Fatshionista (2 page)

“Yes, certainly.
At least now I know why the two of you seem to disappear when the models show
up. I had no idea I hired two such shallow lechers who wanted nothing more than
to leer and fawn over the talent. How could I be so flawed in my judgment?”

“Ahh, come on.
You know you hired both of us because secretly you wanted your own version of
Three’s
Company
,
only with a truly gay Janet, not an in-the-closet Janet.”

Ryan threw his
hands up in the air. “Would you please stop with the
Three’s Company
lesbian conspiracy theories? Janet had just as many boyfriends as Chrissie;
you’re judging her based on that super butch haircut she always sported. You of
all people, Lizzie, should be past clichéd stereotypes.” He prided himself on
his ability to advocate for all women, even the misunderstood late 1970s too-short
haircut TV actresses. Both Ryan and Lizzie adopted their late-night TV Land
addiction from me.

“Enough. I can’t
listen to this argument again. We’ll all agree that you both have excellent
taste in women, you both have no interest in pursuing event planning or fashion
as a career, and if I were smart I would fire both of you. Done? Done?”

Ryan shot me a
completely fake, offended look. “Seriously, Millie, I do have some goals around
here. I will give you 110% until the day some hot, rich model who wants to
spend her retired 30s gaining a little weight and being waited on hand and foot
by a hot young artist sweeps me off my feet.” Ryan had big dreams of finding a
soon-to-be regular-sized sugar mama.

“Trust me; it’s a
plan worth pursuing,” he argued. “Many men live happily ever after with their
hot model wives. David Bowie, Orlando Bloom, Ed Burns.”

“John Mellencamp,
Seal, Mick Jagger…oh wait…divorced, divorced, divorced.” It never ceased to
amaze me how easily everyone remembered the marriages that lasted and quickly
forgot those that didn’t.

“And you’re
forgetting one crucial point, Ryan. All those men, they were famous—oh
yes, and hot,” Lizzie pointed out.

“Details,
details. Mark my words, ladies, it’s only a matter of time before these hands
are wrapped around the ever increasing waist line of America’s Next Top Model.”

“Well, I guess it’s
a step up from what those hands are usually wrapped around.” Lizzie rolled her
eyes and stood up. “I think it is ridiculous that you’re shopping around for a
rich, hot model, only to fatten her up. Sounds like some warped Hansel and
Gretel fantasy you got going on there.”

I laughed out
loud and bent over to put on my shoes, images of Ryan basting some poor model
in a roasting pan with carrots and potatoes like the witch did in the Warner
Brothers cartoons.

“Don’t make my
mascara run any more than it already has, Lizzie. As it is, I’ll be hard-pressed
to avoid animal control on the way home. They might be worried that I’ll forage
in garbage cans or bite someone and give them rabies.” This raccoon look was
not doing me any favors.

“Let’s get out of
here. First drink is on me,” Lizzie said as we all shuffled to the backstage
door.  We grabbed our coats and bundled up before opening the door. Winter
in New York was no joke, and no matter how many years I lived here, I would
never get used to it.

“Coffee. I need
some coffee. I still have a night full of last-minute place card arranging and
reviewing the schedule for the rest of the shows this week.” I rarely got in
the bed before 2:00 a.m., which wouldn’t completely suck if I didn’t also have
to wake up at 6:00.

“Coffee it is.”

As the stage door
slammed shut, the drapery billowed in the breeze and settled two inches to the
left.

And who is
wringing her hands together about her upcoming show? Your mama heard that a
certain German designer with years of success (read “old”) was worried that her
new collection would be considered dated because of the ‘60s silhouettes and
calico prints. Your mama thinks it might not be dated but belated…as in the
show happened forty years too late. Maybe our German friend got stuck in some
steampunk time machine and just made it back to good old 2012. We shall see if
it is
Little House on the Prairie
meets
Laugh-In
or something
chic and sophisticated. Only time, and your mama, will tell.

--February
12th “It’s just fashion, bitches” blog--

My alarm was the
sound of the ocean. I had read somewhere that gently waking into your day was
better for your health. Jarring sounds and loud music actually over-stimulated
your body and your mind first thing in the morning and could make for a
challenging day ahead.

The problem with
soothing ocean sounds for an alarm was that more times than not I found myself
imagining the soft sand of the Turks and Caicos, the warm feeling of the sun,
and I found it practically impossible to shift myself into a vertical position.
Thankfully that was where the reality of New York came in. It was kind of hard
to sink into the sand and meditate when I could hear the traffic horns outside
my window and the toilet flushing in the studio apartment next to mine.

My place was a
palace compared to where I had lived when I first moved to the city, but $1,100
a month didn’t buy much insulation and soundproofing between units. Luckily for
me, my neighbor was a retired librarian who spent her days visiting with
neighbors outside on the stoop and watching
Hardball
in the evenings. If
there was anything I needed to know about what was going on in the world around
me, and that was quite frequently as I rarely got a chance to see the news or
read a paper, I just had to ask Avis.

Casting all
dreams of sunning the day away aside, I threw back the covers and swung my feet
over the edge of the bed. It was a good thing that I actually liked what I did.
As miserable as it made me, I would never be able to face the day if I didn’t
truly like the work. Like, not love. And this job gave me access to the world I
needed. The real breadwinner in this tiny studio was not the “assistant producer,”
but the Sherlock Holmes.

****

“Millie, where
the hell have you been? Marta has been yelling your name for the last half
hour!”

