Previously: there was a seating chart CRISIS for the Chado Ralph Rucci show at Fashion Week. It was up to our heroine, junior editor Skinner, to figure shit out before Kelly ate her face. Let's see how she does!
So with the computer having shat the bed, Kelly, Robyn, Skinner, and a few others have to hand-write the missing seating assignments. Skinner starts to break down, but since that violates Kelly's no-crying rule, she's got to pull it together. With under two hours before the show, the People's Rev team heads to Bryant Park and continues to systematically hand-check every seating assignment, while Kelly shines on the Ralph Rucci people that everything's fine. You know, for as scary as Kelly can be, she actually manages to pull off these high-stress situations with a minimum of personal drama; she's never less than perfectly composed with the clients.
Robyn, Emily, and Skinner all move out front to begin the sloooow process of checking in the guests, while Kelly handles the backstage press. As Andrew explains to us, Kelly always deals with the designer personally in these situations, and Ralph Rucci conveniently gives us a good example why. He totally bristles at all the photographers backstage and wants them gone, so Kelly clears the room of all press. As she interviews, yes, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a publicity event in the first place, but the client is the client. But Kelly is also Kelly, so she manages to sneak a couple key press photogs in (American Elle and V, if you're curious), as far away from Rucci as possible.
Out front, the seating chart debacle is being compounded by gate-crashers clogging up the lines. Kelly has to personally eject people from their ill-gotten seats so the actual press outlets can have them. She's apologetic and gets one pricelessly bitchy reaction from some haughty queen (who LIED about his seat assignment coming from the Ruccis) who's all "You should be sorry." We see Andre Leon Talley and Martha Stewart at the show, though it's unclear whether Kelly needed to eject them from their seats. I would hope not, because if so, that really deserves its own two-hour, Andy Cohen-hosted special (do you guys think Kelly scares the shit out of Andy? She ain't no Orange County housewife). Emily ultimately yells at the gate-crashers for being bastard people and runs back inside as the show is about to start.
Once the show starts, it goes swimmingly, despite the fact that Ralph Rucci (who seems really high-maintenance, I know you're shocked) stands there stone-faced and grim the whole time. Applause and hugs all around, and Robyn and Emily are glad its over. Kelly hugs Rosina Rucci, who agrees everything turned out great, but there were some very unhappy people, over the seating. At which point Kelly actually waves off the Bravo cameras. You hardly every see shit like that, I love it.
Two days after the show, Kelly's on the phone, haggling with Rosina. Apparently Ralph was not happy about losing the cover of Women's Wear Daily to Diane von Furstenberg, And considering the check-in disaster, Kelly makes a convenient scapegoat, so People's Rev gets fired. Kelly's frustrated, while Skinner feels like she personally failed.
Kelly at Home: Kelly helps Ava pick out a first-day-of-school outfit. It's cute watching Kelly impart beginner's fashion advice onto Ava (even if said advice includes leggings), as is Kelly's statement that she's just "babysitting [Ava] for God until she can take care of herself."
So while Kelly would love to wallow over getting fired by Chado, she's gotta pick herself up by her designer bootstraps, because Fashion Week goes on, and they've got a show to plan for Genetic Denim and their creative director Ali Fatourechi. Ali looks like a rounder-faced version of Colin Farrell. It still works. Ali is looking to do an off-site fashion installation, whatever the holy hell that means, and he's got Kelly on-hand as they audition models. Kelly explains all her jeans are Genetic, and they've currently got a hot item in "jeggings," which are, yes, "jeans" + "leggings." I fear for us all.
Ali tries very hard to get it on camera that he's straight, the desperation of which is extremely attractive, let me tell you. He then proceeds to ogle two of the palest, skinniest bitches this side of a Vanity Fair Hollywood issue. One is making a pair of skinny jeans looks baggy. Hilariously, Kelly compliments the one on her big boobs, drawing an appreciative "huh-huh" from Ali, despite the fact that this woman's sad melons look as undernourished as the rest of her. Clearly, they're perfect.
