Bravo’s Fashion Night Recap

The Rachel Zoe Project: Rachel is packing 200 suitcases for Paris Fashion Week. “Do you need 4 furry black jackets?” asks Roger, impotently. Rachel tells him that, since there is absolutely no possible way to know what the weather will be like in Paris that week, she is forced to bring everything she owns, in case there are blizzards or extended droughts while she’s there. In Paris, Rachel coughs all over everything. “I litrilly have no voice left,” she rasps on the way to the Louis Vuitton show.

Backstage, rasping, coughing hoarse Rachel kisses Marc Jacobs 20 times on each cheek in succession, ensuring that he will drop to the floor with flu symptoms at his after-party later that night. “I don’t want to talk about it,” says Rachel about the show. “Let’s not talk about it.” This is a compliment, in Rachel-speak, in case you don’t know. After that, it’s off to the Giambattista Valli show, where Rachel infects every attendee and a dozen models, by coughing and kissing her way through the room. She’s like PinGwyneth Paltrow in Contagion, except she doesn’t die.

Back at their hotel room, Rodger reveals he’s ridden with leprosy. They cough and scratch at each other. Later, at the Valentino show, people start dropping dead as soon as the Zoe-Bermans enter the room. Escaping before they can be blamed, Typhoid Rachel and her twitchy sidekick meet up with Pamela and Sky-Sky at the Tuileries Garden. Rodger somehow convinces Rachel to get on a merry-go-round. “But it has germs,” she rasps and coughs. As the ride starts, Rachel declares she’s going to die and says “Oh my God” 400 times rapidly in one minute. “Merry-go-rounds are, like, bleh,” she later informs us.

Rodger manages to let us know that he cleans his hands after he takes a shit.

Back at Zoe International, there’s some sort of crisis that Mandana’s handling and the team needs to do something very important in a very short period of time. There’s a lot of wrapping dresses in plastic and then putting them in boxes. We went to the bathroom. Not together, you weirdos.

Following Rodger’s lead, we washed our hands and got back just in time to see the Zoe-Bermans enter the Chanel show. Inside, models walk on a catwalk so vast that people in the front row sit 30 feet away from them. “I just look at him,” says Rachel about Karl Lagerfeld, “And I’m like…” This, too, is a huge compliment in Rachel-speak. Backstage, Karl allots precisely six seconds to pretending he gives a shit what she thinks of his collection. After that, he pushes her into the crowd and heads off to speak to thinner people.

Later, Rodger enlists an UBER-Gay to buy Rachel a purse. We are mesmerized by the over-waxed brows, so most of this flew past us. It’s a nice purse?

Even later, they all go to the Louvre to look at jewelry. This is like going to Egypt for the swimming pools. After that, Rachel has eyeliner applied and they head off to the Elie Saab show. Rachel tells us that his target audience is “women who want to wear beautiful dresses.” Oh. THOSE women. Talk about a micro-niche market.

Later still, Rachel and Rodger look at shoes and dresses. “Oh. Alaia,” she says with awe. Then she sees her designs on a mannequin. Mandana came through once again! We think. Kind of adorably, Rachel poses for a picture in front of them for Rodger. Kind of weirdly, she starts kissing the mannequins. Rachel tells us she’s jealous of the French because they can eat a pound of butter with cheese on it and still be chic. We’re having a hard time believing that Rachel actually wishes she could eat a pound of butter with cheese on it. The woman gags at the sight of a raspberry.

Later, Rodger gives her the UBER-Gay-chosen purse, even though she says she’d never marry him if she could do it over again. “I’m leaving Paris just … inspired,” she says.

It’s a Brad, Brad World: Brad forces his long-suffering assistant to spend 15 minutes every morning complimenting him on his ass. “Everyone’s so jealous of your ass,” she says, popping her gum and flipping through In Touch Weekly. They have fittings with Stacy Keibler, Rashida Jones and a shoot for Candy magazine. Brad does a Martha Grahame schtick with a Philip Lim maxi-dress and we have to say we’re impressed by the reference. His assistants, however, numbly stare at him, unaware of anything that predates the 21st Century.Pin

Brad and Gary are moving out of their house. Gary expresses puzzlement that anyone would move their food when they move from one house to another. Brad expresses Canadian confusion at the idea. We express the American version. Gary is insistent. That’s weird.