Marcus, our stage
manager, was completely incapable of dealing with Marta. He froze like a deer
in the headlights whenever she approached. His M.O. was to duck his head and
mumble something while briskly walking past her. For years, Marta believed he
was deaf and couldn’t understand how I was able to communicate with him, let
alone produce a high-quality production. She told everyone she was an industry
leader because of her hiring of the handicapped.

“I’m here now,
Marcus. It was the best I could do. She wanted me to drop off the newest
proposal at Ram Patel’s office, and they don’t open until eight o’clock.”

“She couldn’t
have sent that over with a courier?”

I couldn’t get
the words out before he beat me to it: “At M. Spencer Productions, we are the
face of our company, not couriers.”

“Yes, who knew
that I was the only face?”

“Hang in there,
girl, fashion week is almost over.”

And not a moment
too soon. Every season, we pushed ourselves to the brink; we booked too many
shows, and some on the same day, and there was little sleep to be had for
months at a time. I loved fashion, I loved the clothes, I loved hearing the
designers discuss their collections and their inspiration. I loved taking their
ideas about how to present their wearable art and make it a reality.

I loved seeing
the top names in fashion publications sitting in the seats that I arranged, holding
the programs that I designed, discussing the set décor that I approved. While
Marta’s name was the name on the door, her involvement in the day-to-day
operations had tapered off in the last few years, except, of course, for the
shows themselves. Marta was always around for every rehearsal and show.

I pulled out my
list of things to do and walked around checking that all the place cards were
in the chairs, the floors were swept, and the runway was sparkling. There was nothing
like a stray button on the runway to trip up a model stomping down in a seven-inch
heel. Shows with a downed model were remembered for all the wrong reasons and were
not good for business.

As I headed back
into the dressing, makeup, and hair areas, it was still relatively quiet. The
show didn’t start until 7:00 p.m., so the stations were still neat and tidy
with kit bags and curling irons as far as the eye could see. Interns were
wheeling in the racks of clothing, each outfit numbered and bagged up with the
corresponding accessories.

This was always
my favorite part of the show. Not the flashing of the cameras on the runway or
the press interviews post-show, but this quiet before the storm—when it
was all about the clothes and the ideas and visions of a few very talented
individuals. This was what I loved about fashion.

I admired art. I
admired anyone who could create something out of nothing. I couldn’t draw a
straight line, couldn’t sew a seam, and couldn’t knit a scarf. My mother used
to make fun of me when she attempted to teach me knitting. My scarf would
slowly become lopsided as I dropped stitches on one end and added them to
another. How anyone could dream, draw, and then create out of fabric these
beautiful works of art was beyond me. The least I could do was create a
fabulously exciting venue in which they could market and showcase their art. I
thought of fashion shows as mini, mobile art museums. They took months to
prepare for: the concept, the music, the lights, the hair, the makeup, the set decoration,
the look books…and were over in a heartbeat. But they lived on in print and
digital publications. Some groundbreaking shows even achieved immortality,
forever captured in some book discussing the history of this ever-evolving art
form. And I could be a small part of that. I was very lucky.

“Um, Millie?
Marta’s still looking for you,” Marcus said from behind the curtain. “Something
about the drapes not looking right. Oh, and she wants to know what the
contingency plan is if Paris Hilton’s dog decides to get out of her purse and
shit on the floor.”

Right, “lucky.”
Hmmm. Maybe I need to rethink my definition of that term.

“Thanks, Marcus,
go back to hiding. I have it under control.”

****

The show went off
without a hitch. No dog poop, no downed models, and thankfully, no Marta. She
stayed in the back of the hall and only emerged when the lights came up and the
video cameras came on. She was the face of the company, and it certainly was a
lovely face. Her Russian heritage was evident in her sharp cheekbones and
steely blue eyes.

I sighed with
just a slight bit of jealousy. Even at seventy-two, Marta was more accepted by
the media types covering fashion than I was. How in this day and age can a
young, hip, relatively attractive twenty-eight-year-old be usurped by a tall,
thin, bony septuagenarian? Oh, right. The fashion industry: where one could
grow old, but never fat.

Oh, well. It was
never about the fame for me, although I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at
the fortune. Money had a special way of making you accept the things about yourself
that you didn’t like. Enough money and it didn’t matter how big your butt was.

God, I was
becoming as jaded as everyone around me. When did that start?
Oh, right,
about two weeks after you started working here…which would be five years ago
tomorrow. How should I celebrate my anniversary? Hmmmm… Dancing? Drinking?
Partying into the wee hours of the morning with my friends?

Oh, yeah. I would
be prepping the Ram Patel show. If I was lucky, maybe this time I could keep my
ass off the ladder.

At least I wasn’t
on the ladder. Thankfully, Ryan couldn’t run fast enough this time, and he was
now teetering at the top of said ladder, adjusting the silk saris that hung
down around Ram Patel’s name and logo. While I was glad to not be sugarplum-fairiying
it at the top of the ladder, it unfortunately meant I was out in the audience
taking note after note from Marta.

“Really,
Millicent. I fail to understand why it feels as if with every show, you and I
begin anew. One would think that by this time you would understand my vision
and be able to recreate that on the stage. This décor looks like it came
straight out of the Hindu dance scene in
Moulin Rouge
.”

It never ceased
to amaze me how something I found so fantastic, Marta simultaneously found
revolting.

“Marta, it
is
the
Moulin Rouge
set from the Hindu dance scene. This is what Ram asked
for specifically. He even had pictures of it at our first meeting, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,”
she snapped at me. “What are you implying?”

Sigh.
“I’m
not implying anything, Marta. I was simply reminding you that what we created
is to the exact specifications of the client. While I respect your creative
input, I don’t see where we can be critical when he has been quite specific
about his vision.”

“Yes, but does it
have to be so literal?”