Bergdorf Blondes [Import] [Paperback]

Plum Sykes (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking / Penguin Books; New Ed edition (2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670914339
• ISBN-13: 978-0670914333
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (364 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,907,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oxford Blues, August 20, 2004

By 

Em1 (Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bergdorf Blondes: A Novel (Hardcover)

As an Oxford graduate and an English person I'd just like to apologise to you all for Plum Sykes and Bergdorf Blondes. No, that's all. We're really sorry.

151 of 173 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little too Bergdorf, and a little too blonde, March 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bergdorf Blondes: A Novel (Hardcover)

In the tradition of Candace Bushnell's "Four Blondes" and "Trading Up" comes "Bergdorf Blondes" by Plum Sykes, a story about Manhattan's best-dressed women, and their fantastically luxurious highlights, heartbreaks, and Hermes Birkin waiting-list woes. In a sense, the unnamed narrator (a self-described champagne bubble-about-town) and her perfectly blonde best friend, Julie Bergdorf, are refreshingly unlike many rich chick-lit heroines: they're not ruthless or mean-hearted, they're oftentimes charming and witty, and their very self-indulgence has a campy quality that comes across as more amusing than petty.

There's a downside: the book never goes anywhere particularly surprising, and the whirl of men-clothes-manicures gets boring and one-dimensional after a while. The characters' very cuteness is a little unnerving as well; I love clothing as much as the next girl, but it's not all that I, or any other girl for that matter, think about. Sykes' writing isn't good enough to make her characters into real people. Rather, they're simply very well-dressed, well-coiffed shells with no interests other than clothes or men, and they're not real enough to make their silliness interesting for more than 100 pages or so.

In conclusion, it's disappointing to reach the end of the book and realize that it doesn't go anywhere: there's no well-fashioned plot, just a series of fragmented episodes that pass for a story, and there's no character growth. No one ever learns to care for anything beyond men, clothes, and grooming, and yet, despite this, they're perfectly happy people. Does that mean the book's not worth reading? No, it is; it's good beach or boredom reading. But you may find yourself losing interest in the incessant themes of designer highlights and rotten men, in which case, "Bergdorf Blondes" becomes very unpleasant to finish.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Depressingly dreadful, August 23, 2004

By 

Cooper "fashion misfit" (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bergdorf Blondes: A Novel (Hardcover)

Initially I thought Miss Sykes was attempting to satirise the ditzy social register scene of the rich women of New York City. If this had been the case, it would have been a brave attempt, and not at all bad for a debut. However, after a few pages it became painfully obvious that there was absolutely no tongue in Miss Sykes' cheek, and that she thought her readers would actually enjoy several hundred pages of irrelevant fashion titbits and vacuous inanities. Are the women of New York really so self-obsessed and, frankly, stupid? And where was the plot? The denouement was clumsy and embarrassing, almost bringing a blush to my cheeks at the audacity of it. I think that Miss Sykes underestimated the intelligence of the average book reader, and overestimated the level of interest in her line of work and her lifestyle. As she obviously isn't going to get many royalties, I at least hope she gets a few freebies in exchange for so much ruthless plugging of designers. How many times can you say 'Marc Jacobs'?