the devil wears prada

Last Sunday, I come across an article about Bee Shaffer in Sunday's The Star. She is actually the daughter of Anna Wintour and from the photo available in the paper, she is quite a looker. For those who not in the know, you may ask who is she and Anna Wintour. As the daughter of American Vogue editor - the most powerful woman in fashion - Shaffer is in a unique position; the world's top designers come to her.

So much praises for Bee includes her ability to spot talented young designers, inherently understands the industry, inherits her mother's fashion taste and abilities. That's to be expected because she lives and breathes with editor for American Vogue, the industry's leading fashion magazine. By right, she had the most training from mother. I am most envious with her perks from growing up with the world's best dressing-up box.

Anyway, let's talk about the exciting career her mum has..

She's been the editor for Vogue's US edition for the past *tut* 18 years and you can imagine how sponsored she is. I mean, the whole fashion, cosmetics and fragrance companies are clamoring on their feet to fuss and fawn over her just so that their collections or products (depending whether you are from fashion houses or cosmetic and frangrance companies) get a mention or even few pages spread in Vogue.

I imagine how privileged she is, you know, getting all fabulous freebies from these companies and the latest season in fashion, the "It" bag/clothes/shoes, you name it...she'll have it. The vast wardrobe she has, oo la laaa...Every woman's dream come true.

So, it's not surprising when there's a chick lit novel written about her entitled "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger. The title itsef painted a negative connotation about herself, heh heh..

This is what her daughter spoke of her in defense: "So much stuff is said about her - that she is this cold, mean person. But it is such a myth to me. She just comes into the office and she has a goal: she wants to produce a great magazine which I think she does. You have to work very hard to do that and she is very direct about what she wants. I don't think that makes her 'Nuclear Wintour' or whatever they call her."

Heh, I guess it's all true lah ! Maybe Lauren exaggerated a bit but it sounds logical anyway, at least to me because mrjones' boss acts similar like Miranda, the boss from hell. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to read the book, here's the synopsis :

A job a million girls would die for...

Revolves around Manhattan, meet Andrea Sachs; the junior Personal Assistant of feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly, of the world's most fashionable magazine.

When Andrea stepped into the plush office of Runway magazine, never in her life seen clothing and accessories on real people shouted Prada! Armani! Versace! from every surface. Brand-name highlights that cost six grand a year to maintain or that others in the know could identify the colourist after a quick glance at the finished product.

As Miranda's junior assistant, she was solely responsible for anticipating her needs and accomodating them. She had to accept the fact that there will be no editorial work. Her first task was getting 2 yet-to-be-released the fourth book of Harry Potter series for Miranda's ten-year-old twin daughters precisely on Saturday morning before they get up. That alone caused anxiety for Andrea and temporarily ruined her girls' only weekend with her best friend and flatmate Lily.

She subsist daily on a pack of cigarettes, Starbucks coffee and take-out sushi which is all, of course, under Runway expense account. Being given a cell phone, it could never go unanswered. From Miranda's point of view, there was simply no reason whatsoever for the call to ever be turned off.

A boss from hell, she made Andrea searched for the whole of Manhattan for an unnamed antique shop that sells a vintage dresser that she saw the other day and absolutely have to had it. Daily, Andrea had to run down to Starbucks few times and order a tall latte with two raw sugar, nothing more, nothing less just to make sure it is hot by the time she drank it. Even a staff of Starbucks was dedicated to serve Andrea's order everytime she breezed in.

Not only that, she had to put up with Miranda's third husband, Mr. Tomlinson's weird irritating habit of constantly referring to himself in the third person in the course of organising his brother's engagement party at the gallery of Whitney Museum.

The perks of the job is unbelievable. Andrea is never short of beautiful clothes and accessories for work. All she had to do is to head down to The Wardrobe department and choose whatever's in the current season. Promised a promotion by working just one year for Miranda if deemed talented by her, she kept wondering if it's preparing her for The New Yorker.

Andrea's putting up with her boss' ridiculous and sometimes tedious needs reached its pinnacle when she was assigned to assist Miranda in Paris for the season's highly regarded fashion week. While there, she received news about Lily being comatosed after meeting in an accident due to drunk-driving. Here, she was tested on her life's priorities. Alex, upon seeing her reluctantness to book the next New York-bound plane tickets made him realise that his Andrea has changed and no longer the person he fell in love with.

Andrea, introspect, realised that work isn't everything, threw her job into Miranda's face and flew back home just in time to see Lily recovered from her coma. She was sacked, and later freelance with other publishing company and enjoyed her new life. Finally, she can stop and smell the flowers and without the worry of being someone else's slave.

You can get this book from leading book stores in KL for example Kinoks, Times or MPH..not sure about Borders though..

It's an interesting book and I symphatize with Andrea and the reason I read this book is because Andrea shares similarity with mrjones, my other half... Daily, on our way back from office, he will without fail bitch about his boss and from his bitching session, I gather that his boss sounds just like Miranda.