Tonight’s Rachel Zoe Project, the Bravo channel’s reality series about the celebrity stylist will include a spot on Rachel’s support of ovarian cancer.
Rachel, who lost a close family friend to the disease, decided to use her fashionista connections to help bring awareness to the disease that, until recently, no one talked about. Rachel, who made a name for herself styling A-list stars, decided that it was time to start talking. One night this spring, on famed Melrose Avenue in LA, she threw a charity event that included the resale of 200 of her favorite accessories from her personal closet for the benefit of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.
The evening was surreal. Most of the attendees, very young and impossibly thin, crowded the small shop that hosted the glittery evening. Jewels were strewn about as though a bomb had gone off in Harry Winston’s window, Judith Leiber bags were strategically tossed about, and haute couture belts and jackets decorated every inch of precious space in the intimate venue. One certainly felt that we were in someone’s closet.
Rachel and her entourage arrived and the place buzzed with excitement as she did interviews on why she chose ovarian cancer. It is a disease seldom associated with beauty, especially in this group. One normally thinks of ovarian cancer as affecting older women and certainly not Rachel's fashion-obsessed clients in Beverly Hills.
However, Rachel - notoriously overworked and undernourished - decided that she could make a difference. Named by MSN.com as one of the 10 Most Influential Women of 2006, her influence could reach women who would never listen to a public service announcement on this subject and too often ignore symptoms that might signal a problem. So Rachel opened the doors to her "closet" and her reality show to focus on awareness of the symptoms of ovarian cancer. She also donated receipts from the sale to further the cause.
I got to make a brief appearance to thank Rachel for bringing visibility to a disease that might as well be annonymous. It is thanks to people like her, who decided it was time to stop being demure about “female problems” and speak out loud about ovarian cancer, that the word is finally getting out.
Bravo, Rachel.