Okay, so Fashion Week is finally over; it's time to relax! Right? Um, kinda? London Fashion Week looms in the near distance, but there's also an Alternative Apparel press event scheduled for the upcoming weekend, which is billed as a kind of unwinding opportunity for press, designers, and lowly PR folk like Kelly's band of street urchins.
So at least THAT sounds relaxing, right? Ah, but then we see the event has been put in the incredibly capable hands of Stephanie Vorhees. And this week, Vorhees is joined by the heretofore unseen (or at least unnamed) Elide. Given Elide's invisibility, sudden prominence, and (to get a bit ahead of ourselves) eventual fate, she's kind of the Nikki and Paolo of Kell on Earth.
Anyway, Kelly's already not so fond of Elide (she chews her out for not helping Vorhees out enough), but at the A.A. event, both girls earn Kelly's ire for drinking and carousing rather than working. And Kelly certainly has a point that senior staff has earned a relaxing weekend, while assistants like Vorhees and Elide should be working. But still, statements like "The goal is to sell clothes... does anybody remember why we're here?" ring the eensiest bit false when delivered in a bright, colorful Native American headdress.
Things get even worse on Monday back at the People's Revolution offices, as the tabloids are reporting a break-in at one of the event buildings and the absconding of precious booze. The paper alludes to the thief, and Vorhees (...I think -- it's way funnier if it was) immediately is like, "Oh yeah, Elide knows him." Robyn and Emily are pissed -- because, hello, it's a weekday -- and they run around the office nearly jumping up and down because Kelly's gonna let them fire Elide. I have to figure Elide had been on crazily thin ice before this point, because given the massive screw-ups we've seen throughout People's Rev, knowing a guy who stole booze doesn't entirely rate. But still, Robyn and Emily call Elide up to the dread 5th Floor and drop the hammer on her. Firing employees is "never easy," says Robyn. Oh, LIAR, you loved every second of it.
As for the employees we actually like, we see Skinner and the Andrews (Pale and Orange) deal with an unruly printer. Pale Andrew interviews that Orange Andrew isn't exactly on his same wavelength, personality-wise, with his tanning and his flaming demeanor and his Britney tats. ...What's that? Yes, Orange Andrew has decided to display his allegiance to Ms. Spears indelibly on his body. Naturally, he chose the most enduring thing about Britney: her lyrics. "Stronger than yesterday" is on one wrist, while "Now it's nothing but my way" is on the other. You guys, I am so relieved. I was worried the "Boy don't try to front" and "I-I know just-just what you are-are-are" tats on the back of my calves were gonna be made less special.
With Elide gone, there's one shoe left to drop. One lazy, clueless, excuse-making shoe. Vorhees can feel the walls closing in on her, though it's unclear whether she's feeling the pressure of impending termination or having to actually work soon. V calls her parents and bitches to them about how hard this all is (again, while she could actually be working). She interviews that no human could keep up with her workload. All this is to explain how Vorhees ends up calling Emily and Robyn into a meeting and firing herself. Ironically, it was the one task she accomplished in her whole time at People's Rev. "Her best was obviously not good enough," interviews Kelly. "We'll just pretend we only had one Stefanie the whole time," says Andrew to Skinner. So, yeah, the office is real broken up over this whole thing.
Ahh, but the shadow of Vorhees is not so easy to shake. As Kelly, Robyn and Emily jet off to London for Fashion Week with Crumpets, Skinner, the Andrews and someone named "Michelle" are feeling the full weight of the People's Rev workload on their shoulders. "Mom and Dad are gone," smirks Pale Andrew, but they're all soon besieged with work. Orange Andrew is the first to crack, ending up in tears over trying to get clients into some show or another. It doesn't matter what the task was, the issue at hand is that Andrew's bronzer is running all down his face. Skinner can't help but laugh at this, because she is merely human. Orange Andrew does not admonish her with a "But I dyed your roots for you!" but he really could've. Skinner's not being mean, though, and this stress is actually bringing the team closer together.
Meanwhile, in London, Kelly introduces Robyn and Emily to her ex -- and Ava's father -- Ilario. He's incredibly handsome, but the sleaze potential is quite high. Kelly talks about their "whirlwind romance" that preceded Ava's conception, and says it ended when "I found out I was with a bossy Italian, and he found out he was with a ball-busting American." Take a lesson, Jersey Shore kids! So Kelly's helping prepare for a Henry Holland show at some rented-out cathedral. Henry Holland is basically a walking, talking Look at This Fucking Hipster post: spiked hair, giant old-man glasses, striped tiny t-shirt, pink leggings, constantly biting his finger. It's exhausting just looking at him. Obviously, Kelly adores him.
At the Henry Holland show, Kelly busies herself by abruptly ejecting Brit seat-crashers from chairs that rightfully belong to American press. In truth, I think London Fashion Week is more of a vacation for Kelly and Co., and this is just Kelly finding a job for herself to do because I'm not sure she could actually take a vacation if she tried. Either way, the Holland show, with its see-through lace tops keeping the pixelators at Bravo busy, is a rousing success.
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Back in NYC, Pale Andrew has taken it upon himself to hire a new intern. He interviews a few before hiring Virginia, who seems to know her shit, has Fashion Week experience, et cetera. Andrew tells her she can start tomorrow, and he's pleased with his work. BUT THEN! Skinner is doing a routine Twitter search for People's Rev chatter and comes across Virginia, who was seriously live-tweeting her whole interview, down to, like, "Stepping off the elevator now!" (She also totally blows Bravo's spot, all "There are cameras everywhere!") Of course, this violates Kelly's strict policy of discretion, and as Skinner explains, "THERE'S NO BLOGGING." She calls Virginia and tells her they're revoking the job offer. And, yes, it seems like a huge overreaction to fire someone over tweets made while not at work. But Virginia also seemed like the kind of fame-seeker who watched every episode of The City, so whatevs.
And we're back where we started: no interns, no help for Skinner's workload. But hey, nobody's on Twitter giving away top secret fashion codes! While we see her working overboard, Skinner interviews that it's her dream to do what Kelly does. In fact, she cites that Sex and the City episode where Carrie fell down on the runway as an inspiration. She wanted to be the woman in the booth, calling the shots. That's right, she wanted to be the Margaret Cho of that episode. Girl, you can get in line.
Pale Andrew is, as ever, attuned to Skinner's workaholism, so he organizes a "field trip." What that means is he and Skinner cut out in the middle of the day to go to a wine bar with friends and actually relax. It is BEYOND necessary, and by the end of the hour, we're seeing a more relaxed Skinner. She even puts on lip gloss! "We made leaps and bounds today," beams Andrew. And nobody from London even called, so no one needed to use Andrew's "explosive diarrhea" excuse he had planned. A good day, indeed.
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