NYT TV Review: Rachel Zoe A "Pox On Humanity"

Rachel Zoe, a blonde with a relaxed perm and roots that are visible on purpose, is a fashion stylist, which in her fortunate case means that she dresses celebrities, reportedly for up to $6,000 a day. As one of her assistants explained in the premiere episode of "The Rachel Zoe Project" (Tuesdays on Bravo): "We don't just dress clients for award shows. We do premieres, personal appearances, personal shopping. We pretty much do everything."

Even that sells Ms. Zoe short. More than any other stylist working in Hollywood today, she doesn't merely peddle clothes, she emblazons an image, turning cipher nobodies into pretend somebodies. Although she has put grown women with viable acting careers into gowns -- Debra Messing, Cameron Diaz -- she is known more generally for forging a look of girlish vacancy, one that says: "I get up at noon. And then I spend my day refusing solid foods."

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Given that Ms. Zoe is already a pox on humanity -- exploiting an aesthetic of dissipation, invading our collective consciousness and spraying it with dummy dust -- it is amazing that "The Rachel Zoe Project," which focuses on her career, manages to send its audience deeper into the territory of smug NPR obsessives who won't stop ranting about triviality's conquest of the American soul.

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