Having a Child to Avoid Resentment ~ Rachel Zoe’s New Project

I love fashion and tend to gravitate to television shows.  I’m doing a blog for ‘America’s Next Top Model’ Cycle 15 and did a blog on ‘Project Runway’ Season 7, I also grew up watching ‘Style with Elsa Klensch’ on CNN, thus I started to watch the ‘Rachel Zoe Project’ two years ago but wasn’t a huge fan.  Rachel Zoe is an L.A. based stylist who first gained notoriety (at least in public eye) for being the woman behind the woman when Nicole Richie was at the height of her fame and was wearing adorable clothes which elevated her from being a mere reality star/Paris Hilton sidekick.  At that time there was debate, along with a reckless driving conviction (there might have been a drunk driving charge, you know after a while all of these starlets and their issues blend together) as to if Richie had an eating disorder…or if she was getting skeletal thin because she was using cocaine…or both.  Because she was great friends with Zoe, and Zoe was, and remains, super thin there was a rumor that Zoe was Richie’s coke connection.  This particular rumor went into overdrive when it seemed as if the two former besties were each going their own way.

          Yet, Zoe was able to rise above it all even though she had been fodder for bad write-ups in gossip magazines and websites.  She had one more run in with bad publicity when she said something about having more sway in the fashion industry than Anna Wintour – Anna Wintour is the editor-in-chief of ‘Vogue’ magazine (that is American ‘Vogue’ which was the original ‘Vogue’ – the Mac Daddy of ‘Vogues’ to be technical because there are 18 versions of ‘Vogue’ magazine across the world).*  HUGE ARTICLE SIDETRACK AHEAD!  Wintour was the bases for the character of Miranda Priestly in both the movie and the book of the same name, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’.  If you are in the fashion biz you do not want to mess with Wintour because she is a Queen Bee who came to the top of the fashion pyramid from over the pond.  Seriously, this woman made Oprah lose weight in order to be on a ‘Vogue’ cover (Anna is real particular about the weight of her cover models/celebrities/states women).  At the moment Wintour is having a beef with Tim Gunn because he said she was carried down five flights of stairs after a fashion show because she didn’t want to walk down the five flights.  Yes, carried.  She gave a cold shoulder to Zoe and to this day the two of them ignore each other’s presence.  You just know she has made some sort of comment about reality stars and their big mouths.  BTW, if you are interested in knowing more about Wintour, she was featured prominently in the documentary ‘The September Issue’.  

          When ‘The Rachel Zoe Project’ premiered in 2008 and it was the sort of show that I would watch if I were home and doing some sort of activity that didn’t demand my full attention.  To be honest, the first season just seemed sort of silly and vapid – just like the stereotype many have about the industry in the first place.  There was conflict with one employee against another and a lot of conversation about how busy and difficult the fashion industry is and so on and so forth.  The second season was a better, but this third season really took off in my mind.  I felt there was more backstage access in the show that allowed viewers a better understanding of what a stylist does and examined the intricate relationships amongst the fashion elite.  Further, in the earlier episodes there was some drama over the firing/quitting of an employee who was accused of stealing.

           What was interesting viewing, even for the fashion haters, was that Zoe’s husband, Rodger Berman, became president of her flourishing company as well as letting it be known, even to the likes of Zoe’s client Kate Hudson, that he wanted to start a family with Zoe.  To summarize Rodger I would describe him as a nice guy who has above average looks who appears 

to be completely devoted to his wife of at least ten years but has MUST MAKE BABY on  the mind.  This season he went into overdrive because now more than ever is he part of Zoe’s empire which consists of all fashion lovers of all stripes except heterosexual males who like sports – of which Rodger represented as a minority of one.  (BTW, wouldn’t you fashion lovers enjoy one day going into some bar that is devoted to fashion as too many bars are devoted to sports?)  For the most part Rodger accepts that he has to share his wife with a village of others, often having to do what little male bonding afforded to him in terms of the fashion mad homosexuals on Zoe’s staff.  Sometimes he borders on being too whiny and I just want to give him a smack in the snout when he accompanies his wife to various fashion weeks around the globe as well as special events held in Hollywood that are tied to the upcoming Oscars (which is usually the focus of each season of the show).  I don’t think that New York Fashion Week has a set schedule as well as the Academy Awards (which in recent years has been playing around with the date of the telecast to fend off Award imitators) thus Zoe has a lot on her plate from the time the nominations are announced to going around the globe to hit the major Fashion Weeks of various fashion oriented cities.  I don’t care how many times Rodger sniffles about how she is too busy to celebrate their anniversary, things aren’t going to change.  Besides Rodger, you do know that it is possible to celebrate your anniversary after your wife’s busy season?

