NEW YORK — Catfights, conniving models and undermining executives are all daily occurrences in the fashion world, and the new drama “Fashion House” takes them to their “Dallas-Meets-Dynasty” extreme.
The daily, one-hour show makes its debut Sept. 5 on MyNetworkTV, complete with bitches and big bows. The unlikely triumvirate of Bo Derek, Morgan Fairchild and Tippi Hedren headlines the program. Derek plays Maria Gianni, a cutthroat fashion mogul who will fight with whatever it takes — including her own fists — to prevent her company, Gianni Inc., from being taken over.
“It ain’t Tolstoy,” Fairchild laughed. “On the other hand, not everybody wants to read Tolstoy. It’s fun, fast-paced with a lot of twists and turns. It works like a good beach read.”
Shot in San Diego, “Fashion House” definitely has a sunnier feel than Seventh Avenue. Like the backdrop, the cast’s wardrobe and acting at times can be lacking. Bill Blass Ltd. provided many of the dresses used for the program’s four runway shows featured in the first season. ABS and Betsey Johnson provided some others, as did Renee Newstrom, a San Diego seamstress, who created customized gowns “all with big, crazy bows” for a fashion show finale, said stylist Sherrie Jordan.
More dressed-down pieces were provided by Mavi jeans, Paris Gordon and Halle Bob. The latter is a label both Derek and Fairchild said they wear often. Also a fan of Versace, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana, Fairchild said a number of the suits she wears on the program are her own. She likes to update core pieces with new handbags and jewelry from Fendi, Hermès and Yves Saint Laurent. In contrast to Derek’s character, who wears mostly neutrals, Fairchild wears bright green, lemon yellow and a lot of other colors. “Bo and I are both sort of pushy [on the show]. She’s a bad guy to everybody and I’m her bad guy,” Fairchild said.
But neither looks bad. “They are all beautiful people with great bodies, which helps,” Jordan said. “Bo and Morgan had a lot of input about what they wanted to wear. We also had a lot of young, hot models to dress, including two girls who are models in real life.”
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The cast’s youthfulness did not make the 49-year-old Derek self-conscious. “No, I’m happy to pass the torch. They can do all the kissing scenes and the love scenes,” she said.
What she did find eye-opening was the workload and the up to 26 wardrobe changes in one day. “I never planned on coming back and working this hard,” she said with a laugh. “It’s sort of been a grand experiment to see if an actor is capable of memorizing 20 pages.”
Hedren, who is best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and plays the doting mother of one of the young opportunists on the show, agreed about the show’s pace, noting that two or three pages a day is more the norm for motion pictures. “The show is moving very fast. This borders on hysteria.” (Just like fashion.)
Being on “Fashion House” is a bit of a flashback for the 76-year-old Hedren, a former Ford model. At 5 foot 3 inches, she was too short to do runway shows but did so much print work that she was able to afford a leisurely trip around the world in the late Fifties. Her height, however, wound up being a point of contention for Eileen Ford. “Eileen Ford told me I was the bane of her existence. She would tell girls they had to be at least 5-foot 7 inches to model and they would ask her, ‘But what about Tippi Hedren?'”
Despite being friendly with Bijan designer Bijan Pakzad and Bill Blass’ Michael Vollbracht, Derek said: “I’m certainly not driven by fashion. It’s not a huge part of my life … In my work, fashion comes at me. Dressing up is like wearing a uniform for me. I consider that work clothes.”
Still, she said she loves Blass for its classic, beautiful clothes, as well as the handiwork and design. Having learned how to sew by hand and with a machine, thanks to her grandmother, Derek said that has given her a better understanding of the work that is involved in fine design and she “certainly appreciates it.”
Fairchild, on the other hand, said she has been interested in fashion for years, and even presented a Coty award to Donna Karan and Louis Dell’Olio back in their Anne Klein days in the Eighties. More recently, she joined in on Valentino’s 40th anniversary bash in Los Angeles. She also makes a point of visiting such New York showrooms as Marc Bouwer, Donna Karan and Escada. The Los Angeles retail scene is not so of-the-moment. “I like to see what’s happening. Things are more avant-garde in New York. Even if you see an evening gown in a magazine, no one in L.A. has it.”
Fairchild, who made an unsuccessful bid for the Screen Actors Guild’s presidency earlier this year, said she never intended to always play the vixen. “‘The Imitation of Sarah’ was the first movie that set me on my road to bitchdom. That was the most Machiavellian bitch there ever was,” she said. During one of her first auditions, she wanted to read for a middle-of-the-road-type character, but “the director told me, ‘Honey, you haven’t been here very long, have you? I can get a good ingenue anytime. But a good bitch is hard to find.'”
With that, Fairchild decided to pursue more tempestuous roles and her dollish appearance only seemed to help the cause. “I guess the deep voice didn’t go with the pointy nose,” she said.
Fairchild, 56, is still living up to that reputation, and even slugs things out with Derek in a few scenes on “Fashion House.” That proved to be a wardrobe challenge, but Jordan made do with tear-away sleeves and many duplicate outfits for the feistier scenes. Jordan said, “Bo and Morgan ended up doing a lot of their stunts. There is a lot of kicking, screaming and slapping. Bo even goes in a fountain for a fistfight.”
“Fashion House” will air nationally for 13 weeks on MyNetworkTV, a division of News Corp., Mondays through Fridays, with Saturdays designated for recap episodes. The program is actually adapted from the popular Spanish telenovela “Salir de Noche.”