Plum Sykes
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Victoria "Plum" Sykes is a British-born fashion-writer, novelist and New York socialite. "Plum" was a childhood nickname (the Victoria plum being a variety of that fruit).
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[edit] Early years and antecedents
Sykes was born in London on 4 December 1969, one of six children, and grew up in Sevenoaks, Kent. Among her friends at Ide Hill Church of England primary school was Rowan Pelling (b.1968), who became the editor (or "editrice") of the Erotic Review [1]. From there she went to Sevenoaks School, an independent school founded in the 15th century, and thence to Worcester College, Oxford in 1988, where she graduated in modern history [2].
Sykes' mother was the dress designer, Valerie Goad, from whom her father Mark, an old Etonian, separated while Plum was at Oxford. Her grandfather, Christopher Sykes (1907–1986), was a friend and official biographer (1975) of the novelist Evelyn Waugh and son of the diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, sixth baronet (1869–1919), 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 appearance and management of the English countryside.
[edit] Vogue
In 1993 Plum Sykes became a fashion assistant at British Vogue [3]. 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.
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. She became a familiar figure on the New York social scene, being frequently described as an "It girl" [4]. It was thought by many that this period at Vogue, which Sykes, in various ways, typified, was the basis for The Devil Wears Prada, a novel by Lauren Weisberger (2003), who had been an intern at the magazine.
[edit] Novelist
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 Upper 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).
Some have seen Sykes' books as lying in natural succession to Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell's column in the New York Observer, which was the inspiration for a highly successful television series (HBO 1998–2004). However, despite their satire, others have regarded them as too rooted in Sykes' own Park Avenue "set" to be reflective more generally of women's lives in post-9/11 Manhattan [5]. Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) is perhaps a closer, if incomparable, antecedent. Sykes herself has been compared to Holly Golightly, the character in Truman Capote's novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), who was immortalised on film in 1961 by Audrey Hepburn [6].
[edit] Family
Sykes' twin sister Lucy, who moved to New York in 1996, became fashion director of Marie Claire, and later a designer of children's clothes. In the late 1990s Sykes and her sister were sometimes described as the "twin set", Plum later joking, with reference to the heiresses Paris and Nicky Hilton, that "Lucy and I were Paris and Nicky without the sextape" [7] (an allusion to a video recording purportedly of Paris Hilton and a former boyfriend that had been posted on the Internet in 2003).
In 2005, Sykes married entrepreneur, Toby Rowland, son of businessman "Tiny" Rowland, at Sledmere House (1751), her family's ancestral home in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Her dress was designed by her friend, Alexander McQueen, of whom she was sometimes described as a muse. Sykes and Rowland had their first child, Ursula, in October 2006.
[edit] Novels by Plum Sykes
- Bergdorf Blondes (2004)
- The Debutante Divorcée (2006)
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- "The Debutante Divorcée" in the New York Times Sunday Book Review
- Partying With Plum
- A Moment With Plum Sykes
- Girl on the Avenue
- Plum Sykes' unveiled advice
- My big fat Yorkshire wedding
- "Victoria's secret" — Hedley Freeman in the Guardian, 17 April 2004
- "My best friends, the ultimate It girls" — Rowan Pelling in the Daily Telegraph, 21 April 2005
- "Victoria's secrets" — Gaby Wood in the Observer, 14 May 2006
