New Jersey: It’s reality hot

TV production companies – and viewers – are flocking to series about the state’s brassy residents. One says the shows are ‘flaunting things we used to be ashamed of.’

The action starts early at Diane & Co., an unassuming dress shop lodged in a strip mall on a busy stretch of highway in central New Jersey. The doors had barely opened on a recent spring morning, and a gaggle of customers was already on hand to sample the store's exhaustive inventory of formal gowns.