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Overview
PASSION...In a tale as timely as Scruples, as compelling as Dazzle, as intriguing as Mistral's Daughter, Judith Krantz launches three innocent beauties on the city of fashion and love....
SCANDAL...
It's the hottest thing that's ever happened to Loring Model Management. Three of its unknown models have been chosen to star in the debut spring collection of bad-boy designer Marco Lombardi--and one of them will win an exclusive, multimillion-dollar contract. But the agency's owner, Justine Loring, is furious. Only she knows that Lombardi's billionaire backer, Jacques Necker, has set her up, hoping to manipulate her into chaperoning her models to Paris, and meeting him face-to-face.
GLAMOUR...
But Justine isn't about to play his game. She dispatches these three sensational girls--the classic Minnesota blond, the African-American goddess, and the moody Tennessee redhead--in care of her second-in-command, fiery, droll Francesca Severino. Little does Justine know how their two weeks of discovery and love affairs will be matched by an explosive encounter in Manhattan that will change her own life.
SOME THINGS ARE ALWAYS IN STYLE.
For this scintillating new novel, the bestselling author of Scruples returns to familiar territory: the high-fashion world of supermodels and their handlers. In an innovative, irresistible mixture of passion and power, Krantz unfolds the stories of three women caught up in the behind-the-scenes world of glamour and haute couture in Paris--all facing delicious challenges and unexpected romance.
Synopsis
PASSION...
In a tale as timely as Scruples, as compelling as Dazzle, as intriguing as Mistral's Daughter, Judith Krantz launches three innocent beauties on the city of fashion and love....
SCANDAL...
It's the hottest thing that's ever happened to Loring Model Management. Three of its unknown models have been chosen to star in the debut spring collection of bad-boy designer Marco Lombardi—and one of them will win an exclusive, multimillion-dollar contract. But the agency's owner, Justine Loring, is furious. Only she knows that Lombardi's billionaire backer, Jacques Necker, has set her up, hoping to manipulate her into chaperoning her models to Paris, and meeting him face-to-face.
GLAMOUR...
But Justine isn't about to play his game. She dispatches these three sensational girls—the classic Minnesota blond, the African-American goddess, and the moody Tennessee redhead—in care of her second-in-command, fiery, droll Francesca Severino. Little does Justine know how their two weeks of discovery and love affairs will be matched by an explosive encounter in Manhattan that will change her own life.
SOME THINGS ARE ALWAYS IN STYLE.
Suzy Menkes
Not a pinprick of emotion or a thread of character can be found in ''Spring Collection.'' But credit Judith Krantz for producing the most original fashion creation since the Wonderbra: a straight designer who is more eager to drag a socialite into the bedroom than to chat up her friends as future clients. -- New York Times
Editorials
Suzy Menkes
Not a pinprick of emotion or a thread of character can be found in ''Spring Collection.'' But credit Judith Krantz for producing the most original fashion creation since the Wonderbra: a straight designer who is more eager to drag a socialite into the bedroom than to chat up her friends as future clients. -- New York TimesPublishers Weekly -
High fashion takes some low blows in Krantz's naughty newest (after Lovers), which eschews the author's usual across-the-decades saga for an intimate two weeks of posing and passion. Swiss billionaire Jacques Necker has launched the model search of the century; three unknown young women will be whisked off to Paris to model in the Necker-financed first collection of Marco Lombardi. After the show, one will be given a $12 million contract to represent the designer. When former model Justine Loring learns that all three candidates-blond April Nyquist, red-haired Tinker Osborn and African American Jordan Dancer-are from her Loring Model Management, she's not thrilled but furious. Necker, she confides to her astonished right-hand woman, Frankie Severino, is her father. He deserted Justine's pregnant mother 34 years ago and now wants to be a father to a daughter he has never met. Determined to frustrate Necker's plan, Justine sends Frankie, who narrates portions of the story, to Paris in her place. In classic Krantz style, it's not long before love is in full bloom-Frankie meets her unrequited high-school crush; Tinker falls for an expatriate painter; April comes out of the closet; Jordan wins a tycoon's heart; and, back in New York, Justine embarks on a torrid affair with a handsome contractor. Only when a rival agent tries to lure the models away does Justine give in and board the Concorde-just in time to see a most surprising winner chosen. While not Krantz's crowning achievement, this rich mix of sin and serendipitous love has what it takes. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections. (Apr.)Library Journal
