On Tuesday night the second season of The City premiered on MTV. I’ve been stewing over the new episode since it aired, and I’m not sure why I still watch a show that never fails to frustrate me.

I’m a recent college grad and current industry intern, who has spent hours sending in dozens of internship applications only to get one response. I know what it’s like to spend an entire day in the fashion closet of a major publication, and how grueling it is to write up entire racks of clothes and then wheel them around town. Conveniently, none of the unpleasant aspects of fashion internships are ever depicted on the show.

By now it’s no secret that much of the action on The City is staged, but its classification as a “reality show” blurs the line between the real and the fake. Younger girls who are in the target demographic might not realize that breaking into the fashion industry isn’t so simple, and doesn’t provide instant perks. To be perfectly honest, growing up in Virginia and going to school at Tulane, I didn’t know the full scope of what a lot of jobs in the industry required until I had one. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that fact.

You know a show’s bad when you can’t wait for it to be over, especially when it’s only seven minutes long.

Unfortunately, that’s the way Matthew Williamson went yesterday. It wasn’t all his fault though. The ridiculous heat - sweat poured off front row faces including Olivia Palermo, Cecilia Dean, Twiggy, Yasmin LeBon, Leigh Lezark, Aliona Doletskaya, Michael Roberts and Jodie Harsh - was hard to stomach. Kind of like Williamson’s attempts at tailoring.

So far, he’s built a pretty solid business over the past few years with his haute gypsy, running off to Ibiza look. It includes lots of long flowy dresses, mirrors, colour and hippie dippy frocks often without shape and still eye-poppingly expensive.

His marketing’s genius, Sienna Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Plum Sykes, Jade Jagger et al, are his best friends, campaign stars and constant photo companions so he was, essentially selling a dream lifestyle, rather than clothes, which is quite easy to buy into.

But this year, Mr. Williamson decided to tailor which was, we agree, long overdue. And yet it didn’t work. You can’t just add a structured waist and a cupola sleeve without changing everything else that needed changing, i.e. Ibiza happy prints and weird houndstooth which is what came down the runway.

In fact, the final piece, a silk maxi dress, had beauty pageant written all over it, which is probably the worse thing you could say about a collection.

—A LONDON FASHIONISTA

Models, and Mosquitoes, and Karl, Oh My!: In case you were wondering about all the goings-on in Venice or just how late Karl really is to dinner… [Style File]

Reality Check: Olivia Palermo may be trading her fake job at DVF in for a new fake job at Elle for the next season of The City. We are not amused. [NYPost]

Miss This Kitsch: Even if her fashion advice wasn’t as award-worthy as her acting skills, 80s soap opera star Brenda Dickson gives us a peek into her closet and her style. Hello hairspray! [TheMoment]

E.M. Phone Home: Eniko Mihalik, and her “famously alien eyes” are in the upcoming Vogue Nippon. [Models]

Amidst all this model madness there’s one particular doll face we’ve been missing.

We haven’t seen Gemma Ward since, well, we didn’t actually see The Black Balloon, so since the preview for The Black Balloon. Sister Sophie popped up at Australia Fashion Week, but Gemma’s all but disappeared since an Italian Vogue editorial with Lily at this time last year.

Until now - she’s DJing for the Doe Fund at The Angel Orensanz Foundation next week. Tickets, $150 here, buy you a few hours of drinking and dancing to tunes spun by Gemma, Byrdie Bell, Richie Rich, Olivia Palermo and Christian Siriano.

When you see her, tell her fashion misses her.

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

The Boyfriend’s Back: Suzy Menkes says the 80’s are back in the shape of boyfriend suits. Does your boyfriend dress like this? {The New York Times}

Boys for Boys: Henry Holland, Philip Lim & Richard Chai make the perfect white tees for Topshop. We pout because they are for boys but realize we’ll probably buy them anyway {Refinery29}

Pretty Hair: If this is the season we finally relent and embrace pretty hair accessories, we will choose these, please. {Starworks}

The City Breaks: Whitney left DVF to go back to work for Kelly because Olivia got promoted/sent to London and she didn’t so now Joe Zee gets a bigger role on The City? Is it too much to hope it just ends? {New York Post}

Topless in Topshop: Someone got so excited to get to Topshop she forgot to put on her shirt! {Imaginary Socialite}

When Olivia Palermo informed Whitney Port of her status as a “social” instead of a “socialite,” it was all funny ha-ha, and then on to the next thing, except for that one bit in the Times.

But we just received a press release about the party for the Azzaro pop-up store in London in our Inbox, which included some rather curious wording: In it, Pippa Middleton, Kate Reardon, Selina Blow, Matthew Freud and Lady Cosima Somerset are all listed with the title “Social” next to their names.

Next up, Webster entry.

In case anyone else sort of came around on The City after Olivia shut down Whitney over talking about her friends’ hook up situation in the DVF offices (“Whitney, you’re an adult. You’re what, 23 years old? You’re not in high school”), take note:

MTV’s picked up the show for a second season, which could mean more fun quotes from Olivia, but definitely more cameras at Fashion Week.

Not exactly win-win, but maybe Diane will show up on camera again?

“Uptown is represented by a fantastically detestable office rival of Whitney’s, Olivia Palermo, who has provided the show’s single greatest contribution to the nomenclature of reality TV by referring to herself not as a socialite but as a “social.” This has the benefit of confirming for whoever might actually be wondering that she is in no position to unseat Anne Bass. If you ask me, Olivia is the only reason the cameras ever ought to be in the DVF headquarters, given how little appears to go on there beyond pointless staff meetings underscoring the urgency of fashion week.

Olivia is the uptown not of Brearley and Yale but of ostentatious dressing and dumb luck. She transmits her ding-dong thoughts in imperious glares, and reeks of the insecurities of entitlement. She wants to make sure Whitney understands who she is, though we are given no idea of where in the world the Palermo name is supposed to resonate. At a press event for Manolo Blahnik, she tells Whitney she got her first pair of the designer’s heels for her coming-out party, then says it again after she has claimed that Manolo himself is a family friend even as he barely appears to recognize her.

The City is not the advertisement for New York that The Hills, with its dreamily shot opening-credit sequence, is for Los Angeles. There seems to be West Coast bias at play because Manhattan is made to look boxy and claustrophobic and, so far at least, is evoked primarily by images of the meatpacking district at night. In only one shot, of Whitney and Jay together, does New York seem like a place of possibility and does The City look as it should, like a Woody Allen movie for people who might stumble on a copy of The New York Review of Books and wonder why there are no ads for Chanel.” - The New York Times, on The City, and the city.