Back at the office, Skinner gives an exasperated interview about how clueless Stephanie Vorhees is apparently spending all her time giving the even-more-clueless interns tutorials on how to operate the phones. This does nothing to lessen Skinner's stress levels, so she heads out with Orange Andrew for a salon outing. Normally, I'd say everybody should be trying to keep up with Kelly's prodigious work ethic, but of all people, Skinner could really use a break. Hilariously, she interviews that Andrew, former hairstylist that he is, up and told her one day that he could not take her roots for another moment. The best part about that is I imagine Skinner accepted that with a resigned shrug, because: yeah. She knows. So while Andrew dyes Skinner's roots, he tells us about his journey from hairstyling to fashion P.R. It's actually not that difficult a line to draw. But his glossy lips stand an impressive contrast against the fake tan on his face, so at least there's something to take in. Skinner, for her part, looks happy for the diversion. So in a way, it's kind of like he got her to take that Ativan after all.
Back at People's Rev, Stephanie Vorhees has struck again, this time leading her band of interns to place 61-cent stamps on the invitations rather than 44-cent ones. Emily acts supremely annoyed by this, and of course nothing is Stephanie's fault because nobody trained her about stamps. Not content to just let Stephanie be the asshole, though, Emily directs her and the interns to try to peel the 61-cent stickers off and use the cheaper ones. Which is ridiculous and cost-ineffective (how much money could they possibly save, particularly considering the number of stamps that will rip?) and a giant waste of time and resources, all so Emily can look like a hardass in front of the camera. She sucks bad.
Stephanie gives her life story to the camera (she used to be a finance major, now she's peeling stamps off things), while Pale Andrew just generally rolls his eyes at her. In an adorable way. And in an off-the-shoulder asymmetrical top, I might add. He is a delight. Stephanie then calls Skinner during her one hour of peace and hairstyling to ask where the 44-cent stamps are, despite not having bothered to look. Skinner's seriously over her.
With one day left to the Genetic show, Kelly comes back to the office to find the gift bags they usually send to the fashion press, and they're a total disaster. Because, of course, Stephanie Vorhees was in charge. On the surface, yes, it seems incredibly silly for Kelly to freak out like she does about the lack of tissue paper and labels on these gift bags. But in the end, it comes down to professionalism, and presentation matters especially in an industry as superficial as fashion, so why not just grow up and realize that and not think that a Sharpie marker on a white paper bag is going to cut it? Kelly dismisses the interns for a half-hour and tells them not to come back unless they want to do things right.
Kelly heads off to see Ali's "fashion installation." In one room, there's a tree whose branches are made of denim, which: fine, you want to show off how soft your fabric is and have everyone feel it, that's great. The second room is filled with ling strands dotted with Swarovski crystals, so that it appears to be raining crystals. Kelly finds the whole thing "sweet" and "humble," but honestly? It's the tackiest thing in New York without the name "Trump" on it. It's raining Swarovski crystals, you guys.
Kelly returns to the office to check on the interns' progress. There is indeed tissue paper now. There are also the same amateur-looking, misspelled Sharpie scrawling on the bags (i.e. no real labels). Kelly freaks out on them yet again. Tim, the cute Irish intern, interviews that it sucks that they're catching shit for a job Stephanie V. delegated to them without proper instruction. A fair point. On the other hand, Kelly thinks this is 90% common sense, which it is. Kelly's pretty much over interns at this point. "I think I'm gonna open a fashion school and charge money," she says. "You wanna come and learn from me and be in my office? Then you have to pay $10,000." LOVE.
Meanwhile, Skinner's still working herself to death, refusing to let Orange Andrew take anything off her plate. Pale Andrew sees this and tells Vorhees they need to help out, but Vorhees is as worthless and unwilling to take initiative as ever. Andrew interviews that everything probably came super easy to this girl, and she doesn't know how to work hard.
