When I stopped by the Coterie yesterday to interview Lauren Conrad and check our her debut contemporary line, Paper Crown, I expected a crush of cameras, reporters and publicists. I expected that an overly protective publicist would monitor my interview to make sure I didn’t ask certain questions and that I wrapped it up after 10 minutes. So it was a pleasant surprise when I located Paper Crown’s modest booth at Pier 94 to find Conrad and her two business partners (also her two best friends–not Hills alums), just hanging out, listening to Billy Joel on an iPad, and not a paparazzo or crazed publicist in sight.

Of course, if MTV hadn’t dropped the reality show they were filming about Conrad’s new line, there would have been a 15-person camera crew crowding the space. “I was a little disappointed at first but I’m very much OK with it now,” said Conrad of her show being canceled. “[The show] was very different from The Hills–it was filmed like a documentary–it was a very different experience.” Now, she even seemed relieved there wasn’t a camera crew around to make everything crowded and chaotic. “Can you imagine if there were cameras here?” she said, looking around at Paper Crown’s small booth.

Sadly, the absence of camera crews means that there’s little hope Conrad’s show will make it to air on any network–because MTV stopped filming halfway through the design process. “It’s an incomplete story now,” Conrad said.

But back to the clothes.

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