A socialite and former contributing editor at Vogue, Sykes wrote the 2004 chick-lit novel Bergdorf Blondes.

Victoria Sykes (she's been known as Plum her entire life) was raised in Kent, England. After attending private school and "coming out" as a debutante, she studied history at Oxford and took a job at British Vogue. It wasn't long before she was summoned to New York by American Vogue editor Anna Wintour; Sykes moved to the city in 1998 and quickly became one of the boss's favorites (much to the chagrin of then-colleague Kate Betts, who described Sykes as a "pretentious airhead"). In 2002, Sykes landed a $600,000 advance from Miramax Books for her first novel, Bergdorf Blondes, a breathless depiction of a world where PAPs (Park Avenue Princesses) search for ATMs (rich boyfriends) and PHs (prospective husbands). She followed her bestselling debut with 2006's less successful The Debutante Divorcée. In 2008 she signed a deal with NBC to write a "a half-hour comedy about female tycoons" entitled Mogulettes, but blessedly, the recession spoiled that project.

Sykes, not surprisingly, has plenty of detractors. Some say her personality is contrived, and that she's capitalized on her British-ness by exaggerating her accent and English manners. Sykes' deluded sense of self-importance didn't endear her to the publishing crowd either. She placed her literary contributions on a par with Oscar Wilde's, and when a London Telegraph journalist asked her if she compared her work to The Great Gatsby, she said "Yah, and the other works by Truman Capote."

Sykes broke off her engagement with artist Damian Loeb in 2001 and rebounded with lame dudes including Bryan Adams and Tate Donovan. In 2005 married heir and entrepreneur Toby Rowland. The couple has two children, Ursula and Tess. [Image via Getty]