Buttons for Fabulous Nobodies. Photo: JD Ferguson

Long before Carrie Bradshaw there was Reality Nirvana Tuttle (so named because if you were young in the '80s you probably had hippie parents), trying to get by as a "door whore" at a trendy downtown club and striving for that elusive quality of New York fabulousness.

I read the book lying on a college dorm room floor thousands of miles away, and it's one of those classics about Manhattan that just makes you want to throw your most glamorous clothes into a suitcase and move to the city right away.

Tulloch, a former New Yorker who in recent years relocated back to her native Sydney, was in town this week to celebrate the development of her novel into a movie (produced by Colac Pictures). While the project is in its earliest stage, a clutch of downtown fashion victims gathered at Pop Burger in the Meatpacking District to raise a glass of champagne to Reality and toast the day she finally makes it to the big screen.

With the '80s back as the dominant trend on the catwalk this season, there's never been a better time to rediscover "Fabulous Nobodies," which was republished in 2006 to mark its 20th anniversary.