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Running in Heels: reality show is fashion's The Apprentice
US Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles is the star of reality show Running in Heels
The Devil Wears Prada meets The Apprentice in a new reality TV show in which Joanna Coles, the British editor of American Marie Claire magazine, is the unlikely star.
Running in Heels launches tonight with the promise of an unabashed behind-the-scenes look at a top fashion magazine. Coles, a former New York correspondent for the Guardian, took the decision to let the cameras in and takes a starring role in the series, which is a mish-mash of documentary and staged reality.
The move is a canny one for Coles, who obviously has a sharp eye for how to promote her magazine and has realised that if you are not on TV, you are nowhere. The series kicks off with the appointment of Project Runway judge Nina Garcia as the magazine's new fashion director - a canny move in itself seeing how big the show is in the US and which follows Marie Claire's supplanting of Elle as the programme's official partner.
While the cameras follow Garcia's arrival in the middle of New York fashion week and the preparations for a big welcome party for her, there is also the side story of three new interns starting at the magazine.
Funnily enough, they live together and have personalities that just happen to clash with each other - perfect for the cameras. Each is desperate to get a job at the magazine and most of the show's drama - if you can call it that - comes from the three of them bitching about each other.
Coles herself comes across well, although in the way that English people always seem to in American shows - posh, strict and slightly disconnected to the emotion going on around her. She has been dubbed the "Simon Cowell of fashion", but told the London Evening Standard that "once you're a Brit in America, you're either Tina Brown, Anna Wintour or Simon Cowell.
"The similarity lies in the fact that he says what he thinks and doesn't sugar-coat it ... I run a magazine, I'm not the school matron."
Running in Heels is airing on the Style Network in the States, and a recent visit to New York proved they were putting considerable effort behind promoting it. In the UK, the show premieres tonight at 10pm on the Style Network's UK outlet, which can be found all the way back on the Sky EPG at slot 253.
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