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Plum Sykes
Victoria Rowland (née Sykes; born 4 December 1969), known both professionally and socially as Plum Sykes, is an English-born fashion journalist, novelist, and socialite.
Victoria Sykes was born in London, one of six children including a twin sister, Lucy, and grew up in Sevenoaks, Kent. She was nicknamed 'Plum' (the Victoria plum being a variety of that fruit) as a child. Sykes has described herself as a "painfully shy" child with mousey brown hair and goofy teeth. She went to Ide Hill Church of England Primary School and later to a private secondary school, Walthamstow Hall, where she was unhappy, and subsequently to Sevenoaks School, an independent boys' school that had begun admitting girls to the sixth form. In 1988 she went up to Worcester College, Oxford, where she graduated in modern history. She has published a short memoir of her unsettling first term at university (Oxford Girl, 2011).
Sykes' mother Valerie Goad, a dress designer, separated from Sykes' father Mark while Plum was at Oxford. The effects of this left her impecunious for a while and she received assistance from Worcester to remain at the college. Sykes' grandfather, Christopher Sykes (1907–1986), whom she knew as "Fat Grandpa" or "F.G.", was a friend and official biographer (1975) of the novelist Evelyn Waugh and son of the diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, sixth baronet (1879–1919), associated with the so-called Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, by which Britain and France provided for the partition of the Ottoman Empire after the end of the First World War. An 18th century forebear, the second baronet, Sir Christopher Sykes (1749–1801), was a major figure in the enclosure movement that transformed the agricultural landscape in the 18th century.
In 1993, Sykes became a fashion assistant at British Vogue. She was featured that year, with, among others, designer Bella Freud and model Stella Tennant in Babes in London, in a photographic shoot by the American Steven Meisel (responsible in 1992 for the singer Madonna's controversial collection, Sex), which was produced by the rising fashion guru Isabella Blow (1958–2007).[citation needed] Blow also recruited her to model in the early Alexander McQueen show Banshee (Autumn/Winter 1994).
In 1997, Sykes became a contributing editor on fashion for American Vogue, of which Anna Wintour, also British, had been editor-in-chief since 1988. (It was this period at Vogue that inspired Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada.) Sykes soon became a familiar figure on the New York social scene, being frequently described as an "It girl".
A decade later, at 38, Sykes reflected that "when you hit 30 you lose your edge": invited by the Times to comment on the late-1990s trend for ultra-high heeled shoes, she observed that "these weird space-age shoes look cool and trendy and are a way of getting back to some degree", but that "this type of trend is not a classic version of beauty. Men want women to be sexy. They'd be happy if we were all [the model] Gisele Bündchen, but that's just not fashion".
The world of New York fashion was the setting for Sykes' first novel, Bergdorf Blondes (2004), which was one of the most successful examples of "chick lit" (or "chic lit" as some dubbed Sykes' writing) and sold a quarter of a million copies worldwide. It took its title from the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan, founded at the end of the 19th century.
A second novel, The Debutante Divorcée, was published in 2006. Sykes publicised it with an array of personal appearances at stores in New York (Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Frederic Fekkai, Ferragamo, Neiman Marcus and Oscar de la Renta). The Debutante Divorcée appeared in paperback in 2007.
Plum Sykes
Victoria Rowland (née Sykes; born 4 December 1969), known both professionally and socially as Plum Sykes, is an English-born fashion journalist, novelist, and socialite.
Victoria Sykes was born in London, one of six children including a twin sister, Lucy, and grew up in Sevenoaks, Kent. She was nicknamed 'Plum' (the Victoria plum being a variety of that fruit) as a child. Sykes has described herself as a "painfully shy" child with mousey brown hair and goofy teeth. She went to Ide Hill Church of England Primary School and later to a private secondary school, Walthamstow Hall, where she was unhappy, and subsequently to Sevenoaks School, an independent boys' school that had begun admitting girls to the sixth form. In 1988 she went up to Worcester College, Oxford, where she graduated in modern history. She has published a short memoir of her unsettling first term at university (Oxford Girl, 2011).
Sykes' mother Valerie Goad, a dress designer, separated from Sykes' father Mark while Plum was at Oxford. The effects of this left her impecunious for a while and she received assistance from Worcester to remain at the college. Sykes' grandfather, Christopher Sykes (1907–1986), whom she knew as "Fat Grandpa" or "F.G.", was a friend and official biographer (1975) of the novelist Evelyn Waugh and son of the diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, sixth baronet (1879–1919), associated with the so-called Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, by which Britain and France provided for the partition of the Ottoman Empire after the end of the First World War. An 18th century forebear, the second baronet, Sir Christopher Sykes (1749–1801), was a major figure in the enclosure movement that transformed the agricultural landscape in the 18th century.
In 1993, Sykes became a fashion assistant at British Vogue. She was featured that year, with, among others, designer Bella Freud and model Stella Tennant in Babes in London, in a photographic shoot by the American Steven Meisel (responsible in 1992 for the singer Madonna's controversial collection, Sex), which was produced by the rising fashion guru Isabella Blow (1958–2007).[citation needed] Blow also recruited her to model in the early Alexander McQueen show Banshee (Autumn/Winter 1994).
In 1997, Sykes became a contributing editor on fashion for American Vogue, of which Anna Wintour, also British, had been editor-in-chief since 1988. (It was this period at Vogue that inspired Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada.) Sykes soon became a familiar figure on the New York social scene, being frequently described as an "It girl".
A decade later, at 38, Sykes reflected that "when you hit 30 you lose your edge": invited by the Times to comment on the late-1990s trend for ultra-high heeled shoes, she observed that "these weird space-age shoes look cool and trendy and are a way of getting back to some degree", but that "this type of trend is not a classic version of beauty. Men want women to be sexy. They'd be happy if we were all [the model] Gisele Bündchen, but that's just not fashion".
The world of New York fashion was the setting for Sykes' first novel, Bergdorf Blondes (2004), which was one of the most successful examples of "chick lit" (or "chic lit" as some dubbed Sykes' writing) and sold a quarter of a million copies worldwide. It took its title from the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan, founded at the end of the 19th century.
A second novel, The Debutante Divorcée, was published in 2006. Sykes publicised it with an array of personal appearances at stores in New York (Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Frederic Fekkai, Ferragamo, Neiman Marcus and Oscar de la Renta). The Debutante Divorcée appeared in paperback in 2007.