Fatshionista (13 page)

“Himming and
hawing? Is that another of your colloquial Southern sayings?” He had to stop
turning those eyes to me; they were derailing my train of thought every time.

“Hmmmm? Yes, that’s
a Southern term.”

I couldn’t stop
staring into his eyes. And I think he had moved closer since we started our
conversation; I didn’t remember his lips being quite so close to mine when we
started this chat.

“Millie?”

“Hmmm?”  was
all I could manage.

He leaned even
closer. “What does this Petri dish of a playground have to do with my show?”

Focus, Millie
.
“Yes, well, I want to capture this feeling of carefree fun in your show. When
we looked at the samples, I was excited about the range of your color palette
and I wanted to figure out a way to highlight it without it becoming a Benneton
or Espirit ad. Anytime I’m faced with a lot of color in a collection, I’m
reminded of their campaigns in the late eighties and early nineties; do you
remember those?”

“We really didn’t
have too much of that in India, but I do recall some of their ads when I was in
London. That isn’t the direction you’re taking my show, is it?”

“No, that’s what
I am saying: I never want to stray into that territory, but
’t
it'
i
s
risky sometimes showing that much color in one collection. Usually there tends
to be a more edited palette with various shades of the same color. Your
collection is kind of all over the place when it comes to color, which I love,
but we have to be strategic in how we present it.

“Which brings me
to the playground. Resort wear is, if nothing else, fun. It’s for your tropical
vacation in the middle of winter and it’s one the few times in fashion when you’re
granted a little color freedom because it is, by nature, a playful collection.
So I think you’ve picked the right time to premiere in Western fashion;
certainly as you start planning your spring and fall collections, you’ll need
to scale back a bit…but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

He smiled and
said, “Nice to know you’re already planning ahead. I like that in a partner.”

“Yes, well. What
I want to do with your show is create the whimsical feeling of the playground
but combine that with the exoticism of India. Almost like a grown-up garden
party, but with bright colors instead of traditional muted colors you would see
there. I want playful music, something almost reggae but not too islandy—we
don’t want to cross over into the tropical, Caribbean vibe. Maybe even some
upbeat Ravi Shankar.”

“You know Ravi
Shankar?”

Whoops.
“Yes, actually I’m a fan of Phillip Glass, and I was only introduced to Ravi
when he collaborated with Glass.”

“Yes, I remember
that album. A little dark, but interesting.”

He
was a
little dark and interesting. As I had begun to passionately describe my ideas
for the show, I had leaned closer and closer to him. I was practically crawling
into his lap. I shifted back a bit and looked around, trying to get my focus
back. Damn, but this beautiful man was quite the distraction.

“So—light,
fun, playful. That’s the spirit we’re going to capture with your show. Your
pieces are dramatic but whimsical, colorful but coordinated. I want to create
the perfect backdrop to that collection. You only have one chance to define who
you are as a designer, and I think showing this collection this way will allow
critics to see the talent you have but also the playfulness you bring to
fashion. I think that’s something that stood out to me in the work you did
while based in India. Even in a country that takes clothing so seriously, you
were working with digitally printed fabrics for saris and creating some
innovative and new ways to dress the traditional Indian consumer. We want to
bring the best elements of your previous work here, keeping your existing customers
but opening you up to an entirely new woman.”

“I love your
enthusiasm, Millie. I know this is your job, I know this is what you’re good at,
but when you talk with such passion about who I am and my designs, it makes me
feel as if you work only for me and you care only about my success. I
understand now why other designers keep coming back to you again and again. But
I wonder, how much does all this passion cost you? What do you have left at the
end of day, at the end of the show, at the end of the season?”

With each part of
his question, Daniel moved closer to me, punctuating his last question by
cupping my chin in his warm hand and looking straight into my heart. The truth
was I had nothing left. I took all the pent-up passion I had and poured it into
my work. I knew it wasn’t smart to give so much to my job and leave so little
for myself, but I couldn’t help it. I envied these talented artists who could
pluck these gorgeous garments out of their imagination and then make them real.
I couldn’t do that. What I could do was showcase them and promote them and help
these artists achieve the audience their work deserved. The passion for their
art was my passion.

I had nothing
left for me or for any man who could work around my ridiculous schedule and my
demanding job. Perfection would be finding a man who understood that passion
and what I had to do to help artists achieve their goals. Perfection would be
this man turning his hand and cupping my cheek and lowering his head and
rubbing his perfectly shaped lips back and forth across mine. Perfection would
be this bench magically turning into my bed and our clothes magically
disappearing, allowing him to perform some magic on my body with that mouth and
those hands.

“Millie, you must
keep some of that for yourself. Your passion is one of the most fascinating
things about you. I would hate to think you leave it all at the office and are
unable to find it at home.” His thumb rubbed back and forth across my bottom
lip. I was a quivering mess of nerve endings, craving the feel of his lips on
mine.

I would like to
say that it was the force of his desire that overwhelmed me, but alas it was a
kickball that slammed into the side of my head.

The force of the
ball knocked his hand away and snapped my head hard to the right. My ear was
ringing and my hand was cupping my stinging cheek as I vaguely heard Daniel
thoroughly scolding the group of young boys and even going so far as to turn on
their mothers seated on the bench to the left of us.

I tried to shake
it off and gather enough of a thought to form a sentence, but I felt as if the
force of our interlude and the big red kickball were working against me.

“Daniel, it’s
fine. It was an accident; I’m okay, just a little sore around, well, my face.
Hazard of the playground. You have to be willing to take a hit if you come out
to play with the big boys, right, guys?”

