Read Online The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes, Jo Piazza - Free Book Online Page A

niceties that people with actual experience in business make sure to go through before getting to the point of any professional meeting.
    Eve gesticulated wildly to emphasize her points, violently flinging an arm and knocking a cup of milk from the table. The growing pool of ivory liquid nearly spilled onto Imogen’s lap before Frederick deftly swept in with a tea napkin. Eve paused for a moment and stared at Imogen’s bare wrist. “Where’s your bracelet?”
    “What bracelet, Eve?”
    “Your Glossy.com bracelet. I left one for you on your desk.” Imogencringed, remembering the slick black rubber band she’d tossed in the waste bin. “That was sweet of you, Eve, but it isn’t really my style.”
    Eve grew apoplectic. “We all wear the bracelet, Imogen. We’re a team.”
    “I don’t think that bracelet goes with Chanel, Eve.” (“It’s black. It goes with everything. And it isn’t just a bracelet. It’s a FitBoom! It measures all your steps, calories and metabolic rate.” Tugging at her own black bracelet, allowing it to snap sharply against her skin to punctuate her annoyance, Eve came in.)
    It took only ten minutes for her former assistant to arrive at the pièce de résistance, the reason they were meeting for an expensive breakfast instead of gnawing on hemp-seed granola while staring at computer screens with the other worker bees back in the office.
    “I can’t get the designers on board without you,” Eve admitted sheepishly. “God. You would think they hated the Internet. They hear ‘app’ and want nothing to do with us. You know these people. You know who we need to work with and you know what to say to get them on board.”
    It was true that Imogen had the respect and the ear of practically every fashion designer from Manhattan to Milan. Editors in chief enjoyed their real rock star moment in the nineties, before being replaced by Food Network chefs and ultimately tech billionaires and personal trainers as the celebrity careers du jour. Imogen remained beloved inside and out of the industry for one simple reason: she was nice. That was her biggest selling point, and why she was still a little bit famous. Every interview about her began with a variation of the same line: “Imogen Tate seems so perfect that we wish we could hate her but she is just sooooo lovely.” Why not be nice? It wasn’t really any harder than being mean.
    The universe underscored the point about just how valuable Imogen’s connections could be when one of the fashion elite, Adrienne Velasquez, breezed by the table, blowing Imogen a kiss and asking after Alex. Adrienne was the fashion director over at
Elle
magazine and she’d recently turned into a huge television star after becoming a judge on a Bravo reality show on which fledgling designers competed to create the most outrageous outfit, typically out of bits of fabricfound in trash bins. Adrienne’s co-hosts were former supermodel Gretchen Kopf and the head of the Fashion Institute of Technology, Max Marx.
    Eve turned bright red.
    “You actually know Adrienne Velasquez?” she yelped as Adrienne departed to join Gretchen and Max at a sun-dappled corner table.
    “Of course I do,” Imogen said, uncertain why Eve was so surprised.
    “I just love her. She’s my absolutely favorite fashion personality in the entire universe. Oooooo, I never miss an episode of
Project Fashion
. Never! Do you think you can call her back here?” It grew embarrassing as Eve began to do something that resembled hyperventilating. Imogen had to remind herself that the industry was different now. Adrienne was on television. She was a real celebrity. It wasn’t Eve’s fault that she didn’t understand how totally and completely unprofessional it would be to ask for Adrienne’s autograph. Adrienne was a fashion director. She had Imogen’s old job, for Chris-sakes.
    Imogen gave Eve a big smile and for a moment enjoyed having the upper hand. “Let’s eat for a bit and then say hello on