2015 Debut Authors Bash : Elaine Dimopoulos
Material Girls By Elaine Dimopoulous is reviewed here @ http://thephantomparagrapher.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/review-material-girls-elaine-dimopoulos.html and Rated 4P's .
Guest Post Topic for MATERIAL GIRLS by Elaine Dimopoulos:
What prompted you to write a Fashion focused
Dystopian ? What was your favourite part during the writing process ?
First off, thank you for hosting me! I’m
thrilled to be stopping by The Phantom
Paragrapher. Material Girls indeed explores the darker side of fashion and
pop culture. It is set in an alternate present, where companies hire young
teenagers to set trends and then effectively fire the kids once they get too
old. It is intended to be a world that resembles our own in uncomfortable ways.
First off, Material Girls is a personal story. I tried hard to be in style in
my 20’s and kept reading fashion magazines, only to find that a pair of shoes
or a jacket I enjoyed wearing was “out” that season! I began asking questions
about how much clothing is manufactured to meet the demands of such rapidly changing
trends and what happens to the clothes after we discard them. The research
these questions prompted shaped the novel.
Material
Girls also explores our world’s obsession with
youth and fame. I came of age at the same time as the Brittany Spears/Justin
Timberlake/Christina Aguilera generation of pop stars, who all vaulted to
stardom after their success on The New
Mickey Mouse Club. I wondered what it would be like to be revered at
sixteen and have the media then turn on you and laugh every time you stumbled
in your personal life, gained weight, etc. I wanted to create a character who is
on the cusp of losing it all, who clings desperately to her glory. Hence, the
novel alternates perspectives between Marla Klein, a fashionista working for a
design house, and Ivy Wilde, a child star turned pop star, who is on the verge
of being ousted by a younger version of herself.
My favorite part of the writing process?
Well, there was my trip to the Grammy Awards to do some important “research”
for the novel! That was fun. I also liked ripping pages out of fashion magazines
and tacking them up in my office for inspiration. With the exception of the
“torture trend” in Material Girls,
where I took some liberties, every other trend is inspired by actual high
fashion.
Thanks again for hosting me! Hope you enjoy
the novel!
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