The kids stood
around, not sure what to say. I smiled over at their mothers. “I’m fine; please
forgive my friend. He’s new to the playground and not aware of the risks
involved in all this fun. I’m fine; you all go back to your game, no worries.”

“Millicent, your
face is red and swollen, and I refuse to believe that you’re fine. I think we
need to get you to a doctor and I think someone on this ragtag team owes you an
apology.”

I grabbed his
hand and my purse and pulled him away from the crowd that had gathered around
us. Leave it to me to try and introduce him to the joy of childhood and the
innocence of the playground, and instead I bring out his inner Terminator.

“Millicent, I
insist we—”

“Hush! I’m the one
who was knocked out. Come on before they all gang up on us.” I was like the
little girl dragging the boy up the rope ladder, only this one was a little harder
to pull. I cupped my throbbing cheek and for a moment hoped I would wake up and
this would be yet another failed seduction dream. How was it that every time I
was with this man I ended up covered in food or knocked out? Maybe it was a
sign. Maybe we just brought the worst out in each other.

While everyone
else is taking a breather from all the fashion excitement, your mama is down in
the fashion trenches (or shall we say gutter) hearing all kinds of interesting
rumors. There is a little bit of a shake up over at Dior. Women’s Wear Daily
reported that current creative director Jennifer Lopez (to the uninitiated or
the first-time readers of a fashion blog: no, not that Jennifer Lopez) is
taking a leave of absence for a year, ostensibly to concentrate on the birth
and raising of her soon-to-be fashionista baby girl.

What WWD did
not report is that this is not by Ms. Lopez’s personal choice. Apparently the
powers that be at the French house of design have not been pleased with the
direction Lopez has taken the company over the last two years and is said to be
sending her away so they can concentrate on finding her replacement. Ooo la la.
Anyone who knows who is on the top of that decidedly short list, please drop
your mama a line and let us know.
Merci beaucoup,
bitches!

--April 1st “It’s
just fashion, bitches” blog--

Thank God it was
Saturday. The last few weeks had been a blur of recovering from fall fashion week,
prepping new shows, and battling corporate espionage at work. I still couldn’t
figure out what Scarlett’s angle was or why she was so hell-bent on making
things difficult for me. Marta had extended her vacation but was finally due
back into the office on Monday. Maybe I could convince her that Scarlett was up
to no good.

Saturdays were
usually spent working my other job. The job that no one knew about—well,
almost no one. My neighbor Avis was in the know. She was retired, lived alone,
and had gotten to the point where getting around was hard for her. I usually
ran errands for her, and on occasion I would take her down the block for lunch.
Once we got her and the walker down the front steps, it was a clear shot to the
deli. Avis grew up in this neighborhood, so becoming friends with her was like
becoming friends with the entire block. It made living in this large city a
little easier to cope with—made me feel like I was back home in the South.

With Avis home
all day and me needing an assistant to help monitor the staggering amount of
tips and tidbits I had filtering into my home email account, it became a perfect
fit: Once she got used to the foul language, backstabbing, and all around
bitchy behavior she had to read, catalog, and rank in importance for me, our
partnership was off and running.

Avis also knew
that my real dream; what really brought me to New York was not my love of
fashion, but my dream of being a writer. I was a journalism major in college
and tried desperately to find a writing gig when I got to New York, but somehow
ended up working a bunch of temp jobs in the financial district. It was a lead
from another temp that got me the interview with Marta. I played up my theatre
background and played down my writing to convince her to hire me. If she hadn’t
been desperate (and for that matter, me either), I would have probably left the
city years ago, my faded dream behind me and a life of Southern suburbia in
front of me.

But fate (and my
sense of humor) was with me that day, and together we landed the job. It wasn’t
long after I started with Marta that I realized two things: first, there was a
lot more excitement happening off the runway than on the runway, and second, I
was the perfect size to be completely ignored. Like I said, I thought of my
weight as a superpower that granted me invisibility.

While being
ignored by the very people with whom you were working could certainly take a
toll on the old ego, one of the things I realized was that people would say
anything around me, because either they didn’t notice me at all or they didn’t
think I was intelligent enough to understand what they were saying. Sometimes they
didn’t even know I spoke English since Marta believed assistants were like
children and should be seen and not heard.

I was left with a
job that paid only half of what I needed to cover my living expenses, a dream
of being a writer, and tons of fashion gossip and innuendo swirling around me
every day. What was a girl to do?

But of course! Take
all of that information gleaned by her power of invisibility and publish it.
And what better way to do that than a blog?

So, three years
ago, my blog was born. I wanted a catchy, cool, slightly dangerous title that
signaled the author was both an insider and someone who could back up her words.
Gossip mostly, but a lot of fact. I decided on “It’s just fashion, bitches”
because it sounded like something I would want to read every day and discuss at
work first thing every morning.

It started out
slow. A little bit of gossip here and there, a little more, information
trickling in, information that no one anywhere else had. But then I stumbled
across the biggest story in fashion two years ago when I was assisting Marta
with the Carlton show. The head designer, Cindy Carlton, had passed away a few
months before, and there were rumors flying everywhere about who would replace
her as creative director. I had even blogged about some of the more interesting
rumors I had unearthed. I was working very late one night when Cindy’s daughter
stopped by to see how the rehearsal was going. Apparently Marta and Cindy came
up in the industry together, and that was why Marta had staged every show Cindy
had ever presented. So Jennifer Carlton and Marta had an almost familial
relationship.