Krantz's reputation for writing sexy, glitzy sagas (e.g., Lovers, Crown, 1994) will dim a bit with this publication. The story takes place in the glamorous world of high-fashion modeling. The five female characters are infused with a great deal of physical beauty but are sketched without much depth of character, personality, or charm. All kinds of plot developments hit the page: A successful businesswoman avoids contact with the father she never knew; a model begins a seasonal romance with a Swiss billionaire; another falls for a photographer. These scenarios and more take place over the span of two weeks in Paris. The sex scenes, which seem to pop up every other chapter or so, are dismal, graphic, or simply crude and do nothing to enhance the storyline or the characters. Author recognition will demand that public libraries purchase, but patrons would be better served by rereading Scruples (1979).-Margaret Ann Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., Mich.Abandoning her usual woman-of-the-world omniscience, Krantz here hands much of the narration over to Frankie, chief assistant to "Justine Loring, my peerless leader . . . a former model who'd intelligently abandoned her career about five minutes after it reached its peak to become an independent agency owner." Justine is sending Frankie and three of the agency's top models to Paris, at the invitation of Swiss billionaire Jacques Necker, for a "modern day version of the Judgment of Paris," a high-stakes modeling contest. It is all a very expensive ruse, however, Necker's plot to get Justine--his estranged daughter--to acknowledge him. Despite the glamorous background, the book is less glitzy than some of Krantz's other offerings, with Frankie's no-nonsense Brooklyn narration cutting through the suds. The body count, too, is relatively low, with some offstage lovemaking, two rapes (unromantically presented), and a luscious lesbian seduction scene, much like the one in the author's previous effort, "Dazzle" (1990). Justine and Frankie are zesty career gals; the three models are contrasts in temperament and type; everyone predictably finds love in the end, and since they're all so darn likable, we don't mind a bit.
The glittery new frock in Krantz's own extensive collection (Scruples Two, 1992, etc.) is a romp-for-all-seasons (not just spring)—an in-depth probe into the behind-the-scenes world of high fashion, with plenty of forays into satin-sheeted beds and the hidden pleasures of the city of lights and love.
The spring '95 collections in Paris are the setting for this latest foray into riches, romance, and illicit rendezvous, with the focus on the collection of unknown but extremely promising designer and world-class seducer Marco Lombardi. Marco is being backed financially by international mogul Jacques Necker. When Necker holds a contest to select three new models for his protégé's premier collection, three of Justine Loring's clients are chosen. Although Justine, a beautiful ex-model herself, has made a small but unequivocal success of her Manhattan agency, it shocks the fashion world when her "girls" dominate the contest. Coincidence? Hardly. Turns out that Justine is actually Necker's long-lost daughter and that Necker has invented the whole contest as a device to get in touch with his only child, whom he's never met. A resentful Justine thwarts Necker's manipulations by sending her models—the blond and pristine April, unpredictable redhead Tinker, and elegant African-American Jordan—to Paris with her associate Frankie Severino as a chaperon instead of herself. Once in Paris, April's sexuality, Tinker's emotional fragility, and Jordan's quest for a lover with a mind and body equal to her own take a backseat only to Frankie's own budding romance with a major-magazine photographer. Back in the States, alone, a vulnerable Justine is left to wonder whether she's made the right choice by shutting her father out of her life, until, of course, she too finds the love she's been waiting for . . . .
Par for Krantz's own diamond-encrusted runway.