PARIS

Couture is overrated

It all started in Paris on Tuesday the first of July, two weeks after I’d graduated from high school. I was relieved that school was forever over and confident that my life would finally change now that I was in charge of my own destiny. I was also convinced that the fashion world was waiting for me with open arms. Still, I hesitated as I started up the narrow stairwell that led to Christa Models.

“We can try, give it a shot,” John Casablancas had said a month earlier, when he came to scout models in Amsterdam and I was the only one he’d picked out of at least twenty other girls.

But as I stared up that stairwell, plastered with images from ELLE, Marie Claire and Vogue, I was no longer convinced. The models looking down from their covers seemed to say – You think you’re so pretty? Prettier than me? You gotta be jokin’, get a life! Haven’t you looked in the mirror, you wimpy shrimp?

They were right. I’d always been bit of a wimp. Crying on my first day in school, crying when girls were mean and boys teased me. Always crying. Crying had been my go-to mood, like I couldn’t help it. But I was done with crying. In Paris I was never going to cry again.

“Alors, are you going up or not?”

I hadn’t noticed the impatient French woman who stood behind me. She was annoyed and practically pushed me up the stairs.

“Oh, sorry.” I said, “I’m going up. I’m here to see Christa. I’m Bee from Amsterdam.

“Ok, ok,” she said as she squeezed past me, “I am Christa, suivez.”

I followed her up to a small reception room, where she told me to wait. I looked around. A white patent plastic sofa was jammed between the wall and a door and there were photos of Christy Brinkley, Appolonia, and Kim Alexis all around me. The smell of French cigarettes mixed with strong black coffee made me nauseous. I wanted to leave. Walk back, like rewind my life, but where would I stop? When, in the past seventeen years, had I been happiest? All I could remember was a longing for the future.

I sat down on the plastic sofa, which let out a long farting sound under my sudden weight. Embarrassed, I looked around to see if anyone had heard. Beyond a glass door there was the booker’s station where four women worked the phones. Surrounded by photos, calendars and charts, they pulled the models’ work sheets from a central shelf to check dates. It was a familiar scene. I’d often watched my bookers work, while I waited for castings at my agency in Amsterdam.

On the other side of the room three bored looking models leaned against the windowsill. I recognized one of them. She must’ve cracked a joke because the other girls laughed loudly, while one booker put a finger to her lips to shut them up.        

The girl who looked familiar spotted me and reacted like she’d just discovered the ugliest creature in the universe; her mouth hung open, her eyes rolled and she mouthed - oh my God - while moving towards me. She took slow, Frankenstein-like steps, pressed her face against the door and pushed it open with her forehead, leaving a greasy mark on the glass.

My legs felt slippery against the plastic couch. This girl scared me. Like what did she want from me?

“Hi-i-i!” I creaked, hating that my voice shook. “I’m-m-m waiting for Christa.”

She looked different, like exotic, with her tan skin and bushy eyebrows. I thought she had the best lips ever and then I remembered her name. It was Janice Dickenson, Casablanca’s latest star. She was the one, the badass American, on all those ELLE covers in the stairway. She came right up to me, grabbed my clammy hand and dragged me into the office. The bookers and the other two models stared at me but no one said a word. Even the phones seemed to have stopped ringing in anticipation of what was to come.  Janice turned around, and pulled me close as if we were about to dance a tango. Then she put her face against mine. I thought she was going to kiss me but instead she sniffed. With her hands on my shoulders she sniffed the top of my head and then my hair. She sniffed my face, and I could smell her breath. She sniffed my shoulders, down my back and around to my breasts. Next she slowly sniffed down every single inch of my body. She stopped at my crotch and sniffed louder, panted like a dog, before turning to her audience and pretending to gag. Everyone hooted and of course I almost cried, but I swallowed the tears until I could hardly breathe. I should’ve pushed her away, said something witty, or laughed louder than anyone else. But I didn’t. I just stood and let her turn me into a dumb, grinning giraffe.

When she was done she took my hand and raised it above my head like I’d just won a boxing match.       

“Dutch has what it takes!” She cried, “ladies, please welcome her to Paris - the capitol of lonely, horny models.”

I was so relieved when a door opened and Christa walked in.

“Merci Janeez,” she said to Janice.

I didn’t thank Janice, I just left her there, with the others, hoping that I’d never run into her again.