Threads (14 page)

The six finalists’ designs are on spotlit boards along one side of the marquee. Granny, who has three original Saint Laurent cocktail dresses in one of the attics after a bit of a splurge in the seventies, processes past the boards, pronouncing on each one.

‘Too sexy. Too short. Too derivative. Perfect. Good effort, but too beige. Too clever for its own good.’

Crow's, naturally, is the perfect one. The good but beige one is by a St Martins student called Laslo Wiggins, whom I've met through Harry. He's one of their rising stars and, according to Harry, a total party animal. I spot him at a nearby table, and he's surrounded by a posse of admirers and dressed like an extra from
Pirates of the Caribbean
.

His table stays busy throughout the meal, which we can hardly eat. There's definitely a buzz about Laslo. Then someone says that the winner will be announced in five minutes, and lots of people get up from their places to gossip and speculate about who's won.

I'm stuck to my seat with nerves and Harry kindly keeps me company. His eyes keep flicking to Svetlana, who's sitting at the judges’ table, but he just about manages to hold an intelligent conversation. Then Mum
joins us. She's been chatting with various fashion insiders and journalists who are hovering around the edges of the room. She looks serious.

‘Laslo's got it, hasn't he?’ asks Harry.

She nods. ‘Everyone says so. When they started off the judging process, before they really thought about who'd done the designs, it quickly came down to Crow and Laslo. They're obviously in a different class from the rest. And Laslo is very . . . ’

‘ . . . beige?’ I offer, quoting Granny.

Mum nods again. ‘But then they realised who was who. Laslo's already practically got a contract with an Italian fashion house for next year. And Crow is, well, nobody. They were worried it would be a waste of a prize. That she'd do that one dress and that would be it. They want to use this prize to really launch someone. And they were worried she wouldn't have the technical skill.’

‘But that's crazy. She's been teaching some of the students cutting methods.’

Mum throws up her hands.

‘They don't know her. She's just a kid with no training. Laslo is . . . news.’

After this, I decide I can't face listening to the actual announcement. My stomach's been in knots all day and I feel a bit sick. I need some air. Granny is busy chatting up some skinny old bloke with unnaturally black hair at a front table, whom she probably knows from a house party somewhere. Mum, Yvette and Harry are all sitting
miserably together at our otherwise empty table. I spot Crow, funnily enough, with Laslo's crowd of students from St Martins, looking as if she doesn't have a care in the world.

I leave the marquee by myself and wander down pathways till I find myself next to a Buddhist pagoda overlooking the river. A very pretty blonde woman in a little black dress is having a quiet cigarette at the base of the temple and waves me over to join her.

‘You from the Saint Laurent thing?’ she asks.

I nod glumly. She offers me a cigarette. I'm sad, but not suicidal, so I refuse.

‘Laslo got it yet?’ she wonders.

I shake my head. ‘He's about to, though. I couldn't bear to listen.’

‘Why?’

She sounds curious and friendly, and I need a shoulder to cry on. I pour out all my disappointment at the injustice of the judging.

‘They're just voting for their friends, that's all. They might as well not have had a competition. Why bother? This could have been Crow's big chance. I'm not sure how many big chances you get. And the stupid thing is, she's probably made more stuff for people to actually wear than Laslo's dreamt of.’

‘Oh?’

I hope she isn't Laslo's girlfriend or anything, and explain about Crow's dresses for Jenny, the Portobello
stand, Svetlana – all the magazines her stuff has been printed in.

‘She's been making clothes since she was eight. She works with a top Parisian seamstress. She knows all the couture finishes. She's always drawing. I worked it out once. She must have done over ten thousand designs since she got to England. She can do Dior, or Saint Laurent, or things that are so original your eyes pop. She did these.’ I point down at my skirts, whose delicate petals are rippling in the night breeze.

The blonde woman nods quietly to herself. ‘Actually, I think I've got a couple of dresses of hers. From that stand in Portobello. I shop there all the time. They're gorgeous little things. Fairytale frocks. And you're right. She knows how to make ‘em. How do you know her?’

