Confessions of a Fashionista

by Angela Clarke

[Leah]

If you asked anyone who knows me, they would tell you that I am in no way fashion-inclined. I skip the fancy pages of beautiful models wearing weird clothes in More/Cosmo/Glamour each week/month because it just doesn’t interest me. In fact, it baffles me. The clothes don’t make sense to me and it’s not something I’d be seen dead in. I live either in my Iceland uniform, pyjamas or leggings/sweat pants from Primark. That’s it. My wardrobe consists of work uniform, pjs and Primark. But I do like reading about fashion. Especially gossip about fashion, even if all the outfit talk has my mind boggling. (Never wear one outfit two days in a row? Say what?) So when Confessions of a Fashionista arrived, I was quite thrilled and couldn’t wait to read all of Angela’s stories and anecdotes about her time in the fashion industry.

I really enjoyed Confessions of a Fashionista. It’s a non-fiction book, although as you might expect all names have been changed, or most of them, to protect identities. (And some do need protecting because some of the people in the book should be shot, or, actually they should be outed for being bad, demanding people. Just because you work on fashion doesn’t mean you can treat people like crap and that’s putting it mildly.) I changed my mind, Angela should re-write it with all names included. That’d serve some of ‘em right! Confessions of a Fashionista offers a great insight into the world of fashion. It’s mad, it’s fast-paced and I would never, ever survive even an hour. Angela is clearly awesome, and the fashion world is definitely worse off without her (and so are we, who is going to offer the insights and stories now?). The stories and tales are excellent, and I particularly liked the dog who got his own aeroplane seat. My dog would demand that, because she’s that kinda dog.

The writing was brilliant, Angela is actually a really talented writer, I actually believe she should write a fiction novel next. That’s the way forward, because I’d LOVE to read a fiction novel from her. Man, I had to keep telling myself to stop rooting for Angela and Mr Darling because they were real people and I couldn’t make them be together if it was going to fall apart, sadly you can’t guarantee happy endings in non-fiction (that’s why I don’t read MUCH non-fiction, it can be a bit depressing and non-happy-ending-ish). I thought it was an excellent read, and people who do actually LOVE fashion will be able to appreciate Confessions of a Fashionista a lot more than I ever could because I am a fashion reject, sadly. I definitely recommend the book, it’s a very enjoying, eye-opening foray into the (mad) world of fashion.