Workhorse: Book Launch & Shopping Event with Author Caroline Palmer
About the Event
We're thrilled to welcome Caroline Palmer to our Georgetown store for an intimate conversation about her debut novel—a wickedly funny and unsettling story of ambition, class, and the sacrifices women make in pursuit of success set in the glamorous world of early 2000s New York fashion media. Caroline will be joined by Sarah Haight, Vice President of Lutheran Services in America and former fashion editor at Vogue, W, and Women's Wear Daily, whose unique perspective spanning media, culture, and mission-driven leadership brings rich context to Palmer's sharp observations about ambition, identity, and what it means to navigate worlds where you don't quite belong.
Inspired by the novel's themes, guests will also enjoy a specially curated styling experience with our M.M.LaFleur team to discover your own essential "workhorse" wardrobe: the versatile, hardworking pieces that become the backbone of your professional life.
What to expect:
Complimentary drinks and light bites throughout the evening
An engaging fireside chat and opportunity for Q&A with Caroline and Sarah
Book purchasing and signing with Caroline Palmer
Personalized styling sessions with the M.M.LaFleur team to build your spring wardrobe foundations and 15% off any M.M.LaFleur purchase made during the event
Limited spots available.
About Caroline Palmer
Caroline Palmer was the Director of Editorial, Video and Social Media at Amazon Fashion until 2020. Prior to her tenure at Amazon, she spent seven years as the Editor of Vogue.com, and her writing has appeared in various publications, including The New York Times, LIFE, Seventeen Magazine, and Vogue.She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband and three children. Workhorse is her first novel.
About Sarah Haight
Sarah Haight is a strategic leader with deep experience in advancing mission-driven work and building organizational capacity. Before her career in the nonprofit sector, Sarah spent the first part of her professional life in fashion media, starting at Vogue and then at W and Women’s Wear Daily, where she covered the New York collections, culture, and fashion. Her background in storytelling and trend insight informs her work in strengthening community-centered strategies that advance both impact and equity.
As Vice President of Lutheran Services in America, one of the largest nonprofit networks in the country stewarding nearly $30 billion in resources for families, she leads initiatives that support organizations' innovative programming, cultivate inclusive leadership practices, and foster stronger connections between organizations and the communities they serve.
About Workhorse
At the turn of the millennium, Editorial Assistant Clodagh “Clo” Harmon wants nothing more than to rise through the ranks at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine. There’s just one problem: she doesn’t have the right pedigree. Instead, Clo is a “workhorse” surrounded by beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected “show horses” who get ahead without effort, including her beguiling cubicle-mate, Davis Lawrence, the daughter of a beloved but fading Broadway actress. Harry Wood, Davis’s boarding school classmate and a reporter with visions of his own media empire, might be Clo’s ally in gaming the system—or he might be the only thing standing between Clo and her rightful place at the top.
In a career punctuated by moments of high absurdity, sudden windfalls, and devastating reversals of fortune, Clo wades across boundaries, taking ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the important person she wants to be within the confines of a world where female ambition remains cloaked. But who really is Clo underneath all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners—and who are we if we share her desires?
Hilariously observant and insightful, Workhorse is a brilliant page-turner about what it means to be in thrall to wealth, beauty, and influence, and the outrageous sacrifices women must make for the sake of success.