FABULOSITY

Simmons—glam model, owner of the Baby Phat clothing label, wife of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons—offers advice for achieving the bling lifestyle.

As Simmons reminds us in this self-help manual for the 21st-century gal, she had it rough growing up and had to work for her success. She came of age in St. Louis, not the friendliest of towns for a girl of Japanese, Korean and African-American descent. (As a gawky teen, her hybrid looks earned her the school nickname “Chinky Giraffe.”) A fast ascension into the modeling world at 13 got her away from all that, and now she’s not just married to a multimillionaire but also the head of her own affordable glam fashion line. Here, Simmons lays down the laws of fabulosity, some 15 in all, as lived through her own fabulousness it. A rah-rah barrage of self-actualizing advice, this how-to is divided into somewhat arbitrary sections (“Work and Power,” “Image and Body Law” and so on). The laws are for the most part enthusiastic cheerleading anthems for adolescent girls (Law #1: “Work yourself into a frenzy of high hopes and aspirations”), especially ethnic minority teens, at whom the book is aimed (Law #6: “Activate your incredible female power to deal with adversity”). Along with laying down rules about keeping ahead in business and not letting the haters get the best of you, Simmons provides fashion advice whose basic tent is: the more the better (“Carry an extra-large bag in cherry, emerald, or orange—Not beige, not camel, and definitely not black”).

Enthusiastic to a fault, a rhinestone-studded, fur-lined checklist for the next generation of glamazons.