Whitney Port warned us that the second season of The City was not just a new chapter, but an evolution — a notch on the other side of the arc of a group of people who don’t have to worry about achieving their own success because it is handed to them in their fortuitous positions as television stars. A series that established itself as “relationship-heavy” and “character-driven,” Whitney said, would take a more sophisticated direction with a more sophisticated directive. Now the show is “focused on our careers, and how we’re going to eventually make it in the fashion industry.” Port indicated she had only seen the season premiere, which held true to her forecast. Last night we watched the girls chase careers instead of boys.
Well, except Roxy, who didn’t have anything to do but follow Whitney around and ask questions that would allow our protagonist to explain the plot to the audience. But Olivia, finally agreeing to put office drama with Erin aside, turned from the path of bitchiness and resentment onto the path of journalism in her new role as an Elle.com reporter. Erin rescinded her ultimatum that she would leave Elle if Olivia wasn’t fired, and continued her career in publicity. But her demeanor made clear that this was only for the sake of the show (as a publicist she knows the value of this exposure, even if by way of Olivia) and that she still hated Olivia’s guts deep down inside.
And Whitney, burgeoning fashion designer with a show rapidly approaching at Bryant Park, continued pursuing her fashion-design dreams. With funding we know not of, she has managed to manufacture a collection and secure a spot to show at Bryant Park — something aspiring designers only dream of! But she knew she would “eventually make it” — she would never face the struggles most 24-year-old fashion designers face, so she can’t show 14-year-old aspiring fashion designers how to overcome those hurdles. But she can show them what it’s like, kind of, when one skips all that crap and just goes straight to the Bryant Park show with major magazine editors and buyers in the front row. We wonder if, when the cameras stop for the day, Whitney just rides home on her unicorn with a flock of fairies. But she is perhaps better at working than dating. And so, on to this week’s lessons!
Lesson 1: Being a good sidekick.
Do: Find a role for yourself and stick to it. When Whitney goes fabric shopping and explains how stressed out she is that she has to show 24 looks but only has 17, and has to cast models and figure out hair and other stuff, Roxy just stands there with a blank expression. Sidekicks either need to be like Watson, and offer pertinent information or life-saving assistance, or like Phoebe from Friends and provide comic relief.
Don’t: Stand around like a dope. Roxy might wear an absurd pair of pants rather than sing “Smelly Cat,” but she has to be and do something to make us feel she’s valuable and worth at least a fraction of our cable bills. Here she wants to be an actress and she’s on TV! Wow us, sister!
Lesson 2: Managing two chicks who don’t get along but have to work together.
Don’t: Let one of them talk back to you. Over to Elle, where Olivia struts to some vampy, girlie, techno pop music, Joe finally berates her for bickering with Erin. He just suffered a fiasco on the Today show thanks to Olivia, and scolds her with curse words and more anger than we’ve ever seen him show. But Olivia retorts, “I do not think it is appropriate for her to speak to me or anyone at this magazine the way she does. It is unacceptable. She is a publicist. I am an editor of a magazine. My job is to put the best accessories in the magazines. Her job is to pitch to the press.” Olivia has been working at Elle for only a few weeks at this point, while Erin has been there for years. A new employee with any common sense would never say such a thing to Joe Zee, but he just kind of sits there and takes it. Also, Dear Olivia: This is fashion, people are mean, so GET OVER IT.
Don’t: Cave and give the problem employee what she wants. Instead of forcing her to do better at her job, Joe just reassigns Olivia to Elle.com. If someone can’t do something as simple as giving him a list of credits for a television appearance, how can he have her do anything other than man the reception desk? If even that? “Be that editor that you tell me that you are,” he tells her. Oh, Joe. This is The City, not The Biggest Loser (well, maybe in a sense).
Lesson 3: Designing a fashion line for your first Bryant Park show.
Do: Put the collection above your personal appearance. When she visits the pattern maker to crack the whip on those deadlines, Whitney is perhaps the most unkempt we’ve ever seen her outside her house. Her hair is in a lopsided bun, and she’s clearly put her line (or something) ahead of her mascara and eyelash curler. She obviously spent hours primping before the show (we saw her up close in person there — not a hair amiss), and hasn’t canceled her facial appointments, but she appears to have priorities some of the time.
