By MAUREEN CALLAHAN
Last updated: 8:36 am
September 8, 2008
Posted: 4:47 am
September 8, 2008
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.
