Vogue

Once upon a time when Ugly Betty was still on television and ‘The devil wears prada’ had just been released to the literary world, a Northern Irish actress embarked on another temp job…at a fashion house on Bond Street.  We’ll call it Louise Feet On. 

Inside this institute, a girl started a temp job at the Press Office.  A job at the bottom of the fashion ladder that must be climbed with stilettos and ever decreasing waist lines.  Unknowingly I was the envy of many fashionista wannabies, a step in the right direction, a step I could not have cared for less. 

My job: to work in the show room, leaving clothes and bags presentable for stylists and celebrity visits, sending out clothes for shoots and premieres, and gifting the latest item to approved celebs like Madonna, Judy Dench and Keira Knightley.  I did check, but my name was not on the gift list.

The boss was a devil.  Not in Prada.  She didn’t smile, she didn’t talk, she didn’t eat.  She walked around yelling for her assistant as if calling a dog.  She did not speak when spoken to, she looked down from her slight 6’1” frame on everything…she was a monster.  I was petrified…the desired response…until I realized that even monsters need friends.  So… I persisted. 

I said ‘Hello’ to her every single time I saw her. I smiled at her in the corridor.  Nothing.  I worked there for about 8 months, it was a barren time in my acting life…that’s about 160 days worth of ignorance. 

There were a few minor breakthroughs. 

One day she entered the showroom with a grand throwing open of the door.  My colleague and I were busy note making for the day ahead, so busy we did not raise our heads.  There was a general sweep of the room, a faint ‘Hello’ and a door closing.  It was then we realised she had been in, she had spoken…to us…and we had not responded.

On another day, some important Louise Feet On people came over from Paris.  They wanted to meet everyone in the office.  Two men entered the showroom and came directly towards me, shook my hand, smiled and said ‘Thank you’.   She stood aghast.  They shook my hand, me, me with the jeans and t-shirt, with un-straightened hair and unpolished face.  Me with my small bank account and accent.  She saw me that day.

 

I stopped reading The Devil wears Prada.  I no longer watched Ugly Betty.  Fashion was taking over my life.

The office was made up of a few petite French smoking filles and the rest, pale English rose non eating types, then I… a Northern Irish tree in the eyes of these sticks.  I slouched to work apologising for myself in my non designer clothes, sending out garments, calling them back, tracking all press coverage and sorting through the show room.  On the days when celebrity visits were happening I would be banished.  Somewhere unseen, no one must see the strange Irish girl.  She laughs without a care for her wrinkles.  She eats brownies.  No one must catch sight, scent or smell of her.

Until one day…when Thandie Newton was in town.  She came in with her stylist, she was lovely.  There was no warning, the dragon boss knew but had forgotten to pass it on to her minions, so one minute I was adjusting scarves on a shelf, the next the steps had gone beneath my feet and I was in a heap on top of a pile of shoes with a cupboard door shutting in front of me.

I hear voices, I am about to laugh and excuse my apparent clumsy behaviour when I realize, no, this was the plan.  She of much fame, beauty, clothes must not be presented with real life, with hardship. 

I have actually been hurled into a store room to avoid visual contact with a celeb.  Thandie, her stylist and the dragon take their time wandering around the room, remarking on the different cuts and colours for the season, picking out a selection of next seasons dresses for the premier tomorrow night. 

After ten minutes the voices die down.  Unsure as to whether they are maybe deep in prayer or meditation over these clothes I wait a while more, I try unsuccessfully to squint through the slats in the door but to no avail…twenty minutes pass and I’ve had just about enough of heels.  So I slowly and carefully open the door to …an empty room.  No one had even bothered to let me know they had left the room.  The invisible helper, the no one.

When I next go to a premiere, I’m going to shop in Oxfam, that or I shall parade into that very fashion house and demand that the work experience girl fits me.  The irony of it all of course is that I am now the owner of a Feet On bag, shoes and gloves…a feat I’m rather impressed with.