Paper magazine photospread comes out and Rachel has to burn all the pages featuring Taylor’s photo except placing the paper in the fireplace couldn’t be accomplished until someone moved the 900 pairs of shoes lined up like soldiers along the walls and the hearth.
· All Rachel Zoe Coverage [Racked]
· The Rachel Zoe Project [Bravo]
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