Workhorse (2025). Vogue veteran Caroline Palmer’s novel is the antidote to the goody-goodyness of Andrea Sachs. Her view: If you’re not cutthroat, you won’t make it in a fashion magazine. Her heroine Clo is cunning, selfish and ready to fight for her place at a table filled with privilege. And it feels within reach if she just happens to become friends with colleague and film royalty, Davis. Read if you hate nepo babies.
Techbitch (2015). Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza’s novel follows Imogen Tate, who heads a top fashion magazine, and is up against Eve Morton, a former assistant who’s now the magazine’s web editor. Will paper trump pixels? Will good old journalism crumble before web statistics? If you’ve grown up staring at a phone screen, this novel covers part of the story of how we got here.
Youthjuice (2024). Copywriter Sophia Bannion has cracked the code to being the most beautiful girl in the room — she slatheres on moisturiser from the wellness company she works at. But she soon learns there’s something wrong with the formula, her workplace and her charismatic boss. Is exposing the dirty secret ingredient worth looking like a 5/10 again? Former beauty editor EK Sathue’s novel parodies the beauty industry by the unusual way of body horror.
Fashion Climbing (2018). Photographer Bill Cunningham’s decades of work as a columnist for the New York Times is a priceless record of the city’s style. For his columns, On the Street and Evening Hours, he’d bicycle through NYC and capture people on the street. He also attended some cool shows and exclusive soirees. His posthumous memoir speaks of designers — the fuss, the phonies — and even the parties he wasn’t invited to. A diva through and through.
Anon Pls. (2022). Imagine if Gossip Girl was real and she published a novel inspired by her life. That’s what Anon Pls. is. Written by Insta’s DuexMoi (GenZ’s TMZ, delivering tea on A-listers), it follows a fashion stylist who starts posting about the celebs she gets access to. The story puts a fictional spin on scandals DuexMoi themselves fuelled (See: Armie Hammer allegations), and comments on the hellish environments and expectations juniors in fashion have to put up with.
A Visible Man: A Memoir (2022). British-Ghanaian journalist Edward Enninful was the first Black editor-in-chief of British Vogue and European editorial director of Condé Nast. His memoir traces his rise from being scouted as a model, to becoming fashion director of i-D magazine at 18. The book reads like a major flex, but Enninful brings much sentiment, sharing his memories as a Ghanaian refugee in the ’80s to his inspirations from ’90s pop-culture.
The New Girl (2020). “A thousand girls would kill to work at a fashion magazine,” insiders used to say. They’d probably die a thousand deaths there too. Harriet Walker’s story is about Margot, who struggles to hold up after a competitor walks in through the door. The book follows Margot’s time as an editor at Haute magazine, juggling personal and professional responsibilities and pushing her and the readers to question whether it is, in fact, possible to have it all.
#FashionVictim (2018). If you were to trust one person to share how toxic a magazine office can be, it should be Amina Akhtar, founding editor of The Cut. Her book explores what could’ve been if Emily from The Devil Wears Prada would just lean into her homicidal tendencies. Anya St Clair is dying to become besties with her chic fellow editor, Sarah. But it all goes down the drain when they both start vying for the same promotion.
Fashion Babylon (2006). Ever wondered what a Burn Book for the fashion industry would look like? Fashion writer Imogen Edwards-Jones collaborates with an anonymous insider on these tell-all accounts of the drug-induced mania of a Fashion Week. Designers admit to stealing, moan about fast-fashion copying them and confirm that models are not okay. It’s the best trash you can ask for.
The Chiffon Trenches (2020). Anna Wintour singed many in her path, but André Leon Talley, former editor-at-large of Vogue US, was burned in unexpected ways. His book recaps his rise and rocky fallout with the iconic editor, and how it caused him to be shunned by the whole industry (including “dear friend” Karl Lagerfeld). Some might call it a long pity party, but the fun parts include him trying to be in on Andy Warhol’s piss paintings and his relationship with supermodel, Naomi Campbell.
From HT Brunch, May 2, 2026
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