With the recent news that mega-hit “Girls” will be renewed for a third season and two newly minted Golden Globes under her belt, it looks like Lena Dunham is taking the logical next step for any superstar writer-creator and starting work on a second project. Deadline reports that HBO has optioned “All Dressed Up And Everywhere To Go,” the upcoming memoir by 85-year-old Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper Betty Halbreich. Dunham plans to write the project along with her “Girls” co-showrunner and executive producer Jenni Konner.
Halbreich has had a glamorous career, having run her service in the legendary Fifth Avenue department store since 1976. She has dressed an endless list of celebrity clients, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Joan Rivers, and Meryl Streep, and also served as a wardrobe consultant on the early Woody Allen films and “Sex and The City,” helping to develop some of the most pop-culturally significant New York looks ever. Maybe more importantly, Halbreich is purported to be an unpretentious, brassy Chicago native – and hopefully an interesting character for television.
While most people already know about Dunham’s indie fairy tale rise to fame after creating “Tiny Furniture,” Konner’s background is less well-known. She has written for “Girls,” but her only other major TV credit is as creator of “Help Me Help You,” a sitcom about group therapy starring Ted Danson that was canceled before the end of its first season. We definitely believe in Dunham’s talent, and it will be interesting to see how she adapts it to depict a real-life character. Though the new project is another NYC-set show targeted to women, it’s nowhere near as inspired by her own life as “Tiny Furniture” or “Girls,” and there are no plans for Dunham to appear on screen this time.