Spent Memoirs of a Shopping Addict [Hardcover]

As a child, Avis Cardella devoured the glamorous images in her mother's fashion magazines. She grew up to be one of the people in them, living a life that seemed to be filled with labels and luxury. But shopping had become a dangerous addiction. She forwent food for Prada. Credit card debt blossomed like the ever-increasing pile of unworn shoes and clothing in the back of her closet. She defined herself by the things she owned and also lost herself in the mad hunt for the perfect pair of pants or purse that might make her feel whole.

Spentis Avis Cardella's timely, deeply personal, and shockingly dramatic exploration of our cultural need to spend, and of what happens when someone is consumed by the desire to consume.After spending her formative years reading fashion magazines voraciously,Avis Cardellafound her calling writing about photography, fashion, and culture. She has written forBritish Vogue, American Photo, andSurface, among other publications. She lives in Paris with her husband. These are the confessions of arealshopaholic, riveting to read and painfully self-aware. Avis Cardella speaks truth to power--the power of delusional thinking that is peculiarly female in nature. As in: Never mind that I'm already 20 grand in Visa debt, I desperately need that Prada suit to make my life-to make ME-perfect. If this sounds scarily familiar, what you need even more desperately is a copy ofSpent, right now. Susan Squire,author ofI Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage Cardella, now in her late 40s, has an elegant, serious voice inSpent; a bauble-decked shopaholic straight out of a frothy chick lit novel, she's not. Clothes...are described earnestly, and she casts the fashion industry...in an occasionally deeply unflattering light. ButSpentis less an indictment of an industry as a whole and more an examination of Cardella's own vulnerability to its particular pl#