Classic Krantz In Plot Revolving Around Fashion Industry, Author Weaves A Web Of Beautiful Women, Hunky Men, High Stakes And Happy Endings

Spring collection By Judith Krantz (Crown, 358 pages, $24)

Models appear to have replaced movie stars as the heroines of sex-glamour-romance novels. In lockstep with this trend is novelist Judith Krantz, whose heroines take a turn down the runway in her latest book, “Spring Collection.”

As with each of Krantz’s six previous novels, including “Scruples” and “Princess Daisy,” a TV miniseries based on “Spring Collection” is in the works at CBS.

Packed with beautiful women and hunky men, ritzy hotels and exotic design studios, haute couture and haute cuisine, the book should translate well into a visual medium like television. So should the suspenseful plot, tangled love affairs and encounters with fame and fortune.

Krantz is undeterred by recent nonfiction books, magazine articles, TV documentaries and movies that depict modeling’s darker side - cutthroat, lonely, exhausting and often sleazy.

Instead, she maintains the myths of glamour, wealth and glory. Models eat, drink and make merry till the wee hours - but remain fresh-faced and energetic. Paris is balmy - in January. Sex is spontaneous and unprotected - in 1996.

If you can buy into this fantasy world, no small feat, then “Spring Collection” is a dream of a book.

At the heart of the action are five beautiful women: Justine Loring, a former model who now runs a small but successful modeling agency in New York; Frankie Severino, her feisty assistant; and April, Tinker and Jordan, three of her freshest young models.

Competing for the hearts, minds and bodies of these five beauties are assorted men - the good, the bad, but never the ugly.

One is the brilliant, bad-boy designer Marco Lombardi, who is about to launch his first spring collection in Paris. To stir up excitement, he has announced that three unknown American models will be selected to star in his debut runway show - and that one of them will win a $12 million contract to represent his new couture house.

The three models turn out to be - who else? - April, Tinker and Jordan.

But which one will win the big contract? And how long will it take Justine to discover that the contest is being orchestrated by Lombardi’s billionaire backer, Jacques Necker? And will everyone else figure out that Necker is Justine’s estranged father - who abandoned her mother before Justine’s birth?

Who could possibly untangle these complications and design happily-ever-after endings for everyone?

Judith Krantz has done it before. Who could doubt she can do it again?