Born to Be Brad (18 page)

“She looks like Barbie, I thought. Like a real Barbie. I was in awe.”

Elizabeth grabbed me. I tried to be demure. “No, no, no,” I said, chickening out.

“It’s a great opportunity,” she said. “Tell her you want to be her assistant.”

And so I did. I told Rachel that I was finishing school and if she ever needed help I’d love to work for her. She told me to get her assistant’s e-mail address from Elizabeth and to keep in touch. Keep in touch? Well, I took those three little words as an invitation to politely stalk her.

Meanwhile, Nicole Richie was smiling courteously while I networked. Her hair was brown and pulled up in a loose bun with bangs in front of her face. She said something about my being cute. (Thanks!) And then—because this night couldn’t get any weirder—a photographer from WireImage materialized out of thin air and captured the whole thing on film. Or digital, at least. I don’t know what he was shooting with.

The next morning, I called Tracy at her office in New York.

“Do you have a WireImage account?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Photographic evidence of the night I met Rachel Zoe. From left: Elizabeth Stewart, Nicole Richie, Rachel Zoe, and one very surprised Brad Goreski. I don’t know who the photographer thought I was (because I wasn’t anybody). But I’m certainly glad to have this photo.

Photograph by J. Sciulli/Getty Images

“You have to buy the photo of me and Rachel Zoe.”

I proceeded to e-mail every single person I knew to relate this story; it was such an extreme high. Of course all extreme highs are followed by extreme lows. As directed, I e-mailed Rachel’s assistant, who quickly replied to say that no positions were available at the House of Zoe but she’d “keep my résumé on file.” Keep my résumé on file? That didn’t sound very promising.

Not to be deterred, I sent this woman an e-mail every three weeks, asking if anything had changed. When I had a break from school, I sent an e-mail. “If you ever need an extra set of hands,” I wrote, “let me know and I’ll be there!” I thought I’d continue to do this until I was told not to or until Rachel hired someone else. Whichever came first. In the meantime, I told anyone I knew in fashion to mention my name to Rachel, so that I would be constantly on her brain. And through yet another strange cosmic coincidence, Tracy left
Life
magazine to work as photographer Steven Klein’s producer. She met Rachel on a Brad Pitt shoot in Prague and told her that she had to hire me. That her friend was desperate to work for her.

“When I came face-to-face with Anna for the first time, it was like seeing the Sasquatch. (It exists!)”

And still … nothing. Did I mention I really needed a job? That was when I heard of an opening at
Vogue
’s West Coast office, as the Los Angeles sittings assistant. I applied and Condé Nast flew me to New York for an interview with Her Majesty Anna Wintour. I wore a navy blue striped Gucci suit with a blue-and-white-striped collared banker shirt and cherry-colored Gucci slip-ons. I wore this suit because it fit well, but more important because it looked expensive. When I came face-to-face with Anna for the first time, it was like seeing the Sasquatch. (It exists!) She was wearing a beige skirt and a twinset and a pair of Manolo mules—sunglasses off for the interview. I was told that she’d be in a good mood because her friend Roger Federer had won some tennis match the night before, and the intel proved to be true. She smiled. She probed. She asked me about the differences between West Coast and East Coast fashion. I answered with something about how the two influence each other, which she seemed to like. I made her laugh, which felt like the biggest victory. We shook hands (physical contact!). Everything was shaking, actually. I was exhilarated yet terrified. I had dreamed of this moment my whole life, and I was just pleased that I didn’t mess it up. I flew back to Los Angeles feeling content, feeling a sense of promise.

While I was waiting to hear from Condé Nast, an e-mail arrived from Rachel asking me to come in for an interview—out of the blue. It was July of 2008 and she was thinking of hiring a third assistant. I’d made an impression on her, she said, and she wanted to talk. Unfortunately, the position would only be part-time but I scheduled the interview anyway. I wore a blue, vintage pin-striped vest and a white shirt, and a burgundy patterned Gucci tie and jeans—despite the fact that it was boiling out. I realized the minute I walked in that I was overdressed. Rachel was in wide-leg faded 7 For All Mankind jeans and an off-the-shoulder Stella McCartney T-shirt and so much jewelry I wasn’t entirely sure how her neck was supporting it all. Taylor Jacobson—the blonde who would later become my nemesis on national television—was dressed in a sweat suit, with sunglasses and a black T-shirt.

I was walking into a minefield. We sat down for the interview and Taylor was on the phone with Lindsay Lohan’s assistant, yelling about some Chloé dress they couldn’t find. Rachel’s assistant Leah did most of the talking. I can’t remember what we talked about. I just remember that Taylor was on her BlackBerry the entire time. She wasn’t engaged at all. She was only there because Rachel wanted her in the room. But we barely made eye contact. Of course I was thinking to myself, I’ve been waiting a year for this interview and you can’t take your sunglasses off? You can’t stop yelling about some dress Lindsay Lohan can’t find? This is my moment and you’re talking over it!

