Forever Vogue IT Girl Plum Sykes Dishes About Her Latest Novel, Set in the “New Hamptons”
Plum Sykes dishes about Wives Like Us, what Donald Trump once told her, and how Kate Middleton’s wedding gown was likely modeled after... hers.
Dear Reader,
Forgive me. I’ve been neglectful, of late. This author has been very, very busy.
Promise.
But I’m back with a delicious little story about one of the chicest women on the planet.
Forever IT girl, author and Vogue writer, Plum Sykes.
Plum’s new book, Wives Like Us, is out today.
Sure to be the chick lit beach read of the summer, Wives Like Us (yes, I’ve read it) is set in the super-rich, competitive Hamptons-like bucolic playground known as the Cotswolds.
As of yesterday, Wives Like Us is already in its second print run. Let’s just say... it’s causing a bit of a stir across the pond.
I sat down recently with my darling friend, Plum, over shrimp cocktail and rosé at the Waverly Inn, for a good catch up. We talked about the book, how she became New York’s IT girl (with twin, Lucy)…
… and how her wedding gown was likely inspiration for another, ahem, royal wedding.
WIVES LIKE US
ALINA CHO: Tell me how you came up with the idea to do a book based in the Cotswolds.
PLUM SYKES: I had moved to the Cotswolds about 10 years ago with my children and my husband at the time. And I'm living on a beautiful farm and we still had a place in London, so we were kind-of going back and forth. And I started to notice that the women out there were becoming more and more glamorous. So, Amanda Cutter Brooks opened this incredible shop called Cutter Brooks, and, suddenly, it was like we've got a John Derian.
ALINA CHO: You call them Country Princesses.
PLUM SYKES: Yeah, and all the Country Princesses went to shop there. Amanda herself was basically a Park Avenue princess, landed in England because, you know, she's married to an English lord. So, she then starts a shop selling her style. Who's going shopping there? [Princess] Marie Chantal of Greece, who's also landed a house in the Cotswolds that's decorated by Jacques Grange and looks like you're in Paris. And I just started thinking to myself, “This is not a country turnip situation anymore.”
ALINA CHO: Hardly.
PLUM SYKES: It's all these very glamorous people and it's near enough to London that they could have a Notting Hill palace or Holland Park palace. And they could get there for the weekends, like the Hamptons or like Connecticut or like Montecito. And suddenly, the zeitgeist is, “The Cotswolds is where everyone is, so I want to be there.” So, they all transplant from London for the weekends. And, for me, it was the same as [my first novel] Bergdorf Blondes. I saw a group of women who'd taken over and were the influencers and they'd refashioned the English countryside to suit themselves. So, it had all the social intensity of London and all the luxuries, which was not how the country was before.
ALINA CHO: Much to the chagrin of what you call the Old Lot, right?
PLUM SYKES: There's always the Old Lot and the New Lot. You know, in America, it's the Old Preppies versus the Nouveau Riche. You know, when you're writing a book, you kind-of need the good versus the evil.
ALINA CHO: Tell me, very briefly, without giving away the plot, what Wives Like Us is about.
PLUM SYKES: It's about a woman called Tata Hawkins who loses her position in society. And her butler, Ian, also loses his position as his boss loses her position. And they both want to get back on top. And the chaos that ensues in trying to get back on top is the farce or the comedy that we then read about with all the kind-of, I call it lifestyle porn. Do you know what I mean? The table scapes, the riding, the horses, the party dresses…
ALINA CHO: … the head-to-toe Khaite.
PLUM SYKES: Exactly.
ALINA CHO: For the school run.
PLUM SYKES: A realtor recently said to me that half of the people on their books looking for off-market properties of the absolute chicest, like the farms with 150 acres, half of them are Americans. All from California — celebrities, actresses.
ALINA CHO: It is the new Hamptons.
PLUM SYKES: It's the new Hamptons and it's like, “I want to go and spend the summer there because it's so beautiful.”
ALINA CHO: What always astounds me about anyone who is able, like you, to write a novel is that it all starts in your imagination.
PLUM SYKES: It is your imagination, and by the way, I'm so glad you say that because everyone always says, “Who's this and who's this?” They all think everything's a roman à clef, but the majority of it is how much imagination can you put in. That’s really what it is.
ALINA CHO: Absolutely.
PLUM SYKES: What's very interesting at the moment is that lots and lots of people who live in the Cotswolds all think that they’re the main character. And I’m like, ok, they’ve all got a case of main characteritis. The fact that they all think that it's completely real and based on real people is because I spent so much time making the universe completely realistic. If you can get the universe correct then all the characters, however imagined they are, feel true to the reader.
ALINA CHO: One final question about the book. Is Ian Palmer, the butler, based on a real person and will you ever reveal who it is?
PLUM SYKES: What I'll say is that there are a few butlers of that caliber in England who are like a version of Mary Poppins who look after their principals as though they're a baby. I'll leave it at that.
NEW YORK’S IT GIRL
ALINA CHO: So, let me set the scene. I had just moved to New York in 1997, wide eyed, and suddenly, there was a big cover story for [The New York Times] Sunday Styles in October 1998 called The Plum and Lucy Show.
PLUM SYKES: Classic piece of journalism. It was brilliant.
ALINA CHO: You were already on the map, as it were, but that must’ve changed things for you.
PLUM SYKES: I mean, the reality was that for me I was still going to work [at Vogue] every day and feeling pretty small, but I do think there's a sort-of Voguette who’s an IT girl and a working girl at the same time. And if you think back, what The New York Times said or what Vogue said or what Vanity Fair said, that was it. There was no social media.
ALINA CHO: It was the Bible.
PLUM SYKES: What I do remember, and this is a classic one, Lucy and I were sitting in the Hotel Costes during [Paris Fashion Week], after that story came out, and Donald Trump came up to both of us and said, “How did you two nobodies get on the cover of The New York Times Styles section? Who’s your publicist?” And we were like, “We don’t have a publicist.”
WAS KATE MIDDLETON INSPIRED BY PLUM’S WEDDING GOWN?
ALINA CHO: It has been said that Catherine, Princess of Wales’s wedding gown, was inspired by your wedding gown, also by Alexander McQueen. (Alexander “Lee” McQueen was still alive and designed Plum’s dress himself. Sarah Burton who, at the time, worked under McQueen designed Kate Middleton’s wedding dress).
True?
PLUM SYKES: As far as I know, she had definitely seen photographs of the dress that he designed for me. And the reality about my wedding gown and her wedding gown is that Sarah Burton, who designed her wedding gown, because at that point [McQueen] had passed away, she was instrumental in designing my wedding gown. She made a lot of my wedding gown. He designed it, she constructed it. [McQueen] designed wedding gowns for 10 to 20 people in his lifetime, very close friends, so I am sure that Kate Middleton would have seen the pictures of the other wedding gowns he designed.
ALINA CHO: You can see the resemblance.
PLUM SYKES: I will say, my dress was awesome.
And I thought the dress Sarah made for her was perfection.