Rashida shows up and Brad’s assistant insists they’re good friends and then immediately worries that she shouldn’t have said that, absolutely answering the question of whether or not they’re actually friends (not). They hug and Rashida looks deeply uncomfortable. Otherwise, she’s very sweet and cute and it’s fun to watch a fitting session with her. To see the nuts and bolts of styling is the best part of this show. It acts as a counterpart to Rachel’s show, which depicts a far more glamorous and on-another-level lifestyle.

Later Brad and Hannah do the Candy Magazine shoot with trans-lady Connie Fleming and again, we have no jokes to make because it’s just kind of fun and fabulous to watch. Connie is very sweet and professional, and she makes a great model for Brad’s styling.

Brad and Gary go through their moving boxes. Brad reveals an entire garage full of knick-knacks that he bought for the new house without telling Gary. This is the oddest move we’ve ever heard of. No food, but a deck of Pierre Cardin playing cards. Gary is incredulous that he went and bought all this stuff without telling him. “I can’t have him, like, look rudely at everything,” Brad sniffs before stomping out ineffectively in his fluffy bedroom slippers.

Brad and his team look at pictures of Rashida wearing dresses. Then they all collapse into a couch, laughing, like something from a sitcom credits sequence.

Dukes of Melrose: Sigrid is in Decades! Sigrid wants McQueen! Crisis! Where’s the McQueen? SHE WANTS THE MCQUEEN OH THE HUMANITY. Sigrid leaves before they find the McQueen. Christos weeps and informs us that if they had a manager on staff, this fashion carnage wouldn’t have happened. Later, Christos and Cameron interview this absolutely gorgeous Argentinian guy for the manager job. They try not to drool. We think he comes across smarmy and cocky, but hey. That probably works for high-end retail. Then he informs the boys that he doesn’t like phone calls after hours. Christos pulls on a giant lever and gorgeous guy falls through a trap door in the floor and gets sent down a tube that deposits him right outside the Walmart employment office.

Decades is having a shoe sale! Without a manager! Christos alternates between running around the store freaking out and nailing himself to a cross. Cameron walks through the scene every now and then, raises an eyebrow, and walks out again. His outfits get increasingly odd with each appearance.

Cameron informs us that his talents don’t lie with 150-dollar shoes, but rather 15,000-dollar dresses. He proceeds to prove his point by unloading a high-end gown on a wealthy socialite. “She’s not the kind of woman who waits on line to buy a pair of shoes,” he sniffs.

PinHe later goes on to prove it further by showing up on sales day dressed like a pimp and insulting every woman who walks in the door. Admittedly, he was very funny, but we have no idea how they managed to make a sale with him loudly instructing the women to disinfect the shoes when they get them home and announcing, “This is not Kmart.” or “This selection sucks!” Christos rips strips of wallpaper off the walls and eats them in frustration. Women claw and beat each other for a pair of Jimmy Choos. Humanity’s dark underbelly is revealed before us.

The sale lasts for 40 straight hours of sheer hell, and there is blood smeared on the walls and shell-shocked cashiers rocking in fetal positions by the time it’s all over. Christos is weeping over piles of money and Cameron informs the room that he’d rather have explosive diarrhea than ever do this again. With a sweep of his glitter cape and a flare of his nostrils, he leaves. “This would have been so much better if we had a manager,” weeps Christos.

The next morning, Cameron and Christos have a business meeting where they hiss and claw at each other like two cats fighting over an empty tuna can.  “I can’t do it anymore, ” says Christos. “Next time, on Dukes of Melrose!”

• Brad Goreski
• Dukes of Melrose
• Reality TV
• The Rachel Zoe Project