T Lo Recommends: 9 by Design

Haters gonna hate.

9 by Design, on Bravo, Tuesdays at 10 PM EST.

In a sane world, we would hate Robert and Cortney Novogratz, owners of NYC design firm Sixx Design, and be assured of our rightness. Ridiculously stylish, rich, professionally accomplished, with an 8000-square foot NYC home that should only produce rage and envy in all right-thinking people not living there, a gaggle of model-pretty children with better wardrobes than ours and the kind of weird noun-based names annoying hipsters give their spawn, and of course, the new reality series on Bravo -- it's all there, waiting for our hatred.

And yet, that couldn't stop us from checking out 9 by Design, because, well, Bravo. Reality series. New York. Stylish. Hello? Are you new to this blog?

To our complete delight, the (entirely sincere and surprisingly conventional) charm of the Novogratzes outshine any potential pretentiousness. Don't get us wrong, they can be a little pretentious. Robert never met a hipster hat he didn't own and once you get a load of what he considers a desk you can't help but roll your eyes just a little. But despite all the trappings - and there are plenty of scenes where large amounts of money are spent in minutes - they're a relatively normal, happy couple who are - surprisingly for a reality series - a highly functioning partnership.

There's no real drama on this show, at least not yet. It's just watching two fabulous people with a stylish and unconventional lifestyle live their lives, seven children in tow.

The stressful situations on the show are all centered around things that are pretty banal - getting the house finished by moving day, getting a bigger budget on a project, hiring a nanny - but Robert and Cortney have great chemistry with each other and are really good at what they do, making the show entertaining on its own terms rather than succumbing to Real Housewives freakshow antics. It's kind of what we'd hoped Kelly Cutrone's show would be, except without so many children.

You couldn't have paid us to watch that horrible Gosselin family show and we only sat openmouthed when we stumbled on that one about the weird cult-like family with 19 kids because it was such a freakshow we couldn't NOT watch. Our point being, shows centered around large families don't have a great track record as far as we're concerned but this is one that's stylish and fun, beautifully shot and edited at a rapid-fire New York pace, and doesn't indulge in the kind of silly cartoon drama so many of these shows trade in. Plus, you could get some cool decorating tips along the way. We did.

And besides, we have to admit, naming your fifth child "Five" is actually kind of cool.



[Photo Credit: bravotv.com/Virginia Sherwood]

Post a Comment

Labels: Bravo TV