But Taylor surprised me, and we had a real person-to-person moment as I was walking out. Before I could leave, she stopped me to say, “I’ll be seeing you soon, I’m sure.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Rachel really liked you,” Taylor said. “I can tell.”

While she was right, it was too little too late. Rachel called to offer me a part-time position and it was bittersweet. Yes, it would have been a foot in the door. But there was no guarantee of anything permanent, and I panicked: Maybe it’s just not meant to be. Maybe I’m not meant to work for Rachel. In the same breath, Condé Nast called to offer me the full-time position at
Vogue
’s West Coast office, and I accepted the job, starting immediately. I harbored the hope that if I proved myself at
Vogue,
someone at the magazine might sponsor my visa.

I was walking away from Rachel. Little did I know that I’d be walking right back soon enough.

6

Open your eyes.

TO BE AN ASSISTANT
at
Vogue
is to be perched on the lowest rung of a very tall, very stylish totem pole. And as the West Coast assistant, I was doing a lot of administrative work. I was filing expense reports and organizing receipts and sending flowers to everyone in the fashion world. We had a regular,
Vogue-
approved florist and I talked to him more than I talked to Gary. This guy recently Facebooked me. “You used to call me all the time!” he said. Because I did.

I was not above grunt work. I just wished I was good at it. Our phone system wasn’t all that complicated, but I don’t think I ever correctly put a call through to Lisa Love, our West Coast editor. It was a joke. One day I picked up the phone and the voice on the other end said, “It’s Anna.” All I could think was, Don’t get this wrong.
Don’t hang up on Anna Wintour!

Some people are lucky enough to have that double skill set—to be able to organize a life and do Excel spreadsheets and handle receipts. But that wasn’t me. I was at
Vogue,
which was a dream come true. But once again I was still not quite at the party. Lisa Love and Lawren Howell were a dream to work for. But I wanted to be touching the clothes. And most of that happens in New York.

As part of my job, I was also the liaison to the magazine’s New York office, and I helped in any way I could. Some
Vogue
staffers think that traveling to Los Angeles is like going to Japan. They don’t know how to navigate this crazy place with palm trees and traffic, and it was my job to facilitate their visits. I organized armored trucks for jewelry. I sat on Lisa Love’s floor counting out three hundred pieces of jewelry. Costume jewelry, meanwhile, would arrive with a stone missing. A Marni necklace would show up with a broken clasp. Cataloging the incoming jewelry was nerve-racking work, because anything that was missing was my fault. I’d call the New York office and explain that a certain piece arrived damaged. Invariably they’d say, “Well, it didn’t leave the New York office that way. Did something happen when you opened the package?”

I flew to New York for Fashion Week, and Danielle—my best friend from the summer I spent interning at
Vogue,
the one who went with me to all of those Fleet Week parties—was now a fashion assistant at
T,
the
New York Times
’s fashion magazine. While we worked at two of the most respected publications in the industry, no one in the industry knew our names. We begged for fashion show tickets and were often turned away. When we did manage to get tickets by some Harry Potter fashion magic, we were standing in the back craning our necks.

There is one show we don’t have to beg our way into: Our friend Annabet Duvall launched her own line, Doucette Duvall, and she was having a presentation in the Meatpacking District. It was major. A
Vogue
threesome—Sally Singer, Virginia Smith, and Lauren Santo Domingo—was there. The clothing was flirty, with a touch of country girl. But the presentation had a masculine bent, with vignettes set at a polo club and one at a cigar bar. The models had strong brows and wore bright colors—blues and yellows and big greens dominated. Playing off the color pops in the show, there were goodie bags filled with M&M’s for everyone. I hadn’t told Annabet I was coming to town, and it was amazing to surprise her. After the presentation, Danielle and I walked south and hit West Broadway arm in arm. The weather was gorgeous, a perfect Manhattan fall day, all brisk air and bright sunshine. We were standing on a street corner in SoHo laughing about this world we lived in, about how far we’d come from the
Vogue
internships three years ago and yet how far we had to go. We tore into the bag of candy and M&M’s fell all over the street. We ate the few pieces of candy we managed to save and we laughed, because we felt like losers. This moment would forever define us: It was the realization of just how far we had to climb. Though we didn’t know this yet, there would come a day when we wouldn’t have to beg to get a ticket to a fashion show. Yet every time we walked into the tents together, for years to come, Danielle and I would always ask each other, “Do you have your M&M’s?”

Whenever I’d come to New York, I’d see at least one Broadway show. I saw
Spring Awakening
five times. I was obsessed with Lea Michele long before
Glee
. To me, this was the new
Rent
. This was the musical the next generation would be talking about to define their late teens and early twenties.