High-society chic
NEW YORK - Plum (Sykes, of course) strides hurriedly into Soho House, one of Manhattan's most exclusive spots, her Manolo (Blahnik, of course) loafers clacking on the floor, a white rabbit scarf by Tommy (Hilfiger, of course) draping her neck.
"I am having SUCH a manic day," she announces. "It's absolutely BONKERS!"
Later that night, Sykes will be attending a society gala in a bare-shoulder animal-print chiffon dress borrowed from her designer friend Alexander (McQueen, of course). Then it's to the airport, for a 6 a.m. flight to London. "I might as well not even go to bed!" she complains, not too unhappily.
These days, life is even crazier than usual for Sykes, a 34-year-old willowy British fashion writer who has been a presence in the hippest New York fashion and society circles since she arrived seven years ago and was promptly dubbed a Manhattan "It" girl.
Now, she can add best-selling author to her CV. Her debut novel, "Bergdorf Blondes," now in its ninth printing and which made The New York Times list of best sellers, was inspired by the superrich, pencil-thin, husband-seeking Manhattan single girls she's met on her rounds of New York parties - girls she calls "Park Avenue Princesses."
It is a world few of us would recognize, even those who live in Manhattan. So first, a lesson in some of the Park Avenue Princess lingo, according to Sykes:
"PH": Prospective Husband, as in the ultimate prize, the overarching goal of any girl. Without a fiance, a girl is just a "Balenciaga bag that's lost its buckle."
"PJ": Private Jet, as in the only respectable way to get to Paris for a shopping weekend, or a quick break on the French Riviera.
"ATM": No, silly, not a cash machine. Even better. A rich boyfriend.
"MIT": Mogul in Training. Richer than an ATM, and thus even more desirable.
"MTM": Better yet! Married to a mogul.
"Ana": As in anorexic, but in a GOOD way - thin enough to catch one of the above-mentioned men.
Sykes, who's kept her day job as contributing editor at Vogue magazine, swears that all the lingo in her book is real. But the characters themselves, she insists, are not. Such a claim evokes a skeptical wink from some observers, who say that the book's narrator, called only "Moi" (French for "me"), is a thinly veiled version of the author.
"No, my life isn't Moi's life, but sometimes I wish it was," Sykes says. "I mean, imagine if all your problems could be solved with a Bellini (the preferred cocktail of a Park Avenue Princess) at Cipriani's (the preferred watering hole)."
It's also been said that Moi's handsome, brooding photographer boyfriend, who turns out to be a very bad boyfriend indeed, is based on painter Damien Loeb, Sykes' former fiance. (The two suffered a very public breakup in the gossip pages.) Again, Sykes says no, but Loeb was quoted as expressing displeasure, when the book came out, at the release of "details that I thought were private."
In any case, Sykes clearly lives a life not too unlike that of the girls in her novel. For example, the parties - when she first arrived she went to one every night, although she says she stays home much more these days. And, of course, the clothes. Sykes, 5 feet 11 inches and slender, showed up for an interview with The Associated Press dressed down ("I don't like to wear expensive clothes during the day") but still very chic in a new pair of Hudson Jeans (the "Supermodel" line), a Juicy Couture T-shirt, an H Hilfiger jacket and fur scarf and the aforementioned Manolos.
Sykes' - er, Moi's - best friend in the book is Julie Bergdorf, an heiress to the Bergdorf Goodman department store fortune, who takes to announcing at dinner parties that she has "$100 million in the bank, and not a penny more." Julie is thin - sorry, "ana" - and gorgeous, and ridiculously chic. And, of course, she's blonde - but only because she highlights her hair every 13 days at the Bergdorf's salon. Sykes' twin sister, Lucy, an editor at Marie Claire magazine, does the same thing. (Plum does not, because she's a brunette.)
The book has been reviewed by some as tacky and a little trashy, and by others as witty and highly entertaining. And indeed, it can be all those things.
"Bergdorf Blondes" can go from language that sounds just too fake to be enjoyable - "Totally icky! I thought I was going to vom!" - to genuinely hilarious moments.