Cute Irish Tim is on the phone with his Ma, who is worried about him. Why, does his voice register the fact that the Dragon Lady breathed fire all over him today? Kelly, because she is wonderful and maybe a smidge bipolar, wants to talk to Tim's mom and tell her what great work he's doing. To her credit, Kelly grants that it's weird that she could be screaming at an intern one minute and then chatting his mom up on the phone the . While Pale Andrew watches this with amused interest, Kelly hands the phone back to Tim. His Ma's first words about Kelly are "She's so sweet," which Tim repeats and everybody has a good laugh.
The DVR-buster segment sees Kelly handing out Swarovski crystals, because she apparently has some to spare. This one poor unfortunate queen at the bar swallows one, thinking it's a pill. Throw some scare quotes all up around that nonsense, because I am dubious.
After the break, we see Kelly preparing for the Genetic show by burning all manner of incense in order to cleanse the room or whatever. Pale Andrew interviews that Kelly gets into these spiritual moods every once in a while, "pretty much just making it difficult for me to breathe." Seriously, Andrew is the most refreshingly sarcastic and grounded guy I've ever seen wear a flannel shirt over a floor-length ball gown. That mixture of goth, grunge, and gay has managed to weed out the more annoying traits of all three subgroups, leaving only awesome Andrew. He's a Swarovski crystal of his own.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Vorhees continues to be a nightmare. This time, she failed to schedule the interns to work the Genetic show tonight, leading to the grand tragedy of interns not showing up in the all-black-clothing uniform mandate for fashion shows. (Again, it seems silly, but I like it.) So Skinner and Emily both chew Stephanie out while she mutters and writhes and basically does nothing.
Skinner takes this to Kelly, and while you'd think she'd remove the flesh from Vorhees's bones in one fluid motion, she actually handles it with a pretty even keel. She recognizes that the issue at hand (interns for the show) is not that crucial, that Skinner's just frustrated at having to do everyone's job for them. So Kelly assigns personnel, sends Skinner off to do what she should be doing, and saves the Vorhees problem for a day when they don't have a show.
It's rainy outside for the Genetic show, which means people are waiting outside with umbrellas. Not sure how that goes over with the uber-sensitive fashion crowd. Inside, hot, skinny models luxuriate all around the denim tree, looking alternately emaciated and lickable. Kelly gives a quick talking-head about how installations aren't so easy for models, with having to stand relatively in one position for hours on end. Kelly chats up the press while Emily helps move them through from one room to the .
Kelly introduces the press to Ali (choice quite from him: "I want it to be an autoerotic experience when you put on our jeans." Weirdly, I think that's exactly what he meant to say). All of a sudden: crisis. One model, in the crystal room, collapses. Not on camera, of course. After a tension-building commercial break, we see the poor studly soul getting oxygen from the EMTs. "Did you have anything to eat today?" is the question. Oh, don't ask. Meanwhile, he crashed right into the crystals, so Kelly needs to fix that. She also kindly asks the EMTs to get out of sight so this fashion show doesn't look like a medical emergency. AND she walks across the street and asks the ambulance driver to turn off the flashing lights! And they do! Eat your heart out, Chado. You don't know what you're missing.
So the rest of the show goes perfectly, and Ali is thrilled. Kelly, in an interview, makes the not so subtle point that while Ralph Rucci fired her for a crisis beyond her control, Ali rolled with the punches and accepted his show for the rousing success it apparently was.
The day, Vorhees tries to get Kelly to have this big talk about her struggles at work, but Kelly's not so much into it. She likes Stephanie, so she tells her she has to take her lumps. But privately, Skinner says she doesn't like Vorhees as a co-worker, and Kelly admits she's fucking up. Will this be a season-long problem that must be dealt with?? ...Yeah, probably.
Joe R is glad his time spent working at 30 Rock and walking past the Swarovski store every day didn't go wasted, as he spelled it right every time. Questions, comments, and unadulterated love can be sent to him at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
Watch Kelly ream out the interns. It's good times.