A Review By Frances Smith 

 The cover of this book is very misleading – it looks like a teen love story, all pink and glittery.  There is also a dress on the cover and there lies the clue – this is about the fashion industry and is much edgier than the blurb on the back would imply.

Crow is a schoolgirl who is also an inspired young fashion designer.  She and a group of friends have become involved in the exciting world of teenage fashion.  Their success seems assured until the accusations are made that Crow’s designs are being made up in sweat shops in India where young children are being used to create the intricate beaded fabrics used in her dresses.  In spite of assurances from the manufacturers that this is not the case, the accusations continue and are accompanied by photographs which seem to prove the case.

 Unusually for a children‘s novel, the girls in this story are all remarkably clever and mature for their age.  They do, however, remain young teenagers and find themselves totally out of their depth and powerless in the face of big business.  How they fight back and get Crow’s wonderful fashions onto the High Street makes a gritty and entertaining story.  There are plenty of  interesting peripheral characters and a wonderful baddie in the form of a teenage model, Sigrid, aka “The Queen of Evil” who also manages to be charming and even “quite nice”.  There are boyfriends, flirting, crushes and kisses as well.  My only problem with the book was that I had not read the earlier “Threads” where the main characters are introduced and I found the number of people in the story a little overwhelming and sometimes confusing.  The story is also very girly, whereas there may well be some boys interested in the issues raised. However, the subject matter is fascinating and a must for any young teenager interested in fashion or worried about the morals of creating cheap clothes in India and China for the Western  market by keeping the manufacturing costs artificially low.