Beads, Boys and Bangles (30 page)

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘The photographer says he just needs another five shots or so. I’m making sure we cover every outfit, and we nearly have. They’ll be done soon.’

The street children are teaching Jenny bhangra dancing while they wait. Jenny’s OK for someone who hasn’t done it before, but she’s still working out what to do with her hips, and next to the local kids her arms look like jerky windmills.

I look for Lakshmi in the crowd. Normally, when she isn’t with the other kids she’s with me, but suddenly I can’t find her. We’ve hardly been parted since I got to Mumbai and I can feel panic starting to rise. What’s happened to her? Where can she have got to on this huge Bollywood set? Is she OK?

Then I spot her, sitting next to a clothes rail with a sketchbook on her lap and a doll tucked under her arm. She’s staring intently at Crow, who’s sketching beside her. I go over to say hi, and as I approach, Crow looks up at me and grins.

‘She’s really good,’ Crow says. ‘Take a look.’

I watch as Lakshmi eagerly copies a couple of Crow’s dancing girl pictures for me. Even though her fused fingers mean she has to hold the pen at a crazy angle, she sketches with the same easy grace as Crow. And the results are just as sparkling.

I don’t believe it. I’ve wanted to draw like that all my life and even tiny little Lakshmi is already better than me.

‘They’re amazing,’ I say, hoping she hasn’t noticed how totally jealous I am.

Lakshmi gives me her shy smile. She’s still wearing the gold necklace I gave her in spring. How she’s managed to hang onto it all this time, I can’t imagine. I think she’s a tougher cookie than she looks – a bit like Crow.

‘Maybe I’ll go to fashion school one day,’ she says. Well, she whispers it, really. I know that whisper. It’s the same whisper I used in my head when I thought about my dream of working for a designer. It’s the whisper that means ‘it’s too wonderfully impossible to say it out loud properly, but if it happened it would be the most amazing thing
ever
’.

‘You will,’ I tell her.

After all, here’s me, working in the fashion industry right this minute. Well, not working. Taking a five-minute break and chatting. But I’ll be working again as soon as they’ve got the Taj Mahal sorted. And if Lakshmi’s good enough to go to fashion school, I’ll make sure she gets there.

I’ll have help. Crow has been asked to stay on for an extra week and teach cutting techniques on a fashion course at one of India’s best design schools. They think Crow is incredible and they love the idea that they’ll be learning from someone who learned from someone who learned from Christian Dior. So there’s me, with my
textiles GCSE, and Crow is TEACHING the stuff to INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE STUDENTS. You get used to it.

‘Right, we’re ready!’

The photographer is waving, Jenny’s getting back into position and Sanjay is running around, making sure everyone else is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

Then my phone goes.

Normally, I wouldn’t answer it at such a crucial moment, but when I see who’s calling, I do.

‘Hi, Andy.’

‘Hi, kid. Everything OK?’

‘Totally fine,’ I tell him happily.

‘Good. Thought you’d like to know –
Vogue
have seen some of the samples from the collection. They want to do a piece to time with the launch in summer. They might use one of the dresses on the cover. And they’d like that friend of yours to model it. She worked well in the September issue. Curves are in this year. Pass the message on, will you? Nonie? Nonie?’

But I’m not answering. I’ve dropped the phone in shock. Lakshmi rushes over and tries to help me rescue it. We bump heads, scrabbling on the floor, and giggle. She gets to it first and hands it over.

‘Yes,’ I say, breathlessly, into it. ‘Yes, Andy. I’ll pass the message on.’

I imagine telling Jenny that in a few months’ time she
may be a
Vogue
cover girl. And Crow that Jenny will be in one of her dresses. Then I realise that I really have to learn bhangra dancing, because I just want to wave my arms in the air, and those dancers seem to have worked out the best way in the world to do it.

‘Nonie!’ the photographer shouts at me. ‘Come over here! You have a job to do.’

I sort of dance over to him, with Lakshmi following close behind. He’s right. I do.

What can YOU do?

If you’d like to help children like Sanjay, Ganesh and Lakshmi, you can! You can find out more at
www.oxfam.org.uk
and
www.savethechildren.org.uk
. I also support
www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk
, where you can sponsor a child and help a whole village of children get the food, shelter, healthcare and education they need.

The other thing you can do is write to the owners of the shops where you buy your clothes and get them to check how they were made. If you care, they will care. You are more powerful than you know!

Acknowledgements

Writing this book was such a pleasure. And a big part of that pleasure was getting the chance to talk to old friends, and new ones, in the name of research. If by ‘research’ you can include having a delicious curry cooked for you and chatting deep into the night about the delights of Mumbai.

I’d like to thank Lola Gostelow (again) and this time her husband Harry, too, for their advice about charities and the theatre. And to Scott Thomson, who read the draft while actually travelling far and wide to help make a difference.

Alison Stratton cooked the curry, and her husband Jake was just as helpful in describing Mumbai. As was my brother, Christopher Pett, who gave me the idea for the cricket match (which he did in real life).

Ann Ceprynski and Modus are my fashion world gurus. Tanielle Lobo designed the cover dress, advised on Mumbai and gave me moral support. Go, Tanielle!

Sophie Lachowsky gave me more moral support and lots of useful advice just when I needed it.

The Longchamps and the Dampierres made Paris a magical place for me a long time ago, and the magic still lingers.
Merci, tout le monde
.

Claire Potter, Katie Rhodes and Anna Linwood were joined by the wonderful Sophie Elliott in advising me on the first draft. Those jobs as book critics are still looking good.

And a big thank you, as ever, to everyone at Chicken House. Barry, Rachel, Imogen, Claire and all of you. It’s lovely to be part of a team.

Finally, my family. Without you, it wouldn’t happen.

I should mention that I’ve played with Mumbai’s geography for the sake of the story. Please don’t use this as a guide book! The train journey is real, though. Imagine! Twenty hours . . .

Can’t get enough of the girls & their fashion fixes?

www.threadsthebook.com

I
’m sitting in the back row of a mega-tent in Paris, surrounded by fashion students, buyers, editors and movie stars, and watching THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CATWALK SHOW I WILL EVER SEE IN MY LIFE.

It doesn’t matter that it’s hot in here. It doesn’t matter that everyone around me looks so unbelievably chic I might as well have shown up in my pyjamas (actually, the kimono I’m wearing does have a hint of pyjamas about it). It doesn’t matter that beside me a fifteen-year-old in a serious afro is jiggling with excitement and making her chair wobble.

It’s just good to be here. Dior Haute Couture. John Galliano at his most incredible best. Skirts and jackets that are so huge and theatrical they’re almost impossible to wear, but so exquisite you want to spend the next year examining every inch of them. Fabrics that burst with colour and drape like magic. Shoes that are perfect pieces of sculpture in their own right and belong in a museum.
Hair that . . . Well, you get the picture. Galliano didn’t exactly skimp on this one. And we’ve only seen ten outfits so far. We’re not even halfway through.

My friend Crow – the girl in the afro beside me – is a designer. She’s constantly thinking up new ideas for beautiful clothes, and drawing them, and making them. She’s been doing it for years and has a queue of people who want to wear her outfits. But she is a teenager. She does most of it from a workroom in the basement of my house in Kensington, in between GCSE classes and remedial maths. She doesn’t have a building full of seamstresses on tap, like they do at Dior. Or access to the best makeup artist, hairdresser, DJ and set designer in the world, like John Galliano does. Actually, she does have access to the best DJ, or one of them. He happens to be my brother. But that’s beside the point.