Whitney Port Convinces MTV to Let Her Show Her Reality on Season Two of The City

On Tuesday, The City returns for a second season on MTV. After season one's breakups, emotional upheavals, catfights, and general difficulties of living life in a penthouse apartment in downtown Manhattan in your early twenties, "everything is different" in season two, according to a press release. Whitney Port returns to work for Kelly Cutrone at People's Revolution. Erin is no longer part of the cast. She's been replaced by Roxy, who moves to New York from L.A. and has to crash with Whitney (who has a new apartment in the West Village, because her old one was so gross, obviously). Olivia also no longer works at Diane Von Furstenberg, and instead lands a gig in the accessories department at Elle.

So will Olivia and Whitney hang out? Is Whitney's clothing line actually going anywhere? Does Whitney have a boyfriend?! The star and burgeoning fashion designer took a few minutes out of her (theoretical) day off to chat on the phone with us while walking around town, and answer a few of our life's most burning questions.

It must be nice to be out of the office on a lovely day like this. Speaking of, how is working with Kelly again?
It was a really good choice, you know? I’m really happy that I made it because while it was a really great experience to be at Diane Von Furstenberg and learn behind the scenes of designing, now I'm really learning more about the whole design process.

Do you think you're learning more with Kelly in that regard?
I don’t know that I’m learning more or less. It’s different to work for a designer and it’s different to be a designer — I have a lot more creative control, so it’s different.

What's been the greatest lesson she's taught you?
I’ve learned that you just can’t be afraid to fail and that you can’t always listen to someone else’s criticism. Design is so opinion-based — I’m not sitting at a computer and crunching numbers. She just said, "You have to be ready and some people are going to hate it and knock and don’t let it get you down."

Kelly said that when hiring interns she looks for “somebody who doesn’t think they know anything about fashion, because they don’t.” Do you share that philosophy?
I’m not really sure exactly what she means, but I think what she’s trying to get off is that she wants to teach. She’s not as harsh as that — she’s more of a mentor. I think she knows that she has a lot of knowledge, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you should hire someone who doesn’t know anything about fashion.

Does she critique you on the show?
She has her moments when she’s harsh and she can criticize, and then there’s moments when she’s really motherly.

Have any stores placed orders since your Fashion Week show?
Not yet. I mean, we made some great contacts with boutiques around the country. As far as big department stores? I think my sales group is having some meetings today, so I’m not sure.

MTV used to be adamant about not letting Lauren Conrad's fame outside of The Hills be on The Hills. But now they're letting you work on your line and have a fashion show on The City. What changed?
They saw how passionate I was about designing my clothing line and I really told them, "This is what I want to do — I don’t want to work in public relations and what I want to do is design. So please allow me to do this and please show my reality."

Do you and Olivia hang out in season two?
She has her own story arc — she’s working with this girl Erin in publicity at Elle. Olivia doesn’t need me to be part of the show. There’s points in the season where we work together or I see her at certain events or whatnot, but we have our own things going on.

So you don't socialize just for fun?
No.

Are you dating anybody?
Currently, no. But you definitely see a fair share of dating on the shows.
Credit - nymag.com