Fans of “The Rachel Zoe Project” will be going bananas come Tuesday. The pint-sized stylista and her crew (minus the curmudgeon known as Taylor) return for a new season brimming with meltdowns, a star-studded clientele (Demi Moore, Gwen Stefani) and enough racks full of couture frocks to make you scream “I die! I die!” 

We caught up with Zoe’s fashionably bespectacled style director Brad Goreski (unfortunately he wasn’t wearing those spiffy white shorts from last season) at a TCA after-party this weekend. Take a look to hear what he has to say about Taylor’s departure and what to expect this season. Oh, and  “Housewives” beware (I'm looking at you, LuAnn and Kim): should Goreski enter the music business, the title of his nonexistent single promises to be a hit.

“The Rachel Zoe Project" premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m.

-- Yvonne Villarreal
twitter.com/villarrealy

Bravo is looking to shut it down this summer. "The Rachel Zoe Project," which follows the bananas!-style lifestyle of the celebrity stylist, will return for its third season in August.

In the past, viewers have watched as pint-sized Zoe struggled with her chaotic existence, from mulling over what couture frock Anne Hathaway should wear to the Academy Awards and fashion show-hopping to dealing with peeved employees while managing her vertigo.

This season will see the expansion of Zoe’s business -- she’s got a clothing line with QVC and a high-end jewelry collection ... and a burgeoning social media following.  She's also parted ways with longtime disgruntled worker Taylor Jacobson, so there will be an addition to the stylist’s team. And bespectacled Brad Goreski is back, elevated from styling associate to the newly created role of style director.

The star-studded season will include appearances from Demi Moore, Molly Sims, Gwen Stefani and the fashionisto of the ice skating world, Johnny Weir.

The series' second season was its highest rated, averaging 740,000 adults 18-49 and 1.01 million total viewers, according to the network.

Season three premieres Tuesday, Aug. 3 at 11 p.m. ET/PT.

-- Yvonne Villarreal

Photo: Rachel Zoe. Credit: Bravo.

Kelly Cutrone doesn't have the same knack for the grating catchphrase as Rachel Zoe. No "I die" or "shut it down" or "that is ba-na-nas," repeated ad infinitum. The closest that Cutrone has gotten to a trademark line is the tough-as-nails title of her new book, "If You Have to Cry, Go Outside" -- which, frankly, is pretty good advice that I wish my mother had passed on to me before I entered the work world and blubbered like a ninny.

It's a book title befitting a reality TV diva. But Cutrone is not necessarily a nasty piece of work: she is someone who runs her own high-profile fashion PR company, People's Revolution, and gets things done. As the debut episode of her new Bravo show, "Kell on Earth," made pains to point out, she's a single mom who keeps a loft right above her workplace so she can  spend spare moments with her 7-year-old daughter.  Cutrone -- a self-described "mama wolf" -- made her mark on "The Hills" and "The City" as mentor to blondettes Whitney and Lauren by being both cruel and kind, in appropriate doses. She let none of her staff get away with nonsense, yet she liked helping them find boyfriends and new jobs. (Because everything that happens on "The City" is real, right?)

Cutrone comes as something of a relief after two seasons of Zoe, who forged the territory of the Bravo fashionista reality series with "The Rachel Zoe Project." A successful celebrity stylist, Zoe's whole shtick was based on over-the-top glamour and childlike helplessness. All last season, she whined that her underlings wouldn't do her bidding while refusing to give them orders, expecting them to do the dirty work of managing themselves. She spent truckloads of money on vintage clothes and then tried to hide it from her wealthy, freakishly adoring husband. She obsessed over media reports that hinted she was too thin, trying on numerous outfits to hide her protruding bones. And eventually she was paralyzed by nausea that a doctor diagnosed as stress-induced vertigo. "Great," Zoe pouted, "now I’m being punished by my body!"

Fashionista.com breaks the terrible news: Rachel Zoe's sometimes terrorist, sometimes much-needed task master Taylor Jacobson has left the company.

It's sort of a shocker considering that Season 2 of "The Rachel Zoe Project" ended on an up note: After assisting (and warring with) Rachel for four years, Taylor scored a promotion, a new gig overseeing some aspects of her boss' merchandise line.

But something must have happened after that finale and news hit today that Taylor had e-mailed her industry colleagues the following:

“After four amazing years at Rachel Zoe Corporation, I’m saddened and exhilarated at the same time to announce my departure. After much thought and consideration, I have decided to take the challenging leap to go off and style on my own.” 

An insider said the parting was amicable, and Zoe's spokeswoman Carrie Gordon issued Show Tracker the following statement, “Taylor Jacobson is no longer with Rachel Zoe, Inc.”

What does this mean for the show? It's hard to imagine any drama between Brad and Rachel without Taylor in the mix.

A rep for Bravo had no comment and said no decision has been made about bringing "Rachel Zoe" back for a third season.

[Update 3:04 p.m: Jacobson just posted the following to her Twitter account: “Today is an end of an era and a beginning of a new professional chapter. Looking forward to what the future brings…!!!"]

I die! (And not in the good Rachel Zoe way!)

— Denise Martin

Photo: Taylor Jacobson and Brad Goreski. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Remember this scene from the first season of Bravo's "The Rachel Zoe Project"?

Rachel's assistants Taylor Jacobson and Brad Goreski find hundreds of thousands of dollars of couture soaking in their boss' suddenly flooded work studio. Taylor goes ballistic and orders Brad to start hauling the gowns elsewhere before they get water-damaged -- and before Rachel arrives.

But instead, Brad breaks down and starts bawling to Rachel, who in turn comforts him: “It’s not that bad,” she says. “It’s clothes. We’re not saving lives. … We all make mistakes. You don’t think Taylor’s made mistakes?”

Unfortunately for all, Taylor overhears it. “Rachel! You shouldn’t use me as an example to make Brad feel better!” she yells. “Maybe you should just have me as an employee -- or maybe you should just have Brad since he’s so phenomenal. Clearly he’s not, since today was a royal disaster. Or maybe Brad should stop crying and help me take this [stuff] out of the studio, but that‘s OK because I‘ll do it since I do everything around here.”

A year later, have the two resolved their differences? Sort of. Read all about it in today's interview with the feuding assistants.

-- Denise Martin

Photo: Brad Goreski and Taylor Jacobson at the London in West Hollywood.  Credit: Kirk McCoy / For The Times

Let the countdown begin: "The Rachel Zoe Project" returns to Bravo on Aug. 25.

So bananas!

Unfortunately, there were no other details about the second season in Entertainment Weekly, which reported the premiere date in its latest issue, featuring a photo spread of Zoe's must-haves.

Clothes by Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, shades by Tom Ford ... you know, what we all want in our closets.

Personally, we're looking forward to seeing Taylor vs. Brad Part 2. Because you just know that business hasn't been resolved.

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)