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.

Each season a different reality TV show descends upon New York Fashion Week making things ten times crazier.

We must say, The Rachel Zoe Project was a huge improvement over Make Me a Supermodel and we kind of hope it’s Rachel and Brad again, (though if Joe Zee rolls up with The City’s camera crew in tow, we won’t really mind).

Anyway, on tonight’s show we finally see what the camera captured during the shitshow that was Rag & Bone AW09. They also explain why Taylor headed back to LA before the week was out (which maybe explains why I was sitting next to Brad at Chanel instead of next to Rachel’s first assistant). And there’s a close up of DvF’s nomad collection pre-show. A sneak peek, above.

ELLE needs interns.

Who at ELLE? As fun as it’d be to be Joe Zee’s twitter intern, the assistant to the Style Director needs a few helping hands this fall.

The perfect people will be detail oriented, responsible and professional (we’ll keep writing these qualifications, but please note these are requirements for any job). Also, if you apply, you should be obsessed with fashion - not shopping, but fashion.

You’ll help with sample trafficking and organizing as well as planning Fashion Month. You might even help with more creative tasks like working on the storyboards etc. It’d be nice if you’re a college student, you’re not disqualified if you aren’t, and they’d like you to work three days a week starting now.

Whitney Port, of The Hills and The City, has apparently “designed” a lipstick for Cargo. Of course, I recognize that there is PR value and it’s very lovely that a portion of the profits go to St. Jude’s. But really, I’ve always found these collaborations, if you can even call them that, rather dumb.

I love what Lancôme does in their Pout-à-Porter series with designers like Peter Som and Thakoon. And I can’t wait to see the new Chris Benz shade and find out who won the naming contest! These are literally tied to the runway looks of these designers. In fact, they’re actually used on the models in the show. There’s a context and a point behind the shades.

But I personally could care less when someone like Whitney or Tinsley (that Dior Beauty Ambassador thing still boggles my mind) point at a shade of pink and throws her name on it.

Do you?

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]

Talking Cats: Mad-libs with Catherine Holstein. She loves cut-offs as much as we do, all things purple, dogs and shoes. {Glamour}

Twittered: In case you missed it, here’s a tweet by tweet account of Anna Wintour’s 92Y talk last night. It started with Peta and ended with Andre’s blogging. {NYMag}

Dig Deep: Ali from The City gets questioned. She really likes Splenda and scented candles and ended up on the show after Adam was cast. {Nylon}

Suzy Says: Suzy Menkes took a trip to SF. Alas, she doesn’t have time for tweets. {FabSugar}

Bravo picked up Kelly Cutrone’s reality show in February and now, they’ve given it a name: Kell on Earth.

Here’s what they say about the series:

Kelly Cutrone has been called one of the “coolest, scariest and New York-iest people ever” and, judging from her frank demeanor and fashion world credibility, it’s easy to see why. Bravo takes a no-holds-barred look into the life of one of America’s most legitimate tastemakers as she balances running her wildly successful fashion PR company, People’s Revolution, with being a single mother and one of New York’s most notable women about town.

We’re wondering, logistically, how this will work. Now that Whitney’s Kelly’s ‘employee’ and Whitney’s followed everywhere by her own MTV camera crews, who decides who gets to film what? What if there’s major drama at People’s Revolution and MTV wants it for The City but Bravo’s determined to get it for Kell on Earth? You can’t just share dramatic tension.

Clearly, the only solution is to give the dueling camera crews their own reality show - name suggestions?

A while back, we noticed that Lauren Conrad’s Collection was curiously tucked into the DVF section of Bloomingdale’s in Soho. We’ve also recently noticed that everyone’s so taken with scenes involving Olivia Palermo on The City, that the name “Spencer” has ceased to draw the same level of ire as in summers past.

So it looks like the DVF empire has squashed LC’s before it ever really got off the ground. Not only is her show finally ending while The City becomes socially acceptable for conversation (ok, with some people), but it looks like her line has gone kaput, too.

