Michelle Lee’s Fashion Victim: Our Love–Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping and the Cost of Style (Broadway Books, 2003, $24·95) is a must-read for anyone who has ever (a) passed judgment on someone else’s style of dress (which would be just about all of us) or (b) ever questioned your own personal style and what messages it sends out to the world at large. A frequent contributor to many of the leading fashion magazines in New York City, Ms Lee is also the 1997 winner of the William Hearst Award for Feature Writing and a damn good writer to boot.
   From cover to cover, she held my interest in a subject I have never given more than two minutes of serious thought in my adult life. I was happy to be an armchair critic because I have never considered myself a fashion victim. I figured I am too poor to fall into that category. Well, I’ve got to get over myself.
   The truth is not pretty as told by Ms Lee in her introduction, ‘we are a society hooked on-and bombarded with fashion … Today, even the least knowledgeable consumers know the names Valentino, Dior, Manolo Blahnik, and Fendi if they watch HBO’s Sex and the City. Rational people are driven to near-lunacy in their pursuit of style. You can feel it every time you cram your feet into uncomfortable shoes and tell the salesperson, “I’ll take them.” … Fashion has not only begun to meld with the mainstream, it is the mainstream.’
   Under the heading of various provocative chapter titles (‘The Fashion Victim’s Ten Commandments’, ‘McFashion’, ‘Speed Chic’, ‘The Thin Spin’, ‘Wear and Tear’, ‘Compassion in Fashion’), she laid it all out in a coherent, well-written manner. In ‘The Thin Spin’, she exposed society’s hypocrisy and doublespeak on the issue of models deemed too skinny in American fashion magazines and its effect on young impressionable girls. While it is true that fashion magazines tend to focus on size 2 models, it is also quite true that most American women instinctively reject the image of a plus-size model on the page before them. It is not always true that we, as a people, desire facing the truth all the time. Sometimes the mirror is not your friend.
   My feeling, shared by Ms Lee and many others, is that size 2 models and men in excellent physical shape internally give us something to aspire to—while at the same time giving rise to feelings of frustration and inadequacy when we don’t achieve that goal. Either way, fashion magazines cannot be held entirely responsible for all of society’s body-image woes.
   The enjoyment factor of Fashion Victim is enhanced to a higher degree with Ms Lee’s use of humour (in certain parts), solid research (in others) and a determination to not lay the blame game on any one person or factor. In the final analysis, she soundly proved that we are part and parcel of the problem ourselves. We are fashion victims because we bought into the programme from the beginning. As consumers throughout history, we were aware of the upside and the downside of fashion and design. It’s now up to us reprogram ourselves to have truly realistic expectations of clothes, make-up and society in general. A pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes or having the latest version of the Lady Dior handbag will improve the body’s exterior but will not change your life. And even if it did (God forbid), you should realize that it’s a temporary solution to a permanent problem.
   Fashion Victim is one of those books that serve as a wake up call. In my case, it now joins the late Randy Shilt’s Conduct Unbecoming and And the Band Played on on my bookshelf as part of my essential reading collection.
   Lauren Weisberger’s much-anticipated first novel, The Devil Wears Prada (Doubleday–Random House, 2003, $21·95), is at its basic level about life changes. It’s the story of Andrea Sachs, a freshly minted college graduate, who in an unscripted life moment, forever changed the direction she was heading in and set off down a path she least expected to take.
   Not that you, the reader or the public, would immediately know that.
   The Devil Wears Prada was published several weeks ago under a massive cloud of overblown pre-publicity buzz and inner-industry controversy; and had almost everyone sharpening their knives in anticipation. The drumbeats about this book started last summer when it was reported that Ms Weisberger received a six-figure advance from Doubleday Books and her pedigree was exposed to the public on The New York Post’s ‘Page Six’ gossip page. When the premise of the book was revealed, the floodgates were open to much speculation: is the lead character based on Vogue’s Anna Wintour? Is Nigel based on André Leon Talley? After all said and done, will she ever be able to eat lunch in this town again?
   Taking note of the incoming storm, I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon.com and waited for the answers to reveal themselves. After reading the book, the answers are: (a) not exactly; (b) very likely; and (c) she will survive this one just fine.
   Ms Weisberger’s lead character, Andrea Sachs, was looking for a job, any job. Like most all college graduates, she had moved back home and discovered that she much preferred the view on the other side of the fence. Her lifelong dream and aspiration was to write for the New Yorker magazine but fate intervened and dealt her a cruel hand. It was a fluke that she was called in to interview at Runway, the most successful fashion magazine in the world but it was bad karma that she ended up as the new assistant to Miranda Priestly, Runway’s high-profile, wildly successful editor-in-chief. It was the job ‘a million girls would die for’.
   Because Ms Weisberger used the first person voice to narrate the story, the reader got to feel every hurt, every moment of joy (as few and far between as they were), every fearful moment (of which there were many), and each and every emotion the fictitious Ms Sachs went through in her year of servitude. I was equally as shocked when she realized (midway through the novel) that she was truly dealing with a particularly manipulative she-devil from hell. Miranda was in Paris attending the haute couture fashion shows when Andrea received an ‘urgent’ call from her. It ‘appeared’ that she had misplaced Karl Lagerfeld’s cell phone number and she needed it immediately. After trying to figure out what must have happened (after all, they thought they had done everything possible to send off in fine fashion), they discovered a horrible truth: Miranda had the number all along. She simply wanted Andrea (in New York) to dial the number for her and connect her to Karl, who was probably two blocks away from where she was staying at her hotel (in Paris).
   Andrea, to give her credit, really did try her best. She rationalized and rationalized this bad behaviour until she couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And she discovered that she had changed—but not necessarily for the better. She forced herself to play the designer clothing game whereas to fit in, she allowed herself to be made over in the Runway image. She embraced the madness around her in the hopes of just keeping her head above water. Her relationships outside the Runway magazine offices suffered and she didn’t have the time to fix them. Andrea Sachs was on a rollercoaster ride to hell and couldn’t for the life of her figure how to get off. When she did reach the point of no return, it took all of five words (that I won’t be repeating here, thank you) to turn the tide.
   The Devil Wears Prada is not the laugh out loud, witty read that Lynn Messina’s Fashionista is. In fact, while she is a competent writer, Ms Weisberger would have better served herself if she had toned down the bitterness just a tad. It doesn’t have the moments of wonder and unexpected joy that made The Nanny Diaries one of my favourite books in 2002. The secondary characters surrounding Andrea Sachs are not nearly as fleshed-out as they should be. At best, she gives us surface descriptions, which only make their connections to the main character tenuous, to say the least.
    This book elevates itself when Ms Weisberger simply relaxes and takes us for a ride into Fashionland—without the bitter aftertaste. I loved the way she described the closet at the Runway magazine offices; the way people grovelled to Andrea when they find out about her position at the magazine (and despite her best efforts, she revels in it), the manner in which Nigel injected some much needed over-the-top comic relief and positive energy into the narrative. And I almost cried when she was describing the letter from ‘Anita’ in Newark, New Jersey. The yearning for acceptance that came through in those words will stay with me for a long time.
   As she wrote: ‘How many Anitas were out there? Young girls with so little else in their lives that they measure their worth, their confidence, their entire existence around the clothes and the models they saw in Runway? I wanted to cry for Anita and all her friends who expend so much energy trying to mold themselves into Shalom or Stella or Carmen, trying to impress and please and flatter the woman who would only take their letters and roll her eyes or shrug her shoulders … without a second thought to the girl who’d written down a piece of herself.’
   Those three pages, pp. 243–5, gave me an insight into the real Lauren Weisberger. Too bad she didn’t give us more of that in the book.
   As for that eternal question regarding the origins of Miranda Priestly (it will follow her to her grave, I guarantee it), I have a theory. Writers are always told to write about what they know. Ms Weisberger knows about fashion publishing, so she did. The fashion industry is a very fertile breeding ground for dormant, volcano-like, out-of-control egomaniacs. So it’s a strong possibility that the character is based partly on Ms Wintour, but so what? I submit that the character is also an amalgamation of personal characteristics from Diana Vreeland, Liz Tilberis, Carmel Snow, Grace Mirabella, Kate Betts, Linda Wells, Arthur Cooper and all the other well-known fashion industry personalities. Anna W. wouldn’t be the first boss to torture her assistant by having him or her bring her 16 cups of espresso until she finds one that is perfect.
   I enjoyed reading this book, warts and all, and I look forward to reading her other works, be it a profile piece in Vanity Fair, a fashion story in The New York Times, or her second novel. •