Don’t: Make lace leggings from dingy taupe lace that just happens to be lying around. Designer Christopher Kunz of Nicholas K — one label in Whitney’s group show along with Mara Hoffman — cautions Whitney against creating looks just for the sake of creating looks, and putting something sloppy on the runway. Yet when she’s at the pattern maker and finds out her lace leggings didn’t work because the fabric didn’t stretch, she just grabs the nearest role of lace she can find. It looks like a soiled antique tablecloth with some glitter. Roxy, perennial fan of ugly bottoms, offers, “I loooooove those leggings.” Where’s a real editor when you need one?
Lesson 4: Mentoring.
Do: Be kind. Kelly is nice to Whitney throughout the episode, and she’s clearly gone above and beyond to include Whitney’s show with two other established labels who don’t want to — and quite frankly couldn’t — compete with a reality star like Whitney for attention. She seems to genuinely care a lot about Whitney.
Don’t: Scare your charge shitless. Kelly likes showing people she knows stuff. Whitney, who knows nothing, provides a great outlet for her to do that, so it's no wonder she adores her. However, she kept saying awful things to Whitney. At one point she asks Whitney if she’s okay. “Not really,” Whitney says. “Let me tell you something: If this doesn’t go well you could be fucked,” Kelly responds. “It would be crazy if you weren’t terrified.” So encouraging! And last season she said, “If [the show] sucks you’re probably done,” which is obviously not true. Plenty of designers with bad shows go on to show again. Besides, a lot of people like really bad clothes! Yet another reason Whitney is destined not to fail.
Lesson 5: Keeping the girl you don’t get along with in her place.
Do: Try to make nice in a fake way. Joe and Robbie tell Erin she has to make nice with Olivia and get along. So Olivia and Erin arrange to embark on a fresh start over tea. We can tell by her expression that Erin is over it before Olivia even walks in the door. And in the best scene of the episode, hands-down, while Olivia tries to make amends, Erin is looking at her with a face of utter disgust. Maybe she’s one of those people who can’t hide in her facial expression what she’s really thinking, even though she thinks she is. But she looks like she totally resents Olivia for having the time to curl and spray her hair so neatly every morning and apply five layers of foundation. But as Olivia chatters on, the emotions in Erin’s face only deepen, and at the very end of the scene she literally looks like she’s choking back chunks of vomit she would actually love to spew on Olivia. But she doesn’t, because this "make nice" meeting is about appearances, and Erin managed not to die right then and there of laughter or disgust. Bravo.
Do: Dress like you mean business. Erin wore a black leather jacket, the perfect complement to her tough anti-bullshit side.
Lesson 6: Interviewing fashion designers backstage.
Do: Ask interesting questions. Olivia interviews Anna Sui backstage after her show for Elle.com. She opens with “What was your inspiration?” which is a fine warm-up question. But then she asks about the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award. Okay, that is a great honor, but it is also a boring thing to discuss at any length. A reporter she may not be, but she might do some genius freelance work making video press releases or something.
Don’t: Look smug because you think you didn’t mess up. When a reporter gets a really good interview, they don’t look smug. They keep it cool, walk away, and then freak out outside. If they really get something good, they don’t want any other reporters to know and steal the information from them. Olivia, despite fumbling one of her two snooze-worthy questions, turns around and gloats. Somewhere in the background Erin is rolling her eyes. And for these little moments, Erin, we love you.
This week, Jonathan Kelly, the longtime former assistant to Vanity Fair's editor (since 2004), can officially turn his back on 4 Times Square. He's joined up with the new Bloomberg Businessweek, as "Senior Editor of Etc." That's his actual title; Etc. is the culture section. Congrats, Jon!
The most notorious Condé assistant of all, of course, is Lauren Weisberger, who parlayed her traumatic time as Anna Wintour's assistant into a best-selling roman à clef and a massive international movie. At the end of the movie version of The Devil Wears Prada, Anne Hathaway's character, Andrea Sachs, lands her dream job at a newspaper with a little secret help from Wintour's character, played icily by Meryl Streep.
