Wendy Holden
Shop Till You Drop
I Shop, Therefore I Am: The ’90s, Harvey Nicks, and Me
By Mary Portas
Canongate 336pp £20
In this entertaining autobiography we enter the posh world of Harvey Nichols. In the 1980s and 1990s, during the department store’s heyday, Mary Portas was in charge of window displays. It was she who landed ‘Harvey Nicks’ its defining role in Absolutely Fabulous, the 1990s sitcom satirising fashion types.
AbFab was of course the hugest of hits, though Eddie and Patsy’s world paled in comparison to the real thing. I had a job on a glossy mag in the 1990s and reality was far crazier than anything on screen. I was the editor-in-chief’s deputy and she had a fearsome reputation. Working for her was like being one of the six wives of Henry VIII: you knew your number would be up sooner or later, but hoped the fun and glamour would make it all worthwhile.
The travel editor would sit at her computer saying, ‘Darlings! Only three more weeks until fun fur!’ She was passionately fond of her dogs (pugs, as I recall) and when one of them fell ill, the entire office had to write it a get well card as it reclined in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Spring has sprung and here is the April issue of @Lit_Review featuring @sophieolive on Dorothea Tanning, @JamesCahill on Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, @lifeisnotanovel on Stephanie Wambugu, @BaptisteOduor on Gwendoline Riley and so much more: http://literaryreview.co.uk
A review of my biography of Wittgenstein, and of his newly published last love letters, in the Literary Review: via @Lit_Review
Jane O'Grady - It’s a Wonderful Life
Jane O'Grady: It’s a Wonderful Life - Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes by Anthony Gottlieb;...
literaryreview.co.uk
It was my pleasure to review Stephanie Wambugu’s enjoyably Ferrante-esque debut Lonely Crowds for @Lit_Review’s April issue, out now
Joseph Williams - Friends Disunited
Joseph Williams: Friends Disunited - Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
literaryreview.co.uk