Post-The Devil Wears Prada, The Fashionista Diaries and Stylilsta comes Running In Heels, the new series set behind-the-scenes at Marie Claire. Is anyone still interested in how their magazine sausage is made?
Eric Wilson of the New York Times says: Yes. “The allure is still there, as confounding as the inability to resist a pair of $1,600 Prada knee-high boots,” he writes. But! Most of us can resist Prada boots. (Most of us do!) Still, Joe Zee, the creative director of Elle who plays a nastier version of himself on the ABC series Ugly Betty agrees: “This is one industry that remains very intriguing and mysterious,” he says. “Magazines are about making beauty, and how that happens is fascinating to a whole group of people.” People who aren’t already sick of all the “OMG fashion is actually hard work” shows and movies which already exist, presumably.
But: Where Elle‘s Stylista was shot on a set, (the real offices were “too dowdy”), Running In Heels promises to be much more realistic. Writes Wilson:
Running in Heels, which is produced by Left/Right Productions, the team behind This American Life, the television version of Ira Glass’s quirky public radio program, strives to be a more authentic representation of what happens at a fashion magazine than its predecessors… Nevertheless, following a similar conceit to its predecessors, the drama unfolds mostly through the actions of the three sacrificial interns, Ashley, Talita and Samantha, who were cast, it would seem, because of their sense of aggression, entitlement or insecurity, respectively.
Will viewers tune in for the Devil Wears Prada moments (one intern is left bleeding and hobbled by running errands in heels)? To see Project Runway‘s Nina Garcia at her real job? Or to find out what happens to the wide-eyed interns? Well, spoiler alert: None of them got hired. According to WWD, editor in chief Joanna Coles says the show was never meant to be a competition: “In this economy? No. We weren’t raffling off a job.” Perhaps the last word here should go to Glamour‘s editor in chief, Cindi Leive, who says: “Even a job in a glamorous industry involves sitting around in a lot of windowless conference rooms talking about budgets.”
Messy Reality Behind Stylish Jobs [NY Times]
Tracking ‘Running In Heels’ [WWD]