But are these success stories the norm? We tracked down what happened to the last handful of assistants to four of Condé's top editors.
Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair:
For more than a decade, Carter has been served by a rotating roster of two assistants, several of whom have left VF. Punch Hutton is still around, as Fanfair and Fairground editor, as is Dana Brown, a senior articles editor. When Matt Trainor left in 2003, after three and a half years, he eventually became an associate editor at Departures, and is now the editor-in-chief of digital media at Ralph Lauren, steering the company's online fashion writing. The next to go was Meg Nolan, who now lives in Amsterdam, works for PlumTV as a travel journalist, and writes books for Rizzoli. "I was indeed told there was a future at VF for me, on a number of occasions," she says. "That is, until I declared I really wanted to pursue travel journalism, and then I was promptly moved along, out the door." In came Leigh Herzig. After her stint, she and her brother launched a watch line, BobbyHBobby, which has since gone on hiatus. Which leads us to Jonathan Kelly, who started at Bloomberg Businessweek last week.
Anna Wintour, Vogue:
Did the Weisberger experience prompt Wintour to keep her ex-assistants close? Since 2003, the scariest boss in the business has had about ten aides, and many are still on the magazine's staff. Sylvana Soto-Ward climbed quickly and is now the director of special events, meaning she plans the mythical Met ball. After her: Lawren Howell, who's now the West Coast fashion editor. Next: Jessica Sailer, an associate fashion editor at Vogue, and Sophie Pera, a fashion assistant. After 2008, either the aforementioned girls took all the good jobs, or Anna's assistants went downhill quickly. There was Jessica Nagin, who wouldn't respond for comment, though friends tell us she's currently in nutrition school. Then there's Asia Baker, who also wouldn't respond, but who has recently made Vogue's weekly best-dressed list and goes to a lot of parties (she's throwing one for the Kentucky Derby, if anyone wants to send us an invite). Last up? Claiborne Swanson, of the television-dinner fortune, who says she is "presently working on a personal photography project" and hopes to one day return to Vogue in a creative capacity.
Cindi Leive, Glamour:
When Leive arrived at Glamour in 2001, she inherited Bonnie Fuller's assistant, Kirk Shannon-Butts, a filmmaker who apparently goes by “Boi Wonda” to his friends. After a few years, Leive helped him move into Glamour's fashion department, then he left to focus on his first film, Blueprint, a gay drama. Leive's other assistant at the time was Michelle Pacht, who is now an English professor at LaGuardia Community College. Cindi's next set of assistants stuck around. Margarita Bertsos managed an astounding four years, before flexing her, uh, muscles as the magazine's Body by Glamour program. She lost a ton of weight — this was before Glamour was on the plus-size train — and she's now an assistant editor, editing health coverage and interviewing Chace Crawford. “Yes, I'm deeply indebted to Cindi,” she says. So, too, is Tiffany Blackstone, who climbed the rungs as an associate editor before going freelance to spend time with her two children. She still writes often for Glamour.com. Then there's Kristin Koch, who explains: “I moved to Park City, Utah, with my boyfriend after he was laid off (he was in investment banking) and we spent the season skiing there.” She's currently freelancing and interviewing for magazine jobs, even if this whole Park City thing sounds a bit more, well, glamorous. “We actually had dinner with Cindi and her husband when they were skiing for New Year's.”
Lucy Danziger, Self:
Lucy only has one assistant at a time (versus the two or three other marquee editors keep), and they tend to stick around for years. Soon after Danziger joined Self in 2001, she hired Stephanie Davis Smith, whose dream was to work at GQ — Danziger helped make it happen after ambushing GQ editor Jim Nelson at a party. Smith is now the editor-in-chief of Skirt, a magazine in Atlanta that's some combination of liberal, Southern, and feminist, and the desk outside Danziger's office has been replenished with women who are all somehow connected back to Smith. Cristina Tudino is now Self's psychology editor, and after her came Kelly Mickle, who is currently the associate health-and-nutrition editor.
So there you have it. A mixed bag — some editorial fairy tales, other escape stories — but no people with serious complaints with where the job left them. Best of luck to the new batch of assistants, especially these two.
