Be it Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 roman à clef The Devil Wears Prada, fashion land dramedy Ugly Betty or R.J. Cutler’s enthralling and ultimately endearing 2009 Vogue documentary The September Issue, our obsession with the hallowed halls from which fashion rags are born is insatiable like their thirst for new faces, brands, shoes and accessories. Stasis is fashion’s number one enemy after all and though this totally sucks for fashion lovers with diminutive salaries (Except if you’re Japanese. Japanese people are like the MacGyvers of looking awesome), it certainly bodes well for television executives who want a compelling reality TV program about the inner-workings of a fashion magazine. Editorial power struggles! Damaged egos! Beautiful people! Flamboyant people! Famous people! Photoshop! Interns! Trends! Mood boards! What more could you want?
Seems like a rating bonanza waiting to happen, no? Well wait no more because the latest entrant into the burgeoning micro genre of fashion-centric reality TV (Next Top Model, Project Runway, The Rachel Zoe Project, et al.) comes from the hallowed halls of ACP Magazines, home to Grazia, Harper’s BAZAAR, Cleo, Cosmopolitan, Madison, FHM, Men’s Style, Empire and Rolling Stone, who, it has been announced, will team up with Foxtel for a reality TV show called “Park St”, named for the chic (obvs), inner city (of course) address of its Sydney headquarters. I’m not just assuming it’s chic either, and I mean that in that super intimidating sense of the word not the effortlessly stylish sense. I went there for a meeting once a few and never have I ever felt so inadequate. A key card was required to pass through the turnstiles for one, a key card I did not possess or look remotely like I should possess unless I magically had a pizza tray of salads in my hand. I was wearing sneakers too, so there was that. And the people who worked there! Ugly town population me.
And that’s precisely the appeal, I guess. Fashion, ultimately, is a projection of fantasy. And for those lacking in the fantastical wardrobe, fantastical lifestyle or fantastical looks – pressing your nose to the glass and gawking inside is about the closest you’ll get to glimpsing a real-life Prada wearing devil. I wait with baited breath.
Says AdNews: “Foxtel and ACP Magazines are teaming up to produce a fly-on-the-wall television series based around several ACP glossy mastheads.The series, to be called “Park St” after ACP’s famous Sydney headquarters “is in the pipeline” and will offer a behind-the-scenes look at life in the world of magazine publishing…The content of the show will focus on Cosmopolitan, Cleo, Madison, Dolly and Shop til You Drop, paying particular attention to the magazines’ editors and the highs and lows of putting a magazine together.”
