City Girl Diaries: Lots of PR Talk on the Style Network’s New Series

City Girl Diaries: Lots of PR Talk on the Style Network’s New Series

The cast of City Girl Diaries on The Style Network.
The cast of City Girl Diaries.

City Girl Diaries, a new show that premiered last night on the Style Network introduced us to five friends who are all looking to take their careers, businesses and/or personal relationships to the next level.

There’s Leila Shams (@Leila_Shams), the design director for Buffalo David Bitton, who has been working on her eponymous fashion line behind the scenes for the last three years. Then there’s Kelly Brady (@KellyJBrady), a Lizzie Grubman PR alum, who is determined to get her recently launched PR firm on the map.

Leigh Rossini (@LeighRossini), who seems to be the ringleader, is the PR director for The Louis Licari Group, a popular hair salon in New York. And rounding out the group are journalists Marianne Garvey (@GarveyShuffle), a gossip columnist at the New York Daily News and Raina Seitel (@RainaSeitel) an entertainment and lifestyle correspondent.

There was a lot of PR talk in this first episode.

We get to see Kelly pull her team at BrandSway PR together to help her plan and produce her birthday party which ultimately ends in some melodrama due to her fear of aging. Leigh gets in some awesome product placement for the Louis Licari salon and gives us a glimpse into her longstanding relationship with the revered stylist.

But the major PR moment of the premiere was when Leila Shams talked about wanting to get her old publicist back even though she wasn’t the best client the first time they worked together.

Shams admittedly thought that since she’d had success as a designer for other people’s lines that she would be a success right out of the gate with her own. This sense of entitlement carried over into her relationship with her old publicist whom she felt wasn’t getting her enough press. She confessed to self-sabotaging herself and having unrealistic expectations and finally realized that her old firm did have her best interests in mind and had been doing a great job.

So she reached out to fellow cast mate Marianne and asked her if she would talk to her best friend Mark Silver, about taking Leila back on as a client. When Marianne first approached Mark about the idea, he said that he still has nightmares about working with Leila, but agreed to a meeting in order to hear her side of things.

In that meeting, Mark told Leila that while she had the talent to go far in the fashion world, she is “entitled, lacks discipline and is relentless in the wrong things.” After she apologized and assured him that she’s changed, Mark agreed to take her back on as a client with a few contingencies.

I thought it was brave of Leila to show this part of the process on national television. The dichotomy between Leila and her former PR firm is common but rarely discussed in public forums. It was an extremely real business moment that showed what happens when an entrepreneur finally learns or understands the value of what a good PR partner can bring to the table.

City Girl Diaries airs every Sunday at 10 p.m. on the Style Network.