           At the end of the third season all Rodger could talk about was BABY, BABY, BABY, which I don’t think anyone watching would hold against a man who so obviously wants to have a child, what I don’t think he was getting though (and I don’t think he was faking it for TV) was that his wife didn’t seem to want a baby.  I think there were several issues at play, but what I was most horrified over was how people kept pressuring Zoe to have a child.  Granted, her husband has a horse in the race, but everyone else?  I don’t think so.  Apparently at some point Zoe asked her sister if she would be a surrogate mother and her sister turned her down, but during at least two of the episodes the same sister was pressuring Zoe to get pregnant.  I don’t know much about the family dynamics, but I do know that if a relative asked me to have a child for them that it probably meant that they couldn’t have one on their own, thus if I turned them down I probably owed it to them at least not to pressure them to have children.  I had to throw my hands in the air when Zoe’s parents got into the act during a Seder dinner.  Her father said something like, “I hope next year we have a new tiny face around the table.”  WTF?  Sir, have you met your 38 year-old, probably 38 pounds wet, daughter? 

 

           Sure, traditionally people would say that Zoe was being selfish in putting her career before starting reproducing, but this is a whole new era and Zoe has created a fashion empire.  In fact, her husband who was boasting about her, said that he never thought that Zoe would be the type of girl to even work let alone create a niche for herself working with the Hollywood elite which has blossomed into actually having a fashion brand.  I understand how one would like to build a company and then pass it to offspring, but I humbly ask, does that offspring necessarily have to be the fruit of your loins?

           My God, the pro baby faction was relentless on this show, they even engaged the efforts of Zoe’s hairdresser who tried to point out to her that fashion doesn’t hug you when you get home to which she replied, “I sort of think fashion does hug me when I come home.”  That’s right girl, don’t let someone belittle your passion for fashion simply because you haven’t procreated.  Look around you, there are zillions of folks who have managed to replicate, there aren’t that many people with fashion sense who have the power to set trends. 

          Taking the fashion equation out, I thought the baby issue is a very sad but current situation for many people.  I find Rodger kind and sincere in loving Rachel and wanting a family.  He is the type of man that those of us who have worked with dysfunctional families like to see being a father.  Someone observed on the show that if he could carry the child himself he would do it in a heartbeat.  What was later revealed, after Zoe finally decided to talk about it, was that she was terrified to have a child.  She knows her strengths and weaknesses and doesn’t think that she emotionally handle if she was pregnant and something went wrong.  Zoe confessed that she is concerned over if she can even carry a child to term.  I’ve had some friends and relatives who have gone to fertility clinics and by far no one would describe them as a day at the beach.  You know, a lot of times everything ends up with a happy ending, but then there are times that it doesn’t. 

          The show never discusses alternatives for the couple.  For instance, no one mentions adoption.  Besides adoption, they could go the Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick route and hire a surrogate.  Having a baby should always be a big consideration for a woman.  Despite the strides men have made in a post feminist world in becoming better fathers, most of the childcare still falls to the mothers, of course for this couple I’m sure they would be able to afford a full time nanny.  The last show of the season had Rachel and Rodger going to a doctor and discussing a pregnancy.  The doctor wanted Zoe to take a blood test and she said she wouldn’t but would come back in a week.  Rodger lost it and demonstrated ugly behavior in front of the camera.  He wanted to get the show on the road while Zoe, for whatever reason be it a privacy issue to possible drug abuse, did not want to take a blood test at that time.  At the end Zoe said that she would have a baby and make it happen, but I have to admit that I wonder at what price.  I should note that Rodger did say that the issue of children could be a deal breaker in their marriage.  An interesting debate on the topic can be found here on this Jezebel article.