A darker Devil Wears Prada

Title: Fashion Victim
Author: Amina Akhtar
Publication: September 2018, Crooked Lane Books

I expected this to be a South Asian’s fashion bildungsroman. It turned out to be dark parody of The Devil Wears Prada. In mood, it reminded me most of another Meryl Streep-starrer, Death Becomes Her, that I encountered, nonplussed, during my undergraduate days.

So convinced was I that this was going to be a loosely fictionalised account of Akhtar’s life – she worked for major New York fashion magazines – that I was rather surprised when it turned out the protagonist was white.

And then even more surprised when the narrative took a gory turn quite early on. In the end, the novel was not my cup of tea. Some thoughts though:

1. While OTT, the novel does highlight the cruelty and racism that is endemic in the fashion industry. Anya is shamed for not conforming to the stick-thin dictum but her Indian colleague Dalia is subjected to a racist diatribe that no one reacts to. Anya points out how the ideal fashion mag employee is white, blonde, thin and rich (she herself only meets the first criteria).
2. The world of fashion, Akhtar would have us believe, is a “mean girl” universe. There is not a single likeable character including Anya herself. All the relationships portrayed are toxic, at the heart of which is Anya’s love-hate obsessions with Sarah Taft.
3. The exaggerated “mean girl” talk, however, does have its entertaining moments: “Frantically, I mouthed WWMKAD (What would Mary-Kate and Ashley do?) to myself over and over until the rage subsided a bit.” or ” ‘O-M-G, right? Ugh, I hate when the gays are better browed than me’ We both sighed. We were the same, me and Sarah. We were one.”

I can’t say I greatly enjoyed this one, but it stayed with me. It’s a dark parable on contemporary life, on the lines of The White Tiger, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Five Star Billionaire. Modern fairy tales strip back the magic to show what really lies behind a success story – ruthlessness.