The fashion world is almost totally corrupt. Editors are given sweeteners; PRs pick up the tab for trips abroad, coverage in magazines is awarded in direct proportion to the amount of advertising placed. Shops are often set up to lose tax liabilities and certain fashion houses are suspected of being a front for laundering Mafia money. Consumers must be made to consume if the whole fashion industry is not to come crashing down. The fashion machine - from Prs to style gurus - sets out to expose our sexual and social insecurities in order to manipulate us. To expose the fashion myth, Colin McDowell takes the reader behind the scenes - to focus on autocratic designers, freebie persuasion, the catwalk conspiracy, rip-offs, fakes and copies, mega editors and mega-salaried models.