Like Moi's description of a sample sale at Chanel, where women will kill each other for the chance to designer-shop at Gap prices. "The hottest sample sales in New York are so fraught with danger they make the Gaza Strip look peaceful," Moi advises, adding that "the president should take tips from the PR girls there, because the Chanel guards run a tighter ship than the Department of Homeland Security."
Or the book party organized by Julie to broaden her friends' minds - except that no one has read the book, everyone is dressed in diamonds and the only question they can think to ask the poor professor leading the meeting is whether George Clooney or Brad Pitt should appear in the hypothetical movie.
Which leads to the question: Are society women really this dumb?
Sykes, who was raised in Kent, England, and educated at Oxford, says she's discovered something funny about "the daughters of American wealth," something she calls "an amazing combination of cleverness and ditziness."
"These girls are all college-educated, smart, well-read," she says. "And yet at the same time, you've never seen a more educated girl get so overexcited about something like a new purse."
Also, Sykes says, she had to exaggerate, because she was trying to write a funny social comedy, spinning off from her fashion and society writings for Vogue. If she had focused on careers and offices, she wouldn't have a funny book. "I'm not an expert on offices," she says. "I'm an expert on, say, silver on the Upper East Side."
There has been some sniping over the book's success. Some have wondered whether Sykes can really claim to be an outsider writing about a world that she seems so very, well, INside.
For example, a recent issue of Vogue described Sykes' book launch party - at Bergdorf's, natch - in the same manner as any other hot society party.
And there's been some less than glowing coverage back home: A reviewer for The Observer declared herself suffering "from the literary equivalent of food poisoning" upon finishing the book.
Not a few critics have mentioned the huge advance Sykes received for the book - widely reported to be more than $600,000 - following an intense bidding war. A film version is in discussion. And Miramax Books says it has bought Sykes' second novel for another hefty six-figure advance.
Sykes won't say a word about that book, but her publishers allow that it's called "The $10 Million Divorcee" and covers another subculture of Manhattan's wealthy society women: those who marry, and then divorce, exceptionally well.
It's the perfect next step for one of Sykes' Park Avenue Princesses.
"I am having SUCH a manic day," she announces. "It's absolutely BONKERS!"
Later that night, Sykes will be attending a society gala in a bare-shoulder animal-print chiffon dress borrowed from her designer friend Alexander (McQueen, of course). Then it's to the airport, for a 6 a.m. flight to London. "I might as well not even go to bed!" she complains, not too unhappily.
These days, life is even crazier than usual for Sykes, a 34-year-old willowy British fashion writer who has been a presence in the hippest New York fashion and society circles since she arrived seven years ago and was promptly dubbed a Manhattan "It" girl.
Now, she can add best-selling author to her CV. Her debut novel, "Bergdorf Blondes," now in its ninth printing and which made The New York Times list of best sellers, was inspired by the superrich, pencil-thin, husband-seeking Manhattan single girls she's met on her rounds of New York parties - girls she calls "Park Avenue Princesses."
It is a world few of us would recognize, even those who live in Manhattan. So first, a lesson in some of the Park Avenue Princess lingo, according to Sykes:
"PH": Prospective Husband, as in the ultimate prize, the overarching goal of any girl. Without a fiance, a girl is just a "Balenciaga bag that's lost its buckle."
"PJ": Private Jet, as in the only respectable way to get to Paris for a shopping weekend, or a quick break on the French Riviera.
"ATM": No, silly, not a cash machine. Even better. A rich boyfriend.
"MIT": Mogul in Training. Richer than an ATM, and thus even more desirable.
"MTM": Better yet! Married to a mogul.
"Ana": As in anorexic, but in a GOOD way - thin enough to catch one of the above-mentioned men.
Sykes, who's kept her day job as contributing editor at Vogue magazine, swears that all the lingo in her book is real. But the characters themselves, she insists, are not. Such a claim evokes a skeptical wink from some observers, who say that the book's narrator, called only "Moi" (French for "me"), is a thinly veiled version of the author.
