Well, the cat is finally out of the bag (Birkin or Binondo knockoff?)… Kitty Go’s When Chic Hits the Fan: Celebrity and Fashion Confessions of a Former Magazine Editor is taking the Philippines by storm.

Kitty is one of my dearest friends and my former editor and also has one of the most razor sharp wits around. Her insider takes on the media, entertainment, and Manila society are hilarious and so on-the-mark and her stories and emails never fail to crack me up!

The first run is sold out and Kitty promises me I’ll have my copy soon – I cannot wait to read this! I really wanted to be at the book launch party on May 19 just to gauge the reactions. Many of the attendees, no doubt, will see themselves and each other in Chic Hits the Fan.

Here is the synopsis:

As editor of Manila’s Style magazine, Giselle Cordero had a dream job. Or so it seemed. But as someone with a stylish wardrobe, quick wit, sharp observations and little pretensions, she may be too fabulous for "cosmo Manille’s" shallow, unprofessional and social climbing celebrity, fashion and social scenes. Kitty Go does the fashionable thing with a razor sharp fictional account of the Philippine celebrity world only an insider could have experienced. For everyone who has been there or anyone considering a life in the reputedly glamorous media business, this is a must-read. If it doesn’t change your view of this falsely glorified world, at least it will keep you giggling and gossiping for weeks!

Kitty Go’s When Chic Hits the Fan: Celebrity and Fashion Confessions of a Former Magazine Editor is available through National Bookstore.

My former co-worker Gino dela Paz now has a sharp, well-written column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Here is Gino’s conversation with our friend and editor.

Here is a rave reader review from a blogger.

After the jump, Alex Vergara’s take on Chic Hits the Fan, also from the Inquirer.

Catty take on Pinoy lifestyle media world
Posted 11:00am (Mla time) May 01, 2005
By Alex Vergara
Inquirer News Service

WHETHER they admit it or not, people who are privy to Manila's insular and often "user-friendly" social and entertainment circles would no longer be shocked or appalled by Kitty Go's novel, "When Chic Hits the Fan" (Paradigm Software Systems Inc., 2005, 105 pages). It doesn't mean, however, that while reading it, they won't fall off their seats in stitches. Much as it tries to masquerade as a tell-all book about the "celebrity and fashion confessions of a former magazine editor," everyone in the know knows that the thin, paperback volume is a long series of episodic blind items filled with juicy allusions to living, breathing "beautiful" people. Some are dead giveaways, while others require a bit of networking (it has now become chic to do a "When Chic" reading at parties and beat everyone else to it in identifying this or that oddball) and extrapolation to unmask the true identities of certain zany characters in the book. Hint: Go sometimes deliberately misleads the reader by assigning certain characters with different genders (and sexual orientations) and swapping a person's initials and christening him or her with a new name. Indeed, the book is as close as one can get to glimpses of Go's colorful but short-lived stint as an outspoken editor in the glossy world of magazine publishing. But high-profile reader, watch out! The book can only stay funny as long as Go makes mincemeat of the person next to you. Since Manila's social scene is getting smaller and (yawn) shallower by the minute, it's not unlikely for you to stop dead in your tracks while going through a chapter as it suddenly dawns on you who the object of your amusement is. And it isn't your labandera or your manikurista Go is making fun of. Big-time suck-ups Indeed, "When Chic" may be a bit jarring because of the slew of characters Go introduces in rapid-fire succession. But it somehow keeps steady by focusing on three hapless souls who are the author's favorite whipping boys, classic examples of successful suck-ups. Big time! But the real story isn't about gay twins Ned and Nicky Nivera, who, with nothing but saliva and the right connections to see them through, have turned social climbing into an art form. Nor is it about how Alicia Santos-Daniels, who can hardly fill out a Unimart raffle ticket, much less tell the difference between "its" and "it's," "their" and "they're," has the nerve to pass herself off as a social editor and get away with it. Their, er, they're far from unique. We're pretty sure that every big city in the world has its share of resident social climbers, pretenders, hired hacks, home wreckers, sycophants, walking science projects, callow brats, aspiring low lifes and what have you, which Go's book has plenty of. If anything, the book can also be viewed as a biting social commentary on the shallowness of Manila society (as if we don't already know). In more enlightened times, for example, Alicia and her ilk would never have made it past the security guard's outpost had serious editors and discerning readers put their foot down (Go, as Giselle Cordero, is partly to blame, mind you). Believe us, a reader who makes a career out of landing in the gallery of left-to-right snapshots every week is a minor irritant compared to the pseudo-journalist with an agenda. It's also a cautionary tale of how some media practitioners (especially in print) have made beautiful and/or pedigreed non-talents journalists-slash-monsters overnight. At the rate this phenomenon is going, it won't be long before the hard-earned byline gets supplanted by a famous person's stilted and heavily retouched photo taken sometime during the last millennium. It seems no matter where you turn, everyone in the metropolis is a "columnist." Like where on earth can you find ersatz journalists who compel their subjects to answer slum book-type questions and pass off such nuggets of wisdom as columns? Duh. Where the topic of precious column space (have mercy on those vanishing trees!) ranges from how a personality prefers her coffee after being dead to the world all morning to how she dealt with her grief when her dog chased after the light? As if we care. 'Dancing' journalists At the risk of sounding cynical, however, lifestyle and entertainment journalism as we know it in this benighted land requires practitioners to do some "dancing" to get a few things done. How come? Everything you say or write is taken personally, including, say, a freaking fashion review. We said your clothes were ugly, okay, not you. In such a personalized setup, it's not unlikely for even the most detached journalist to find his resolve to stay objective eroding with the passing of the decades. Too bad, Go didn't stay long enough in the media biz to show us how far she can go before she runs amuck. To a certain extent, Go can dare say what she said because she has virtually nothing to lose. Apart from being a good writer-cum-needler, she's financially independent (okay, rich!), ultra-fashionable (she spews out fashion-related similes and metaphors faster than the Parisian arbiters of style can say trends) and most important, out of the parochial loop that is Manila society to give a hoot who gets hit or what. Breezy and peppered with Go's sharp and sometimes condescending wit (English speakers with "accents" and bomba stars who aspire to move up the social ladder by marrying a rich foreigner, beware!), the book makes the reader feel as if he's conversing-gossiping, actually, is more on target-with the author just across the table. We only wish Go paid more attention to proofreading and a bit of editing, as the book has its share of typos and grammar lapses (but not the Alicia Santos-Daniels variety, thank goodness). So what makes "When Chic" a truly page-turning, "unputdownable" tome? Our innate penchant to read about other people's foibles is one. But the book's main come-on is the simple fact that Go said everything (and then some) about stuff we've all been dying to shout out to the rest of the world but were compelled to merely say in whispers for fear of offending a friend of a friend of a friend of a big person. In short, Go became too personal in a city that loves to take everything you say, well, personally. And she paid dearly for it. Getting barred from one's magazine launch because celebrities had threatened to boycott the event if they saw so much of a shadow of you or hiring two-bit photographers from the bowels of police stations since you and your staff had been banned from this or that show-biz function was no laughing matter. To her credit, Kitty Go makes it sound as if it was. "When Chic Hits the Fan" retails for P275 at selected National Book Stores, or may be ordered by e-mail at E-mail the author avergara@inquirer.com.phloudmouthtwn@yahoo.com.tw

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Comments

[carlos celdran]

Read it na. Many copies circulating around Manila. Terribly written and in desperate need of proper editing but engaging nevertheless. Very thinly veiled and unforgiving for the Ocampos and San Diegos and Lopezes of this world.