The New York Post says it’s because of “the economic climate” but we think this is just what happens when little fish jump into the Pacific Ocean, camera crew or not.

We’re endlessly fascinated with the meeting of “real,” “reality” and “fashion” on television these days, and the way it endlessly fascinates us despite our constant stream of questions and concerns. Like:

1. Doesn’t Diane von Furstenberg (as in, the real DVF, not some character of herself she plays on MTV) care that the entire world has now watched her discuss Whitney Port’s love life on prime time?

2. Doesn’t Whitney Port care that the only time she actually got to talk to the real DVF (who, let’s face it, is always present with her on-screen self) was during a work party where she spewed about her boyfriend instead of about wanting to do more with her job?

3. Also, don’t the producers care that DVF just repeated the same advice we’ve heard her give several times?

Please, discuss this moment in true tele-reality. Because when Diane started playing with her hair and asking legitimate questions about Jay, we lost too many brain cells to think on this any further.

Looks like Allie from The City really is a model - here she is in Tracy Feith’s line for Target.

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.

Just because women have stopped buying shoes doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to drop a couple hundred bucks for tickets to a runway show.

American Express told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that they sold 97% of their $150 - $250 Fashion Week packages within five days.

Most of those tickets are to Diane von Furstenburg’s show - not the Fall 09 show editors and buyers are attending but a totally separate event with a runway full of Spring 09 looks. As in, the looks you can already pre-order on DVF’s website.

Which means the highlight of the show isn’t the collection itself but rather the life discussion Diane’s going to have with Andre Leon Talley prior to the show during which we really hope she addresses exactly which life lessons she’s gained from being on The City.

Anyway, we digress. In other American Express loves Fashion Week news, they’ve recruited polar opposites Tory Burch and Philip Crangi to hold trunk shows in their VIP tent at Bryant Park. Between Diane’s walking catalog and Tory selling flats on location, AmEx is working their hardest to turn what is essentially a fancy industry trade show into a store.

And so far, it’s working.

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?

If you happen to know Kate Bartle, Starworks’ Director of Accessories, then you may or may not already know this:

Kate’s left her PR job at Starworks as of yesterday.

Her mega destination? Working in the PR department of DVF.

Which, I’m sure you’ve all put together by now, means she’s Whitney Port’s newest co-worker (and confidante?) and our favorite new pick for reality show cast member.

And now you know.

“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.

From a conversation last night:

Us: “No, but I think Whitney actually does work there. People saw her at he DVF show in September, like organizing models backstage with a clipboard.”

Girl: “Hm, weird, because she kind of doesn’t.”

Us: “Hm?”

Girl: “Well, she just goes into the office to shoot scenes like she works there, like what they did on The Hills. Actually, it’s kind of sad. When they film her spots, they make the girls that actually work there move from their desks and into some cubicles in another part of the floor, because they’re actually working, but the camera people want Whitney and her on-screen work friend to look like they have real desks.”

Us: “They make the people who really work there give up their desks in the middle of the day so The City can shoot?”

Girl: “Yeah. And when the scenes are done, Whitney leaves. She doesn’t really work there.”

At this point, we had a pretty shocked look on our face. Though looking back, we have no idea why…

Exactly two months ago, we told you about Whitney’s departure from People’s Revolution to DVF, and from there, it came out that she was getting her own show.

Here’s the first clip from it, The City, which debuts December 29th, conveniently placed in the time continuum that is Winter Break for so much of MTV’s bread and butter, just a few days after those new Christmas toys lose their shine - not a bad effort on DVF’s part either, to try and brand themselves with the younger set who have yet to actually buy their first wrap dress. Perhaps there really is a television-related reason for having positioned Lauren’s clothes in the midst of Diane’s at Bloomingdale’s - to show young girls on camera perusing not just Laurent’s duds, but Diane’s, too?

Anyway, here’s our early verdict - This looks exactly like The Hills, except now, you could potentially make a game of spotting where the cameras take her on the grid. On the upside, maybe Diane will make an appearance.