celebrity

Rachel Zoe became one of the most famous faces in fashion. This is what her life looks like now.

 

Look at photographs of the front row in any top-tier fashion show in the noughties, and it’s likely Rachel Zoe will be tucked among it. She’ll be the one in the oversized sunglasses, large bangles on her wrists, evoking Jagger-esque 70s glamour.

Look at photographs of any major Hollywood event from around the same time, and it’s likely her clients will be on the red carpet. (Think: Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore, Liv Tyler, Kiera Knightley, Anne Hathaway.)

By the end of the decade, New York-born Zoe had become one of the world’s best-known stylists, thanks to intense media scrutiny and a popular reality television show.

Watch: The Rachel Zoe Project made the stylist a star. Post continues after video.

Video by Bravo

But what happened after the cameras stopped rolling?

The “amaaazing” rise of Rachel Zoe.

Despite having no formal fashion training, Rachel Zoe developed a reputation that earned her the attention of the industry’s elite. With a quick phone call, she could source outfits from the likes of Chanel’s legendary designer, the late Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and John Galliano.

Her first A-list booking was with Jennifer Garner, whom she styled for the Emmys in 2003. But it was Zoe’s professional relationship with Nicole Richie that became her most legendary.

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Zoe started working with the reality TV star in 2003, when she was known primarily for co-starring with Paris Hilton in The Simple Life. Before long, Richie was a staple of best-dressed pages and the face of brands like Bongo Jeans and Jimmy Choo.

“Nicole was about creating a look. Because of her fashion sense, which was really my fashion sense, she became famous,” Zoe told The New York Times in 2007. “It was a huge moment: Nicole became a style icon without being a star.”

Nicole Richie's style evolution, from 2003 (L) to 2006 (R). Image: Getty.

The relationship was also one that drew accusations that Zoe was fashioning a trend of extreme thinness. Headlines linked the protruding collarbones and ribs of her most famous clients back to her own. Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Beckinsale. All women who were dubbed 'Zoebots', thanks to their similar aesthetic.

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But they and Zoe dismissed the accusations: "We've had Audrey Hepburn, we've had Twiggy, we've had Veruschka, we've had Kate Moss. I'm trying to figure out why I am to blame for skinniness," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2008.

On the back of her growing profile and the success of her book, Style A to Zoe, Rachel was offered a reality TV show on US network Bravo in 2008. The Rachel Zoe Project, which charted the day-to-day chaos of her working and home life, ran for five seasons and became internationally popular. It captured her dealings with celebrities and made new ones of her, her husband Rodger Berman and her team.

Her signature style (oversized sunglasses, large bangles and maxidresses) leached out into ordinary women's fashion and her unique vocabulary became catchphrases. A beautiful outfit: "Amaaazing". A perfect outfit: "I die".

After the show was cancelled in 2013, Zoe disappeared from our television screens. But she's never left the fashion world.

Rachel Zoe
The show made celebrities of Rachel and her assistants Brad and Taylor. Image: Getty.
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Where is Rachel Zoe now?

In the years since TRZP, Rachel Zoe has transitioned more into the business and design aspects of the fashion industry; there was her YouTube series, The Zoe Report, and a fashion line.

Now 48, she's focussed on her latest venture, Box of Style, a fashion and beauty subscription service.

She's also now been married to Berman for 21 years, with whom she shares two sons: Kaius, five, and Skyler, eight.

"The struggle is real, I think if you ask any working mum or any working parent," she told The Cut in October 2019.

"I'm such a hands-on mum and I'm not willing to yield on that. Everyone always says, 'What do you do for you-time, what do you do for your personal time?' I just don't have it. I'm either working or I'm mummy, and I'd be lying if I said it was easy."

She's still well and truly embedded in the various international fashion weeks, but has noticed a distinct shift in what she sees on and off the runways over the last two decades.

"When I started, there was not a sneaker in the front row. I would say 70 per cent of the front row is sneakers [now]," she said. "But style has changed, and the way people look at style. It's much more casual, that's for sure."

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The Rachel Zoe Project reboot?

Rachel has insisted that she's always more comfortable behind the scenes of fashion.

In fact, reflecting on The Rachel Zoe Project at WrapWomen’s Power Women Summit 2019, Zoe said she didn't plan on it being centred around her.

"The intention with doing the show, to be honest, was very much about exposing the designers and showing a behind-the-scenes look at the fashion industry and all these incredible brilliant minds... all the work that goes into it, because it was such a mystery at that time," she said.

"It became something a bit different than what I thought it would."

She added, "It definitely did get real and scary because, all of a sudden, the entire world that I didn't know felt that they knew me. And I guess in theory they did, because I'm not an actor and... I'm pretty much exactly the same as I was on that show."

Still, it seems she's not entirely averse to the idea of a reboot. And she's convinced the demand is there.

“I have a really strong message to put out there and people are asking for The Rachel Zoe Project back constantly," she told Yahoo Finance earlier this month.

"I would absolutely be open to The Rachel Zoe Project 2.0, but I have to really see and think about what that looks like and what that is now and how I can really, sort of, have that same impact on a lot of people and get them excited about it.”

Just like clothes, old TV comes back into style eventually.

Feature Image: Getty.