Beads, Boys and Bangles (9 page)

Which was kind of her. I’ll need it.

One thing is certain, though. It’s going to start well. Before we get on to all the dodgy stuff about factories, Crow will completely wow the Miss Teen team with her new designs and hopefully they’ll all get so excited they’ll agree to pay everyone double and the problem will go away.

Crow’s work over Christmas has paid off. Her designs are always astonishingly amazing, but she’s given me a sneak preview of the new ones and they’re even more extraordinary than usual. Dancing girls in tweed and lace and sequins, jewels and feathers, prancing all over the place like 1920s society queens crossed with exotic birds. You can just see all her conversations with the
mains
in Paris being translated into teenage party gear, with an incredible twist.

We get to the offices on Oxford Street and everyone is super-friendly, which helps my nerves, and Crow’s too, I think. Someone arrives with a tray of hot chocolates and a large plate of biscuits. Amanda comes in, dressed in a Miss Teen sweater dress with an antique shawl over her shoulders, and gives us a warm smile.

Amanda is like your favourite aunt. She drives her little Mini like a maniac, can beg clothes off all the best designers and is an expert on Top London Burger Joints. She works too hard, making sure that Miss Teen is always ahead of the fashion trends. This makes her pale and
thin, despite her impressive appetite for burgers and biscuits, so sometimes you just want to wrap her up and tell her to calm down. But then she tells you about what Miuccia Prada said to Tom Ford on Valentino’s yacht last summer and you realise her life is OK, actually.

Today, she’s full of enthusiasm about how quickly the first deliveries of Crow’s Jewels collection sold out, and how much coverage they got for the launch, and how pleased they are. I feel like I’m in a warm bath of fashion loveliness. Then Crow gets out her incredible sketches and everyone huddles round to have a look.

Nobody says anything for a while. And I feel the temperature get colder.

‘Interesting,’ Amanda mutters eventually.

Amanda never says ‘interesting’. She says ‘amazing’ and ‘wonderful’ and ‘gorgeous’ and ‘beautiful’. Never just ‘interesting’.

‘I like this lace bit,’ says Kazuko, a girl on the design team who’s going to help with choosing fabrics and trimmings to turn Crow’s vision into reality.

The lace bit is a very small part of a very big outfit.

Another girl breathes in to say something, then doesn’t say it.

‘Well,’ says Amanda after a very long pause indeed. ‘I think we have a problem.’

My tummy contracts into a teeny, weeny ball and I can hear a sort of ringing in my ears. It’s like being in double maths when you haven’t done your homework and the
teacher’s just asked a question and everyone’s looking at you.

‘Really?’ I ask. ‘What?’

Amanda sighs.

‘For a start, these designs are very adult. I can’t see them working on the average teenager.’

I glance at Crow. She looks a bit shocked and hurt, but doesn’t say anything. I reach across and squeeze her hand under the table. She squeezes back. This hasn’t happened before. We’re not sure what to do.

‘We need something . . . fresher,’ Amanda goes on. ‘And I don’t want to worry you, but we need to get a move on. Soon our lead times will be getting quite tight.’

I nod wisely. We business managers understand all about lead times. And tightness. Talking of which, the neoprene mini-skirt I chose for today was a definite no-no, on reflection.

You’d think the process would be: design dress, make dress, sell dress. Which doesn’t necessarily take much time at all. But when it comes to a new high-street collection, it gets more complicated. Crow’s bit is OK: design dress. But then the Miss Teen people have to make pattern for dress, choose fabric for dress, get sample of dress, check fit of dress in several different sizes, get new sample of dress, order production of dress, advertise dress, put dress on their website, and a whole bunch of other stuff that explains why their headquarters looks as if it’s designed to run an airline, or a small country, rather
than some shops selling cute stuff for teenagers. This is why they need ‘lead times’.

But Amanda hasn’t finished yet. She’s still looking at the designs and sucking her teeth.

‘Also, they’re not as commercial as I was expecting. They’re just too . . .’

‘Busy?’ suggests Kazuko.

‘Complex?’ adds one of the boys.

