Handbags and Gladrags - Maggie Alderson

Handbags and Gladrags has an upbeat cover, and I did wonder what kind of book I was getting into, given the fact that the book offers the reader to win "A year's supply of Pout Make-up". Think I may just be too old to pout, but guess that the book was aimed at trendy women, although it actually held a good story for any age of person that is interested in fashion or the rigmarole of the high life that the fashion industry offers.
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...have any idea of what her writing style was like. It's a good book to get yourself buried in and not a particularly quick read. It tells the story of those involved in the fashion business, and Maggie herself has been working in that business for a long time, so the background is a solid one. The main character is Emily, a girl with a past that is gradually uncovered during the course of the book. Her father was a famous artist, her mother a little ... more

Handbags and Gladrags has an upbeat cover, and I did wonder what kind of book I was getting into, given the fact that the book offers the reader to win "A year's supply of Pout Make-up". Think I may just be too old to pout, but guess that the book was aimed at trendy women, although it actually held a good story for any age of person that is interested in fashion or the rigmarole of the high life that the fashion industry offers.

Never having read Maggie Alderson before, I didn't have any idea of what her writing style was like. It's a good book to get yourself buried in and not a particularly quick read. It tells the story of those involved in the fashion business, and Maggie herself has been working in that business for a long time, so the background is a solid one. The main character is Emily, a girl with a past that is gradually uncovered during the course of the book. Her father was a famous artist, her mother a little eccentric and over-reactive, though they were well heeled and never had the same incentive to work as those with lesser means.

Emily has a strange childhood, though telling too much would spoil the book, though it leads to marriage to a somewhat solid father figure with financial security, though not much backbone or character, and one that puts business before everything. Seemingly happy with her husband, Ollie, Emily follows the fashion circuit from Paris to Milan, Milan to Australia, working as a stylist that sketches the new designs straight from the catwalk. It's a good background intro to the fashion world and the plasticity of the people, the image of those working for the "best" magazines and how they are treated, and the jealousy and ambition that goes along with it.

You get endeared to the characters who make up the canvas which is the story, and the writer keeps you in suspense to a certain extent, never being clear where the story is going to, which I like in a work of fiction. Emily's Editor in Chief, Bee, seems very real and demanding, and the relationship between Emily and her rival, Alice, is rather well played out. There are many characters, though all of them an essential part of the story and the writer hasn't diverted the situation because of lack of substance. Indeed every chapter is leading to the next quite neatly and the characters are there for a purpose. It's snappy, it's clever and very well written and modern.

What I liked particularly about the book is that behind surface wealth and show, the importance of owning the latest designer gear, there is a wealth of history and the shallowness of the existance that Emily choses to live hides those skeletons that she would rather forget, and these are what sets the story apart from others in this genre. It's a good story, and I shall be reading her other book, "Mad about the Boy", because I think that the writer will do the subject matter justice. She doesn't over dramatise. She deals with things realistically and I like her style very much.

Meeting an Australian photographer and having a wild fling with him in Milan changes the course of Emily's career and life, though not in a soppy or silly way. The events in the story really do complement each other and make perfect sense and a darned good, entertaining read. I will probably keep the book and read it again at some juncture, as it is the kind of book that would suit a long journey , sufficiently light to enjoy, though not featherweight and silly.

Watch this space. I shall be reading more of this lady.

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (11 Nov 2004)
Language English
ISBN: 0141009047

 

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