Review: ‘Running in Heels’

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Given that clothes make the (hu)man, it’s no surprise to find fashion at the center of those sorts of television series that purport to show us reality. (And there is ‘Ugly Betty’ too.) From ‘Project Runway,’ down through ‘What Not to Wear,’ ‘The Rachel Zoe Project’ and various makeover, styling, and shopping and modeling shows too numerous to watch, if not to name, the rag trade and the people who analyze, promote and apply its products are, as Heidi Klum would say in her Heidi Klum accent, in.

“Running in Heels,” which premieres Sunday on the Style Network, is a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at the magazine Marie Claire, filtered through the experience of three new interns. It is a little like ‘The Hills’ without the boys, and a little like ‘Stylista,’ the CW reality series in which contestants vied for an editorial post at Elle, except without the stunt challenges and weekly eliminations. But that is not to say that there is no competition.

If this self-styled ‘docu-series’ is partly a piece of self-promotion -- Marie Claire getting in a game already played by rival Elle through ‘Project Runway’ and ‘Stylista’ -- it isn’t the first documentary to have been backed or approved by its subject. And if cooperation comes at the price of the whole truth, there is at least the access and a chance of something interesting. (To be sure, the show is too fast and fragmented to go deeply into anything.) So while you may not see the darker side of new fashion director Nina Garcia, who arrives from Elle to take up her new post -- you see more of it on ‘Project Runway,’ really -- you will get a little bit of an idea of what being Nina Garcia entails.

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(Photo courtesy Style Network)