Books & Java

The Knockoff

by Lucy Sykes, Jo Piazza  

 

Synopsis:

When Imogen returns to work at Glossy after six months away, she can barely recognize her own magazine. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired “the gray hairs,” put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can’t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPhone stuck in Japanese for two days. Under Eve’s reign, Glossy is rapidly becoming a digital sweatshop—hackathons rage all night, girls who sleep get fired, and “fun” means mandatory, company-wide coordinated dances to Beyoncé. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen faces a choice—pack up her Smythson notebooks and quit, or channel her inner geek and take on Eve to save both the magazine and her career. A glittering, uproarious, sharply drawn story filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities, The Knockoff is an insider’s look at the ever-changing world of fashion and a fabulous romp for our Internet-addicted age.

My Review:

This book is so relevant. In its hilarious dialogue and witty story line is the most poignant cautionary tale I have read in a long time. My mom used to tell me when I was a kid "Be respectful of people older than you as they have traveled a long road - the same road you too will travel one day!" In a nutshell this is what this book is about. Just because there is innovation, technology and a different way of thinking and accomplishing tasks, it does not mean that those that came before us are "dinosaurs" awaiting inevitable extinction. Not to mention the importance of the often overlooked golden rule: "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you." 

Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza's brilliant depiction of how commerce has changed and is going to keep changing over time makes a brilliant statement about how disconnected we have  become in the age of connected technology where the irony is so evident it is ridiculous. We opt for technology as an exclusive means of interaction in place of genuine human interaction. Instead of pairing the two, we become so engrossed in the technology that we are no longer capable of genuine face-to-face communication. Those of us who have grown up between the two worlds of technology and a time when technology was in its inception will relate to this book. I find myself lately (now that I'm in my 40's) that everything has become about what the tech world decides it should be. I am told what I should like, how I should like it and what I should think through the fast and furious world of Twitter, FB, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. But, because this wasn't always my world, I am able to discern between what I feel is right and what I feel is wrong without always having to rely on what is posted on the Internet. Subliminal messaging seems to be a thing of the past. Messages are quite blatant and those that have been born and grown up in this way of thinking seem to take the Internet and all of its self-proclaimed purveyors of "truth" as gospel instead of as just another viewpoint that helps us analytically and intelligently formulate our OWN viewpoints and way of thinking. This, in my opinion, is what differentiates us from the technology. 

Don't get me wrong, I love, absolutely love, technology, but it is not the end-all. It is simply the result of human ingenuity born of critical thinking and human interaction. Which brings me back to Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza's brilliant book. When it is said and done, we control the role technology has in our lives. And, technology should not be the reason we forget the best qualities of humanity: kindness, warmth, companionship, friendship - human interaction. I did not give a synopsis of this book in my review because I think it would give away too much of the story unnecessarily. Also, I feel that this book will impact every reader differently and I don't want to ruin that experience for any reader. But, I will say, as I said at the beginning, this book is relevant and brilliant. 

You won't regret reading it.