CashMere Mafia

ABC made the nets’ first major strike-related scheduling change Monday morning, yanking “Cashmere Mafia” off the docket for now.

“Cashmere Mafia” was set to launch Nov. 27 at 10 p.m., behind the final episode of “Dancing with the Stars,” before moving to its normal Tuesday at 9 p.m. slot the following week. Instead, the show will now remain on the bench and serve as a utility player in case ABC needs more scripted originals later in the season.

To replace the “Mafia” hole, ABC will now bump the two-hour “Dancing With the Stars” finale to 9 p.m. At 8, Alphabet will run the holiday perennial “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Specials are on tap to fill the Tuesday 9 p.m. slot in future weeks for the time being.

From Sony Pictures TV, “Cashmere Mafia” stars Lucy Liu, Frances O’Connor, Miranda Otto and Bonnie Somerville as successful, driven women in New York City. Darren Star, Kevin Wade, Jeff Rake, Gail Katz and Michael Pressman are exec producers.

NBC still has the similarly themed “Lipstick Jungle” on tap; “Mafia’s” scheduling change now means the battle resumes to see which network gets their project on air first.

The ‘Sex and the City’ costume designer brings her eclectic sensibility to ‘Cashmere Mafia.’ But don’t expect any giant flower brooches.
By Melissa Magsaysay, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2007
NEW YORK — PATRICIA FIELD’S deep and smoky voice echoes through a cavernous photo studio where she has been readying the cast of “Cashmere Mafia” for their publicity stills. Field whirls onto the set with magenta hair, turquoise frame spectacles and her fists full of vintage leather belts. She is debating which belts the show’s four leads should wear. In the end she decides to mix it up. She is very good at mixing it up.

To call Field a costume designer is an understatement. She is, after all, the woman whose work on “Sex and the City” turned the groundbreaking cable show into a weekly catwalk. Tutu skirts, flower brooches and nameplate necklaces have never been the same since. And the Manolo Blahniks? Without Field, they wouldn’t be a household word.