"No, my life isn't Moi's life, but sometimes I wish it was," Sykes says. "I mean, imagine if all your problems could be solved with a Bellini (the preferred cocktail of a Park Avenue Princess) at Cipriani's (the preferred watering hole)."
It's also been said that Moi's handsome, brooding photographer boyfriend, who turns out to be a very bad boyfriend indeed, is based on painter Damien Loeb, Sykes' former fiance. (The two suffered a very public breakup in the gossip pages.) Again, Sykes says no, but Loeb was quoted as expressing displeasure, when the book came out, at the release of "details that I thought were private."
In any case, Sykes clearly lives a life not too unlike that of the girls in her novel. For example, the parties - when she first arrived she went to one every night, although she says she stays home much more these days. And, of course, the clothes. Sykes, 5 feet 11 inches and slender, showed up for an interview with The Associated Press dressed down ("I don't like to wear expensive clothes during the day") but still very chic in a new pair of Hudson Jeans (the "Supermodel" line), a Juicy Couture T-shirt, an H Hilfiger jacket and fur scarf and the aforementioned Manolos.
Sykes' - er, Moi's - best friend in the book is Julie Bergdorf, an heiress to the Bergdorf Goodman department store fortune, who takes to announcing at dinner parties that she has "$100 million in the bank, and not a penny more." Julie is thin - sorry, "ana" - and gorgeous, and ridiculously chic. And, of course, she's blonde - but only because she highlights her hair every 13 days at the Bergdorf's salon. Sykes' twin sister, Lucy, an editor at Marie Claire magazine, does the same thing. (Plum does not, because she's a brunette.)
The book has been reviewed by some as tacky and a little trashy, and by others as witty and highly entertaining. And indeed, it can be all those things.
"Bergdorf Blondes" can go from language that sounds just too fake to be enjoyable - "Totally icky! I thought I was going to vom!" - to genuinely hilarious moments.
Like Moi's description of a sample sale at Chanel, where women will kill each other for the chance to designer-shop at Gap prices. "The hottest sample sales in New York are so fraught with danger they make the Gaza Strip look peaceful," Moi advises, adding that "the president should take tips from the PR girls there, because the Chanel guards run a tighter ship than the Department of Homeland Security."
Or the book party organized by Julie to broaden her friends' minds - except that no one has read the book, everyone is dressed in diamonds and the only question they can think to ask the poor professor leading the meeting is whether George Clooney or Brad Pitt should appear in the hypothetical movie.
Which leads to the question: Are society women really this dumb?
Sykes, who was raised in Kent, England, and educated at Oxford, says she's discovered something funny about "the daughters of American wealth," something she calls "an amazing combination of cleverness and ditziness."
"These girls are all college-educated, smart, well-read," she says. "And yet at the same time, you've never seen a more educated girl get so overexcited about something like a new purse."
Also, Sykes says, she had to exaggerate, because she was trying to write a funny social comedy, spinning off from her fashion and society writings for Vogue. If she had focused on careers and offices, she wouldn't have a funny book. "I'm not an expert on offices," she says. "I'm an expert on, say, silver on the Upper East Side."
There has been some sniping over the book's success. Some have wondered whether Sykes can really claim to be an outsider writing about a world that she seems so very, well, INside.
For example, a recent issue of Vogue described Sykes' book launch party - at Bergdorf's, natch - in the same manner as any other hot society party.
And there's been some less than glowing coverage back home: A reviewer for The Observer declared herself suffering "from the literary equivalent of food poisoning" upon finishing the book.
Not a few critics have mentioned the huge advance Sykes received for the book - widely reported to be more than $600,000 - following an intense bidding war. A film version is in discussion. And Miramax Books says it has bought Sykes' second novel for another hefty six-figure advance.
Sykes won't say a word about that book, but her publishers allow that it's called "The $10 Million Divorcee" and covers another subculture of Manhattan's wealthy society women: those who marry, and then divorce, exceptionally well.
It's the perfect next step for one of Sykes' Park Avenue Princesses.
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