‘Undoable?’ sighs another.

‘They’ve got zips,’ I point out, feeling a bit lost. ‘And buttons.’

‘Lloyd means we can’t
do
them,’ Amanda says. ‘Not in vast quantities. Not at the right price points.’

I nod wisely again. We business managers understand all about price points. Actually, I really do. I’d forgotten, but Crow’s designs have to retail for very specific amounts. So much for a tee-shirt. So much for a dress. So much for a skirt. And that’s what the shop
sells
them for. They have to be
made
for a fraction of that. Which can’t be done if they’re covered in sequins, lace and feathers.

Everyone just sits around the table, looking at each other, sighing.

Crow squeezes my hand again. She looks dazed and deflated – even the butterflies in her hair seem to be drooping slightly – and for once she doesn’t seem to have any bright ideas to fix the problem.

Now doesn’t seem the ideal time to bring up the whole
child labour issue.

‘And by the way,’ Amanda adds, through the sighing, ‘we’ve also got to deal with this child labour issue.’

Oh help.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ She’s starting to look less like a favourite aunt and more like my headmistress. ‘We’re already getting lots of questions about our ethical policy. And most of the people mention No Kidding, or that
Sunday Times
piece, or Edie’s website, or all three. They actually believe these rumours about children being used to sew.’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘It’s really difficult. I mean, I know you’ve got people who go and visit the factories to check and everything, but—’

Amanda cuts me off.

‘We have. And they do a good job. Can you get your friend to say so publicly and put an end to this nonsense? Our clothes are made by adult workers who are paid a proper wage.’

I gulp. Amanda doesn’t usually sound like this. Where are the amazings and wonderfuls and gorgeouses? Where did ‘nonsense’ come from?

‘We’ll see what we can do,’ I whisper.

For the first time in ages, she smiles again. ‘Thanks. I’m sure you’ll be brilliant. And I’m sure Crow can rethink the sketches and come up with something a bit simpler and more workable in a week or so. Can’t you, Crow?’

‘Yes,’ we say. ‘No,’ we think.

This is SO not amazing and wonderful.

Five minutes later, we’re standing back outside Miss Teen on Oxford Street and I can’t believe it all just happened.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask Crow.

She shrugs and frowns and hesitates for a moment, before shrugging a bit more.

I know what she means.

‘
P
rice points? Let me get this straight. PRICE POINTS?’

‘Yes,’ I say nervously. ‘You see, if they can’t sell them for the right amount of money, people won’t . . .’

‘Children are being used as SLAVES. Working SIXTEEN-HOUR DAYS. In filthy back rooms. No breaks. No play. No school. And you’re worried about PRICE POINTS?’

‘Not me. Amanda.’

Edie isn’t taking this as well as I hoped. I thought I’d phone her as soon as she got in from her latest chess tournament. Now I’m wondering if it was such a good idea.

‘You haven’t exactly got any proof that children are being used,’ I say.

‘Yes I have. You’ve seen the photos.’

‘They could be faked.’

‘So could that note from Roksanda Ilincic you’ve got framed on your bedroom wall. But it’s not.’

I’m impressed she’s remembered it’s Roksanda Ilincic. Her stuff is
soooo
romantic and Crow’s a real fan. But that’s not the point.

‘We agreed that we didn’t know who to believe.’

‘We agreed we didn’t know what to
do
about it. But I do now. I’ve been thinking.’

I sigh. It’s always dangerous when Edie’s been thinking.

‘It’s not just Crow’s collection, anyway. It’s happening all over the place. Every time you buy some cheap jeans in a supermarket you have to ask yourself how they got so cheap. Who made them? How much did they get paid? Was it fair?’

I have to say, she lost me at the ‘cheap jeans in a supermarket’ bit. I just don’t wear jeans. And I don’t often buy clothes from supermarkets. I make my own stuff, mostly. Or buy it from charity shops. Or ‘borrow’ from Mum. OK, when I don’t get it free from Crow and Roksanda and people, but that’s just part of my job . . .

‘
Nonie?
Are you concentrating?’

‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘You were saying it’s happening all over the place.’

‘Exactly. I’m going to start a new campaign. Phil’s right. We have to take action.’

‘Phil?’

‘From No Kidding,’ she huffs. ‘Remember?’

‘Don’t tell me. You’re going to make tee-shirts. With slogans on. And sell them.’

She’s done this before. I know the procedure.

‘Yes I am, actually. Fairtrade ones that we’ve paid a good price for. Made out of Fairtrade cotton by people who aren’t exploited. I’m just working on the slogan now. I was going to do “No More Fashion Victims”, but Katharine Hamnett’s already thought of it.’ Edie sounds very fed up about Katharine Hamnett. ‘Instead, I’m thinking of “Cheap Clothes Cost Lives”.’

Edie certainly doesn’t muck around when it comes to slogans. I imagine myself telling Amanda Elat about it at a price point meeting. Not a good image.

‘Er, I don’t suppose you could wait until Crow’s done her second collection and Andy Elat isn’t so . . .’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Edie says. ‘No problem. I’ll just hang about while the CHILDREN run up some more nifty little numbers for fashionable teenagers to wear, in their SLAVE FACTORIES.’

‘I’ll take that as a no,’ I say.

She sighs. ‘Besides. There’s something else I ought to tell you.’ Her voice changes and goes low so I have to strain to hear her. ‘I’ve been nominated for this ethical blogging award. I mean, I can’t exactly ignore the photos now, can I? Not when they’re saying I’m a “teenage role model for engagement with issues of world poverty and injustice”.’

‘Wow! Edie? An AWARD!’

She sounds sheepish. ‘It’s just a nomination. The other people are really amazing, though.’

She describes them to me. They are a law student from Brazil who’s saving the rainforest, a high-school student from Arizona with a record-breaking IQ, an Indian nun (yes, really) and some kid from Ukraine who is
radioactive
as a result of the Chernobyl disaster years ago, and is bound to win. God, Edie lives in an exciting world. I mean, Marc Jacobs is a hero to me, but even he can’t claim to be radioactive. Not that he’d want to, I suppose.

‘And it’s not the top award or anything,’ Edie continues. She really is
so
embarrassed about this. ‘It’s just the “rising star” category.’

‘OH MY GOD!’

‘Nonie? What’s happened?’

It’s what’s
about
to happen. The words ‘rising star’ have reminded me: I have a DATE with my nearly-boyfriend in TWO HOURS! What have I been
thinking
?

‘I have to go. Alexander . . . but well done. And good luck. And do the tee-shirts, of course. I’ll even buy one. And Crow’ll be fine. I’ll just . . .’

‘Oooh, Alexander!’ she yells at me, excitedly. ‘Shut up and get going! We’ll sort it out later. Just have a good time, OK?’

It’s how we stay friends. She can switch from Saviour Of The World to normal person, just like that. And she totally understands how cute my nearly-boyfriend is.

Ninety minutes later, I’m in Crow’s workroom, staring at myself in the mirror. Crow’s staring at me too, needle in
hand, just in case I need any last-minute adjustments.

She gives me one of her rare, incredible smiles.

‘I think we’re done,’ she says.

We are. I have been transformed from wonky-haired midget into glamorous fashion queen. I’m in a gorgeous, silver knee-length dress that makes me look at least eighteen. I have proper, grown-up tights on without any patterns, sequins or holes. I have not only high heels but PLATFORMS that give me ten precious extra centimetres in height. Designer platforms by Prada that I shall probably leave to my children in my will.

I’m wearing enough eyeliner for an emo convention and individual fake eyelashes, for extra oomph. And possibly a tiny spritz too much perfume, but it’s too late now.

I have never looked like this before and I probably never will again. I’m a hot babe, basically, and Alexander is going to adore me.

‘Jewellery?’ I ask, panicking suddenly.

Crow shakes her head. She’s probably right. There’s enough going on already.

I grab my jacket and my vintage bag from a little pile on the workroom floor (I’m not
totally
careful with my clothes, I admit), and I’m ready to go.