Fashion Knitwits

It all started with a sewing machine, a gift from her mom; Anita Martini would walk the streets of Brooklyn dreaming of the clothes she would create. She enrolled in a vocational high school, where she studied fashion, and won a scholarship to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she majored in patternmaking design.

By day she worked at a pharmacy, and by night she attended class. Life was far from glamorous. And then she spotted the ad. The description was nothing special, just a bland receptionist job at some offices in the Garment District, but the position turned out to be at none other than the fashion mecca (in 1984, at least) of Pantone.

Like Lauren Weisberger's "The Devil Wears Prada," Eneida Martino's unforgettable "Fashion Knitwits" pulls no punches as it flings back the curtains of the fashion industry to reveal the bizarre, backstabbing assistants, and other crazies, who somehow keep the industry from toppling. From freezing her ass off at a bus stop in a blizzard as a coworker blithely drives by in her four-wheel-drive Pathfinder to working at a roach-infested desk, Martino's comical tales of woe and wonder will have you laughing and gasping to the last page.