Phillip D. Johnson is features’ editor of Lucire.

While it is true that fashion magazines tend to focus on size 2 models, most American women instinctively reject the image of a plus-size model on the page before them

FROM TOP: Fashion Victim: Our Love–Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping and the Cost of Style takes aim at a society obsessed with fashion and fashion brands; The Devil Wears Prada reveals a story about life changes.

 

For the traveller Considerably different in tack from the books reviewed in the main body of the article, we’ve finished Pulpo Paris Fashion Shopping Guide No. 1, edited by Nina Granberg-Melin. This handy guidebook is a labour of love, showing must-visit shops and boutiques in Paris arranged, sensibly, by arrondissement. Each chapter introduces the arrondisse­ments covered and each boutique is rated with review, price range and availability. Address, opening hours and telephone numbers are also given. In such a grand work—though still miraculously pocket-sized—there are, sadly, a few typos (‘Wiona Ryder’ on p. 86, for instance) but its objectivity and scope are incredibly commendable. If you are a Paris shopper, do not leave home without this. A penny under £10 at Amazon.co.uk. • Jack Yan, Founding Publisher

Amazon.com links
Palmer: Fashion People. New York: Assouline 2003, 400 pp., $29·95 $20·97
Gavenas: Color Stories: behind the Scenes of America’s Billion-dollar Beauty Industry. New York: Simon & Schuster 2002, 224 pp., $23 $16·10
Messina: Fashionistas. Toronto: Red Dress Ink 2003, 288 pp., $12·95 $10·36
Lee: Fashion Victim: Our Love–Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping and the Cost of Style. New York: Broadway Books 2003, 352 pp., $24·95 $17·47
Weisberger: The Devil Wears Prada. New York: Doubleday–Random House 2003, 366 pp., $21·95 $13·17
Granberg-Melin (ed.): Pulpo Paris Fashion Shopping Guide No. 1. Göteborg: Pulpo Publishing 2002, 240 pp., £9·99