18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great fun, very dishy, February 6, 2007
I tore through this book (as part of my celebration of Fashion Week in New York.) It is liberally peppered with "blind items" and some not-so-blind gossip -- I loved Tom Ford complaining to the Gucci PR firm that they had to find a way to stop Posh Beckham from buying and wearing his clothes! Is this great literature? Of course not. But is it an interesting look behind the curtain at the fashion industry, written in a novel form? Absolutely!
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Getting a bit repetitive, August 4, 2007
I've been hooked on nearly all of Imogen Edwards-Jones & "Anonymous"'s books for a while now. First was Hotel & Air Babylon, but now she's starting to show that yes, she hit the nail on the head with a good thing, but she's lost it. After reading this and her most recent book, Beach Babylon, in quick succession, I found myself very disenchanted with the whole series. Beach Babylon I thought would have been ideal after coming back from a beach holiday, but she aimed too high, by setting it on an expensive island resort, which really, the book is not aimed at the kind of person who would go there.
Fashion Babylon - where do I start? It's everything you already know about the fashion industry. The drugs, the stick thin models, the clothes that are "in" one month, and which you won't be seen dead in the next month. Skinny jeans seem to be sticking around for the moment, but for how long? Normally when I get into a fashion, they go out of fashion. And everything's "vintage". And then there's the celebrity name dropping. There's not a page that goes by without Kate Moss or someone else being dropped in there.
Unlike Air & Hotel, which were set over 24 hours, and Beach, which was set over a week, Fashion Babylon was set over six months, and it's a very tedious six months. Imogen did well setting Air & Hotel over a period of 24 hours, as they're fast paced, and barely leave you any time to think. Fashion Babylon is set over six months because it's that amount of time that you need to get ideas for your next 'collection', to getting it onto the catwalk. Interlaced with everything you can possibly imagine, from frills to pink satin, it's confusing, and certainly not aimed at someone like me, but made out to look like it is.
I have to say, as much as I like Imogen Edwards-Jones, I'm going to give her Babylon books a rest for now, and try some of her other books - which seem to be all about her fertility and babies. Funny that.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Based on a True Rumor....., July 13, 2008
Chances are you are reading this book because you are into fashion. The chances are, also, that you already heard or read most of the rumors in this book, this book just puts a story around them. A hodgepodge of random fashion and model facts. The interesting part of the novel, just seeing a designer's life and cycle of building a collection to runway.
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