Rachel Zoe Recap: Oscar Madness!

by Sarah Devlin | 12:59 pm, October 5th, 2011

Previously: Jeremiah Brent decorated Rachel Zoe’s entire house and she loved it. Too bad he hasn’t yet distinguished himself as a stylist, which is what he was hired to do!

It’s Rachel and Rodger Berman’s anniversary this week, and he was looking forward to some alone time with his wife since they’re not at Fashion Week this year. Unfortunately, the Oscars and Rachel’s billion other projects have made that impossible.

The client: There are several this week. The most pressing task for Team Zoe is preparing Anne Hathaway for the Oscars, which (as we all saw back in February), she co-hosted. Joey Maalouf helps with an overview of Anne’s dresses, which include a red vintage Valentino gown that everyone swoons over, and an electric blue Armani Privé gown that Joey thinks will make Anne look like a sexy robot. Though it’s cool to see those iconic dresses in their plastic wrapping pre-show, it would have been nice to see more of the selection process. Rachel also meets with the VIP coordinator for Versace, who gives her a backup gown in case something goes wrong. She is so prepared and so connected; it’s easy to see in this episode why she’s the best in the business.

RELATED PHOTOS: All 8 Of Anne Hathaway’s Oscar Hosting Ensembles

There’s an undercurrent of anxiety in this episode over Rachel giving birth ahead of schedule. Joey comes over for cereal that Rachel prepared for him (aww) on Oscar morning and asks “What’s the plan if you give birth at the Oscars today?” Rachel scolds him for bringing it up and then tells him that Diane von Furstenberg felt her belly the other day and told her the baby “hasn’t dropped yet” and “isn’t going anywhere.” DVF knows all.

Rachel also takes a morning to style models for a catalog, lookbook, and pop up store for European brand Lindex. Rachel categorizes herself as more of a creative consultant than a stylist for them, but she sure seems like a stylist as she puts together forty different looks in a morning. There’s a bit of drama over possibly not having enough clothes, but since she’s allowed to let the pieces overlap, she finishes all 40 of them and bounces.

In case we weren’t all exhausted yet, Rachel also attends a Tom Ford store opening and is invited to be photographed for the cover of The Hollywood Reporter’s feature on the 25 most influential stylists in Hollywood. And she has a cold.

RELATED: Did Brad Goreski Steal Demi Moore From Rachel Zoe?

On top of all of this, The New York Post is running a story about Brad Goreski apparently styling Demi Moore, one of Rachel’s clients, for the Oscars. Rachel sort of defends Brad here, saying he didn’t steal her client — “He worked with her on one job and that’s it.” I guess that’s not a ringing endorsement of Brad, but she at least declines to call him evil on the show, and doesn’t seem interested in responding to the story, aside from the fact that she spends at least 10 minutes of the episode talking about it.

On the way home from the Lindex shoot, she opts to go home and spend time with her hubby. Once she arrives there, though, all she wants to do is take a nap. (Question: what has Rodger been doing all day? His brown hoodie and sweats suggest watching reruns of “Hoarders”.) Poor Rachel takes a nap and when she wakes up she admits to Rodger that she’s hitting the outer limits of her ability to cope with her business, baby, and marriage all at once.

Rodger thinks everything will be different when the baby comes. “You’re going to be like, ‘No, I don’t want to go to Fashion Week!’” he says hopefully.

“No, he’s coming with me,” Rachel replies.

And then if you listen really closely, and turn the volume way up, you can hear the sound of Rodger’s dreams being crushed.

Rodger turns to Rachel’s sister Pamela for guidance, and she offers to come stay with them for a while, saying she can work from there. (What is Pamela’s job? Have we figured that out?) When she arrives, she and Mandana Dayani have a heart to heart about Rachel’s workaholism.

Rachel talks to Pam and acknowledges that while she has a great team that’s doing a wonderful job, she is so involved in every level of her business that it’s almost impossible to extricate herself from it. Pamela patronizes her a bit about the baby coming first, no matter what. I don’t think the issue is that Rachel doesn’t have her priorities in order; it’s just that she has too many priorities.

The episode ends with an Oscar party with Jeremiah — whose big moment in the episode is picking up take-out, yikes — Rodger, Mandana, and Rachel, at which everyone literally died and stopped breathing and deadpanned how OMG much they loved Anna Hathaway’s outfits and Rachel managed not to give birth on a set for at least one more week.

Next week: Jeremiah is jeopardy. Please don’t take him away from our television screens, Rachel!

Quote of the Week: Jeremiah, on Rachel’s habit of wearing 6-inch heels during pregnancy — “I can’t even talk about the shoes. [The baby's] going to fall out.”

Best Style Advice: While pregnant, one should wear Chanel jackets or go naked.

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