By Debra Toppeta

The stars! The models! The clothes!  Blech! If anything could have taken the glamour out of fashion week, it was Tuesday night’s episode of the Real Housewives of New York.

First up this week, Kelly, of the leathery tan (and a walking billboard for the dangers of too much sun both on the skin and the brain), tells us what a busy little bee she is what with going to all the fashion week shows and parties, writing for the (now defunct) magazine Page Six, and getting her schedule organized. “I don’t even have time to support my own charities,” she laments to LuAnn from the front row at Malo. Whew! Good thing she doesn’t have any charities to support or she would be stretched to her limits.

We move on to those randy housewives of Brooklyn, Simon and Alex (they did find each other on line looking for a one night stand, after all).  Voyeuristically, we spy on them doing what all couples love to do… shop for women’s clothing.  What? You were thinking it might be something else?   Not with these two. We really didn’t think it could get much worse than when Simon comes around Alex and puts his hands, palms up, under her breasts and whispers to her “the chains are just below your breasts.”  Or when looking at Alex in a short dress asks, “how do you walk in it? Does it ride up when you walk?”  But it did get worse.  We now know that if Alex ever gets pregnant again, it won’t be Simon’s doing.  After all, he tells Alex what we’ve all been dying to know, that “I made myself surgically incapable of getting you pregnant.”  Insert your own funny joke here.   Simon even makes one himself when he says at the Russell Simmons fashion show, “I am a man in my own right.”

Next up is Jill who throws herself her own private fashion show.  She has some skirt wearing man, Zang Toi, stage a fashion show/luncheon for her and twenty of her closest friends who so happen to spend at least “six figures” on their wardrobe each year.  I loved how she introduced herself to at least two of her “closest” friends at the luncheon.  But, to be fair, the necklace was absolutely stunning!   And, of course, no event is complete without a plug for Zarin’s Home Furnishings and Fabrics.  At the end of the fashion lunch, Jill tells Zang Toi that he has to go to Zarin’s to pick out fabrics and make her a dress.  A dress made from the drapes may have worked for Scarlett O’Hara…insert your own joke here, too.

LuAnn and Kelly meet at the Malo boutique to pick out some free clothes.  Since they are going to the Malo show during fashion week and sitting in the front row, they must be seen wearing the designer’s clothes.  You didn’t think they paid for this stuff did you?  Poor Kelly, so pouty and bored.  She hates trying on clothes. Even $3,000 cashmere dresses that she’s getting for nothing.  She should have passed on the hat, though.  It just brought out the wrinkles in her skin and added about 10 years to her looks.  Some things, even if they are free, come at a cost. Don’t be so greedy next time.

Back to Kelly, of the mean right hook. She is caught interviewing Jill Stuart for fashion week.  Kelly tells us that she interviews people that normally don’t give interviews (like a designer during fashion week, for instance) but she gets the interviews because she is “associated with quality.” And we really admire the quality of her interviewing technique, “What’s one thing, like if you could say like OK this is one thing I’ve learned or this is like one thing I can tell you – this is for me, I need advice – how do you navigate? Like give me one… like give me one…” When Jill Stuart tells her that children and work both take priority, Kelly is awestruck by the profundity of the answer. “Oh my God” she murmurs as she scribbles furiously on her knee.  Kelly wraps up by telling us that she “didn’t get into the business to be cunning.”  No chance of that.

After being treated to a few ridiculous adolescent-worthy fights between Ramona and Simon, and Kelly and Bethenny, we finally cut to Kelly coming late to Jill’s charity event planning meeting.  Kelly tells us that she is always late because she “smashes too much in to her time.” Bad choice of words but her ex-fiancé probably agrees.  Jill has started a charity to benefit a type of arthritis that Allie and now Avery suffer from. Although Avery might just have fasciitis from wearing the hooker boots Ramona bought her last week, but that remains to be seen.  The event planner tells the ladies that their names will be on the invitation as “Honorary Chairs.”  Kelly tells everyone that she “doesn’t lend her name to anything…” “…she doesn’t have time and she has to leave in about two minutes…” “…in all honesty, there are so many charities” (how can she possibly choose which one to pretend to care about) and, “you know, this little girl (meaning Allie) is an adorable kid and you know what? If I could help her and I really like Jill and I offered to help in anyway that I can.”  Just don’t ask her to lend her name to the event, do any of the planning, come to the event or associate with these other housewives who are so obviously beneath her notice.

Isn’t this a reality show?  Can’t we just vote her off the island?