Rachel Zoe is a fashion stylist whose main job seems to be arranging loans of clothing and jewelry for Hollywood stars’ photo shoots and appearances on various red carpets.

This series, which has its second-season premiere tonight at 10 p.m. on Bravo, revolves around Rachel’s efforts to wrangle the right looks. She is helped in this by two assistants: Taylor, who has had the same job for three years, and Brad, who was hired at the beginning of last season.

Cynics who assumed that Brad was brought in to add some drama to the proceedings had their suspicions confirmed when much of the first season was devoted to his feuds with Taylor. It just so happens that Brad almost perfectly matches the TV and movie stereotype of the wisecracking gay assistant.

Rachel’s husband and business partner, Rodger, pops up here and there, coming and going without a trace.

As this season opens, Brad and Taylor have smoothed out their problems. Taylor seems to have refocused her antagonism on Rachel, constantly complaining that her talents are unappreciated but never actually making a move to quit.

In the premiere, Rachel & Co. are concentrating on finding outfits for the Golden Globes for five of their biggest clients: Cameron Diaz, Eva Mendes, Demi Moore, Debra Messing and "Annie" Hathaway. (It should be noted that none of these stars let Bravo’s cameras go past their front gates.)

The main drama revolves around whether Karl Lagerfeld will agree to have a sleeve cut off a Chanel couture dress to match Rachel’s vision for Diaz—and if so, whether the dress will arrive in time. A mini-crisis erupts when Mendes discovers a spot on her gown.

Taylor explains to the camera why we should care: Red-carpet photos are published over and over again, and "careers are defined at those moments."

We learn that even this rarefied world isn’t immune to the recession. Designers have been cutting back on the number of dresses they send out to stylists.

What is endearing about Rachel is that behind the workaholism one catches glimpses of the little girl dressing up her Barbie dolls, only in this case the dolls are world-famous actresses and the clothes and accessories are worth literally millions of dollars.

"I’ll never settle for anything less than the perfect Cinderella moment," she says. She seems awestruck by the beauty of some ensembles. Gaping at one, she gives it her highest term of praise: "Bananas."

Moreover, when it’s time to see how the outfits turn out, Rachel isn’t rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous at the Golden Globes ceremony. Instead, she watches the red-carpet coverage on TV with takeout food. (Stars’ middlemen: They’re just like us!)

Rachel also wins our sympathy through her patience with Taylor, who is repeatedly disappointed when she isn’t allowed to model the dresses because she’s too busty for high fashion. Taylor, we all have our crosses to bear.

"Isn’t it every girl’s dream to try on designer gowns?" asks Brad. "And some boys’ dreams?"

If Brad was hired for comic relief, the producers got their money’s worth.

By the second of the two episodes Bravo provided for review, some of this gets a little tiresome. Taylor keeps whining, and there’s a virtual replay of the Lagerfeld dress-altering scenario, this time with Giorgio Armani. Talking to the camera, however, Rachel acts as if it had never happened before.

The appearance of four Armani staffers to present the dress to Rachel underscores the element of wretched excess.

And one overlong segment is little more than an infomercial for Diane von Furstenberg. Rachel admits that she and the designers "scratch each other’s backs."