I tell the blonde about the school bazaar and the reading programme. ‘We wanted to help her. My friend Edie's done all the work,’ I say eventually. ‘And Jenny's the one who wears the clothes. I'm not sure what I've done, really.’

‘Oh, I am,’ she says with a smile. ‘I'm Amanda, by the way.’ She holds out her hand and I give her mine.

‘Nonie.’

‘Good to meet you, Nonie. We should probably go back.’

We head for the marquee together, following the lights and noise. Inside, now that the judging's over the air of nervousness has disappeared completely and there's a
party atmosphere, with some serious dancing going on.

I catch Harry's eye and do my quizzical look. He nods glumly. Across the room, Laslo's table is full of champagne bottles and drunk, happy people.

I notice that Amanda has gone over to chat to the man with black hair that Granny was talking to earlier. Granny's back at our table.

‘Who's he?’ I ask.

‘Andy Elat. He's the main sponsor of London Fashion Week. I think that's his daughter he's talking to. He was telling me she runs the Miss Teen shops for him. People think she's a little blonde party girl but she's actually one of the most successful fashion retailers in the country. Worth millions. Very nice girl too. Your godfather Gerry knows her from various charity things she's on. Says she's a poppet.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Wow.’

‘Why were you talking to him, Granny?’ Harry asks.

‘We had a little bet going. I asked him to tell me who my dress was by. If he got it right, I bought the next bottle of champagne. If he was wrong, he paid.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Saint Laurent, of course. In honour of the great man. Wouldn't you?’

We look at the dress. It's in immaculate black velvet and brilliantly cut, with a black satin ribbon holding the shoulders in place across the back and a slight cowl in the neckline to reveal an emerald satin lining. Pure YSL.

‘And who won?’

‘I did, obviously,’ Granny says, pouring herself a fresh glass of champagne from the bottle. ‘Crow and I designed this together last week.’

Andy Elat looks over and Granny raises her glass to him. He raises his in return. Amanda gives me a grin. At least I think she does.

Then Crow comes over, looking hot and sweaty and panting slightly.

‘There you are. You have to come and dance,’ she announces.

Harry leaps up and salutes her.

‘Yes, milady.’

We all go wild on the dance floor and watch Crow do her moves. It turns out she's a surprisingly talented dancer, but Harry and I provide serious competition. It seems far too soon when Mum and Granny finally drag us home.

N 
ext day, Amanda Elat calls just as I get in from school.

‘I've had a word with my dad,’ she says, ‘and he'd like to make your friend an offer.’

I wonder if it's possible that Andy Elat might agree to let Crow create her dress alongside Laslo Wiggins's for the catwalk show at London Fashion Week. It doesn't seem likely. Laslo would be pretty miffed to think he'd won the competition, only to have one of the other finalists up there beside him. Maybe Andy's going to let her go behind the scenes, though, to see how it's done. That would be truly amazing. I'd give anything to be there but even Mum, with all her old modelling contacts, has never managed to get me a place.

‘It's about London Fashion Week,’ Amanda continues, quite loudly. I realise I've gone totally silent and she's probably wondering if I'm still on the line. I nod, but this doesn't help much, so I gurgle something encouraging.

‘He'd like to sponsor Crow to do a show.’

‘I'm sorry?’ My brain has seized up. I'm trying hard but I really can't understand what she's talking about. ‘What sort of show?’

Amanda slows down and raises her voice a bit more, as if she's talking to a great-aunt with a touch of dementia. ‘A collection. Her own show for the autumn/winter season. Nothing huge. Just twelve outfits. He thinks she's got something.’

I'm feeling dizzy. ‘Excuse me,’ I pant, while I head for the nearest chair. ‘Her own show? Are you sure?’

‘Yes!’ I can hear the smile in Amanda's voice. ‘It's actually that first dress she made for your friend Jenny that decided him, and the fact that I've got some of her stuff and so have two of his favourite models. That dress of Jenny's was copied by all the big retailers this summer. It was commercial gold. Not many designers have that. He loves the fact she can take couture ideas and make them work on the high street. And he liked it that she spent most of the evening hanging out with Laslo. She's not some quivering fashion ego. He thinks she'd be good to work with. Anyway, can you ask her and let me know what she says? And by the way, if she says yes she's going to need a mobile. We have to be able to talk to each other!’

A few minutes later, Harry sees me sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, looking dazed.

‘Anything up?’

I tell him. He gives me the pitying look of an older brother whose kid sister has obviously lost it.

‘Tell me exactly what she said,’ he says kindly, waiting for the opportunity to point out where I got it monumentally wrong.

So we go over the conversation sentence by sentence and by the end, he looks almost as dazed as me.

‘But that's impossible. She's twelve.’

‘Thirteen. Her birthday was last month, remember?’

We tried to have a party for her, but she wasn't interested. Too busy sewing. We had to make do with a cake.

When Mum gets in from work we take it in turns to tell her. She has to sit down.

‘London Fashion Week? A proper show? Are you sure? What does Crow say?’

I explain that we haven't told her yet. She's supposed to be at Edie's today, doing more reading practice. We've been too busy recovering from the shock to think of calling her.

‘So call her,’ Mum says.

I do. And much to my amazement, Edie and Crow seem to have the same reaction as each other, which is one of polite surprise, without really understanding what all the fuss is about.

Slowly, I try and explain about London Fashion Week, and the fact that twice a year this is when the top designers show their stuff for the following season, and all the big decision-makers in fashion come to watch.

‘All the buyers willAll the buyers will be there,’ I say. ‘And the magazine editors, and some of the biggest clients, especially the stars. And top catwalk models model the clothes. And six months later, that's what's in the shops and on the magazine covers. It's like being asked to be in the final of
Pop Idol
.’

I picture Edie and Crow sharing blank looks and try again. ‘It's the fashion equivalent of getting a scholarship to Oxford. Or Harvard.’

‘Oh,’ says Edie, at last.

Crow is still silent. If I could see her, I bet she'd be shrugging. That girl can be infuriating sometimes.

Anyway, in the days that follow it's a relief that Crow seems to be taking the news in her stride. A couple of culture programmes and some fashion blogs get hold of the story that there's going to be a young teenage designer at the next Fashion Week and suddenly loads of journalists want to talk to her. Mum takes charge and treats Crow like one of her artistic protégés. She decides which journalists Crow will talk to and what type of pictures she will pose for (in the end, only one – Crow hates photos).

Jenny gives Crow hours of advice on how to handle the attention. For the photo, Granny takes Crow to her hairdresser in Mayfair to have her hair done. This is a bit of a surprise as Crow's hair is not exactly typical of his normal posh clients, but he gives her a fabulous cut that reveals, to my chagrin, that Crow, too, has cheekbones.

The resulting pieces tend to be complimentary, but short. I don't think Crow has given them much to go on and the shrugging doesn't help. Edie practically goes spare with frustration.

‘You could have explained about the other stuff!’ she explodes. ‘You had the perfect opportunity.’

‘Explained what?’

‘About why you're here. About night walking. And camps. And child soldiers.’

Crow shrugs her shrug.

‘I come from Kensington now. My clothes aren't about Africa. They're about Paris. And Notting Hill. And the National Gallery.’

Nevertheless, Mum cuts out the articles and starts creating a scrapbook for Crow, a bit like Jenny's only without the evil father and the house in the Cotswolds.

The only cloud on the horizon is James Lamogi. The publicity has filtered back to him in Uganda somehow, and he's worried that his daughter is ‘failing to optimise her opportunities’ because she's become ‘dazzled by the distractions of the metropolis’ and ‘disturbingly obsessed by fashion and frivolity’. Thanks to his fondness for words of three syllables and over, Crow usually needs Edie to help decipher his letters, which is how we know. For the first time, I'm actually quite glad he's a long way away.