Judith Krantz – Spring Collection

A novel, published March 13, 1996.
Genre: contemporary romance or what I call: glitter romance
Cover: fashionable.



Passion…
In a tale as timely as Scruples, as compelling as Dazzle, as intriguing as Mistral’s Daughter, Judith Krantz launches three innocent beauties on the city of fashion and love…
Scandal…
It’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to Loring Model Management. Three of its unknown models have been chosen to star in the debut spring collection of bad-boy designer Marco Lombardi – and one of them will win an exclusive, multimillion-dollar contract. But the agency’s owner, Justine Loring, is furious. Only she knows that Lombardi’s billionaire backer, Jacques Necker, has set her up, hoping to manipulate her into chaperoning her models to Paris, and meeting him face-to-face.
Glamour…
But Justine isn’t about to play his game. She dispatches these three sensational girls – the classic Minnesota blond, the African-American goddess, and the moody Tennessee redhead – in care of her second in command, droll Francesca Severino. Little does Justine know how their two weeks of discovery and love affairs will be matched by an explosive encounter in Manhattan that will change her own life.


I have read this book in Dutch, a long time ago, but I still enjoyed reading it in English.
Justine is furious when out of all the thousands of models in New York, her three girls have been chosen to enter the contest. She can’t possibly refuse this, or all her models would run away from her agency, but she knows it has been done to manipulate her. To make her meet with the big boss, Jacques Necker. Her father. Her mother has refused to tell her who her father was all her life, until she was dying. And then she sent him the scrap books and photo albums she has kept all her life, to take her revenge on him for abandoning her when she was pregnant. As Jacques never did have children with his wife (he is now a widower) he desperately wants Justine in his life. But out of loyalty to her mother, who sacrificed so much to raise her own her own and give her everything she could, Justine keeps refusing his overtures.
And now she is needed in Paris by her three young models. But at the last possible moment, she sends of her assistant Frankie, with the excuses of being unable to fly due to an inner ear infection. Jacques is so very sorely disappointed, but he is still a gracious host to Frankie and the three models, and Jordan manages to distract him. She is interested in antiques, and Jacques’ whole house is filled with priceless antique furniture and other items.

The red headed Tinker used to be a beauty pageant Queen, until she hit puberty, and now she wants her place in the lime light again. But she is very insecure, and being trained to be a little doll since she could walk, makes it impossible to her to adapt to the sexy way a model should walk the catwalk during a fashion show. Marco Lombardi, the designer, has promised he will teach her and guide her, as he has set his eyes on her to make her his new pet, to break her and let him do to her whatever he wants. But she is on to him, and beats him at his own game. Still, he works her way too hard, when he chooses her as his main model and as the one to design his clothes on. Her new boyfriend Tom Strauss, whom she met their first night in Paris, is not happy with it, he is the jealous type, and he also asks a lot of her energy.

Gorgeous classic blond April finally finds out she is gay, and with the help of famous journalist Maude (who has come with them to document everything for Maxi Amberville’s magazine) she starts exploring her sexuality. And then she changes her appearance drastically …

Frankie is unable to keep an eye on the girls, when they want to party and keep escaping her, so she just gives in, and has her own good times with Mike, the photographer that Maude brought with her, and who happens to be the boy she crushed on all through high school.

And back in New York, Justine unexpectedly finds her own love in the form of a contractor during the biggest snow storm of the year. But will she give in and meet with her father? She will have to be in Paris for the fashion show …


I loved reading this book. All those main characters and romances are so entertaining to read about, with secrets about the fashion industry revealed. Lots of lines and fun and hardship, as a model’s life is hard work. The man in charge preying on them, and only so very few of them will become world famous. Of course some of those bad guys are in this book as well, trying to get their hands on April, Tinker and Jordan. And Justine herself. Of course Justine is one smart cookie for having started her own model agency while she was still a model herself, and she won’t give in to blackmail.

I know I will read more glitter novels in the future, as they are pure entertainment and give a peak in a world that is so very far away from my own.

8 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian