by Rosie Nixon
Of course, most of the store’s reputation was down to its owner, Jasmine Smith—an elegant, fifty-something ex-model with cheekbones that make Kate Moss’s look fleshy. Jas’s talent for spotting a bestseller on the crowded runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris was second to none. But it was her skill in mixing up cutting-edge items from the designer collections with carefully chosen pieces from the debut lines of the fashion stars of tomorrow—often fresh from their Central Saint Martins graduation show—that had made Smith’s the most successful, long-running, independent luxury fashion outlet in central London and a destination for stylists and shoppers alike. ‘God is in the detail,’ is Jas’s mantra, and neither Kiki nor I would dare argue.
I was often mesmerised by my chic manager and her stylish customers. It was only now, after working here for the past twelve months, that I felt just about cool enough for this store. The truth was, I got the position by default. It was originally offered to my fashionista best friend and flatmate, Vicky, who then got her dream job as assistant to the fashion editor at Glamour magazine. I was temping at the time, which everyone knew was a fast track to nowhere, so she passed this job to me, and Jas said yes.
Until this position, I was more your average Debenhams devotee and Gok Wan fan. Topshop was my fashion frontline and Armani simply the fragrance my parents gave each other for Christmas. Yep, beneath this shiny new surface, I am one hundred per cent fashion fraud. I often see the real me, in the form of typical Westfield shoppers, peering into the window of Smith’s and looking confused.
‘Recession’s hit hard, this place is halfway to closing down,’ they remark, passing on by. At first glance, the shop’s white walls and oh-so-sparse rails might look as though we’re missing half our stock or have fallen victim to a Bond Street raid. But, as I have swiftly come to learn, true fashionistas know differently. The hardcore style set have Smith’s in their Smythson address books because this boutique is a fashion landmark.
Once you step through the glass doors and enter the inner sanctum, you are in an Aladdin’s cave, featuring a small, fully alarmed section of haute couture, rails of hot-off-the-catwalk pieces and Jas’s ‘ones to watch’. Either side of the cash desk stand two tall, highly polished, glass jewellery cabinets, filled with rings set with rare gems, shoulder-grazing earrings, waspish friendship bracelets and sparkling necklaces in pretty, contemporary designs, boasting price tags to make even the most fearsome fashion director pause. Then there are It bags, killer heels, painted pumps and chain-mail belts dotted around on white plinths and shelves, each presented as a unique work of art. Everything is to be admired, stroked, Instagrammed, Pinned, oohed and aahed over by every passing customer in turn. Smith’s has it all. But only in small doses.
‘Nothing makes an item more covetable than if you have to sit on a waiting list for six months before you get it,’ Jas informed me early on. The minimalist interior is down to our strict instruction to put only one of every design onto the rails. Of course, mostly, it’s just an illusion—we have all the sizes, colours and crops in the stockroom, downstairs in the basement, which is the size of the shop floor again but packed with polythene-wrapped clothing. It’s a clever ploy; thinking your size isn’t available only makes you desire something more. And then when we pop out of the stockroom, excitedly exclaiming, ‘You won’t believe it, Mrs Jones! We do have a 14 after all!’—well, they’re already punching in their PIN.
Of course, the hefty price tags at Smith’s are very real. That’s why, like most of the high-end store managers, Jas employs a full-time security guard to watch over the stock—in our case, a burly silver fox affectionately known as ‘Big Al’. He works here full-time, patrolling the boutique and keeping a trained ex-army eye on the very expensive items, which have actual alarms fitted. Though his six-foot-four frame doesn’t suggest it at first, he’s a teddy bear at heart and, like me, is now able to offer an informed second opinion on an outfit if a customer requires it. In fact, despite the fact he’s happily married with two grown-up children, Big Al loves the opportunity for a gentle flirt with a ‘lady who lunches’, especially when she’s in a quandary over whether to plump for the DVF wrap or the Hervé Léger body-con dress. He must be nearing retirement age, but when he removes his stiff guard’s cap to reveal a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, and you notice his bright blue eyes, it’s easy to imagine Big Al was a heartbreaker in his day. You’d be surprised how many phone numbers he’s had surreptitiously thrust into his big, capable palms. Uniforms really do work.
As for me, I know that, in Jas’s mind, what I initially lacked in fashion credentials, I gained with my ‘artistic eye’. My art foundation course wasn’t going to turn me into the next Tracey Emin, but it had given me the confidence to believe I knew what looked good when it came to dressing the shop, and the windows had become my specialist area. Our visual merchandising isn’t on the scale of the world-class windows at London department stores—Selfridges, Liberty or Harrods. But, for a bijoux boutique just off Bond Street, right in the heart of London’s designer shopping enclave, our little shop and its two bay windows gets a lot of attention.
On the morning of Mona’s visit, we had all come in early to ensure the store looked more dazzling than ever. I’d even brushed the shag-pile rug—a first, even in our bonkers little world. The candles sent an intoxicating aroma of gardenia into the air, and the room-temperature Evian and best cut-crystal tumblers were set out. Mona didn’t do Buxton or ice cubes, I discovered to my cost the first time I was dispatched for water without having received this important memo. And Kiki had spent the past ten minutes painstakingly assembling a pyramid of dark chocolate truffles on a white porcelain saucer next to the till (not that anyone was likely to eat one). Big Al was watching her with a mixture of awe and amusement.
‘Dare you to take one from the bottom, Amber,’ he whispered as I passed.
When I started at Smith’s, Kiki had given me a crash course in preparation for a visit like this. Kiki was two years older than me, and boy did she let me know it. She’d been working at the boutique for nearly three years, and she was Jas’s senior assistant. For me, the job was a full-time stopgap while I searched for a ‘proper’ career, ideally in visual merchandising, but Kiki adored everything about it. Waif-like, effortlessly hip and permanently looking as though she’d stepped off the pages of i-D magazine after a huge night at The Box, she had bags of attitude and I was intimidated by her from day one—a situation she seemed to relish. At first sight of me, Kiki had taken it upon herself to educate me in the intricacies of the fashion scene, because I so evidently needed it.
‘There’s a major hierarchy in the industry,’ she explained, as I sat on a box of Diane von Furstenbergs once during stocktaking. Though she claimed to hail from the East End, Kiki still had a clipped, public school voice.
‘At the top are the designers—the holy grail of Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Donatella Versace, Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana and so on. Beneath these are the A-list stars who wear the designers’ creations on red carpets everywhere from Hollywood to Cannes, at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Oscars, collecting gongs at all the glitziest bashes. And beneath these are the stylists, who do all the real work, getting them red-carpet ready and securing their appearances on “best dressed” lists around the world. Sod the little gold trophy—it’s making those lists that really counts. A stylist like Mona Armstrong can make or break a celebrity with a sheer gown or a statement accessory. Remember when Angelina’s leg pose at the Oscars went viral?’ I nodded, sagely. ‘But can you remember who won any of the awards that year?’ I shrugged. My lecturer smiled appreciatively. ‘Of course you can’t. It was a moment that went down in red-carpet history.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘But what works for one could be a horrendous fail on the poor cow who can’t pull it off. It’s a cut-throat world out there and styling underpins it all. Make no mistake, Amber, a celebrity without a stylist is like Kylie Jenner without her pout. We shut the entire shop when Mona c
omes in to choose pieces for her clients—it’s beyond fabulous. But don’t get carried away, it gets really, really stressful in the run-up to awards season. I ate a cheese baguette once.’
It must have been stressful, because it wasn’t hard to guess why Vicky and I had nicknamed Kiki the Stick Insect, or lately just the Stick. I often saw her downing pints of pond-water-looking liquid from recycled water bottles—her famous Super Greens—and the work fridge was always stocked with bags of lettuce and bean sprouts that she snacked on during the day or, more often than not, went off, causing a hideous stench that I would regularly have to clean up. Only once did I see her pick at something vaguely calorific—a lavender macaroon—and that was only because it had been sent in by the fashion editor at Bazaar and she wanted to #Instafood it.
Kiki was hardly coming up for air during this particular lesson.
‘Seriously, Amber, it’s ah-mazing when Mona comes in—she’s been dressing the big names like Jennifer Astley and Beau Belle for years. And if they wear an outfit Mona’s borrowed from Smith’s, when the fash mags come out and we’re credited Jas is on cloud nine. It’s sooo good for business. But it’s not only the red-carpet stuff. I mean, it was Mona who introduced the whole gypsy trend we’re seeing now.’ She fluffed up her billowing sleeves to illustrate the point. ‘The second Beau went shopping on Rodeo Drive wearing a peasant skirt and crochet top—literally all the high-street stores were knocking out rip-offs within weeks. Mona is that powerful.’
I quickly learned that the Stick had a major fashion crush on Mona, and by this particular January day I was well versed in the life of the super-stylist.
As usual, I had spent most of the morning being bossed around by Kiki, before being directed by Jas to finish off the windows. I loved the narrow wooden ‘stage’ between the bay windows and the store—a small space that might have felt claustrophobic, but was a beautiful blank canvas to me; somewhere I could create an image of the woman all our customers wanted to be. Dressing the mannequins, I’d follow Jas’s chosen ‘Look’ from the stack of look books the fashion houses provided with each new collection—usually a ring-bound folder containing photos of a series of models posing in a white studio wearing the label’s latest designs. Really it was window dressing by numbers, but because we held only edited versions of the collections at Smith’s, to my delight, Jas would often let me add personal touches—an edgy accessory or eye-catching shoe—to bring the ensemble to life. We changed the windows on a Monday, once a fortnight, to stop them feeling stale. This week we had refreshed them specifically with Mona in mind—they had to be ‘wow’. Jas had instructed me to put a strictly black and white outfit on each of the two mannequins, a look we then made ‘pop’ with one statement accessory; a bright green leather cuff on one and a stand-out red clutch under the arm of the other.
‘Our girls look stunning today!’ she declared, before suggesting the footwear I should add to each model’s perfectly smooth size seven plastic feet—one was to wear black and the other ivory heels, completing the monochrome vision. As I admired my handiwork from the street outside, I mulled over which pair of shoes should go on which mannequin. Not bad for a morning’s work.
‘Am-ber!’ Kiki trilled from the doorway, breaking the spell. ‘You forgot to steam the Stella!’ Jesus Christ, does she ever let up? Three perfectly pressed Stella McCartney jumpsuits later, Jas conducted a final walk-through to ensure everything was just so. And then, decked out ourselves in on-trend outfits (borrowed from the store for the duration of Mona’s visit; our slim wages could never afford the real thing), we were ready to welcome fashion royalty.
Bang on time the assistant director, Rob, arrived. He skidded on the shag-pile and almost slipped over, making me want to giggle.
‘Great entrance there, well done, Rob,’ he said, quickly composing himself and catching my eye as he laughed it off. My internal laughter then gave way to a fear that the highly polished floor/fluffy rug combo might actually be a potential death trap. What if Mona breaks her leg? Rob pushed a strand of floppy brown hair behind his ear. When he came round to shake my hand, I became aware that my palms were sweaty.
‘Are you responsible for these gleaming floors?’ he quipped.
My cheeks flushed. Despite wearing new season Jonathan Saunders, I still resemble the resident skivvy. How? ‘Sorry about that.’
‘You’d better hope Mona’s put the cheese-grater over her soles,’ he replied. ‘Unlike me.’
I laughed nervously. There was a familiarity about him.
Kiki gave me a withering look. ‘That’s what people on TV do,’ she informed me, loud enough for Rob to hear, ‘to stop them slipping on the studio floor.’
‘I know,’ I lied.
If she was trying to show me up, I didn’t really care. I was more interested in Rob taking off his jacket. He pushed up the sleeves of his grey jumper revealing what looked like the beginning of a tattoo on his upper arm.
Rob was the first to arrive of the team of three. The next, sporting a directional dyed red bob and wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses, was introduced as Fran, the director. There was also a long-haired, lanky bloke carrying the camera, who went by the name of Dave. I inwardly christened him Shaggy. I wondered if, like us, Fran and Rob had put on their most fashion-conscious clothes for Mona’s benefit, or whether they always looked so media cool. As word went round that ‘She’ was about to arrive, Rob hurriedly took down our contact details and had us each sign a release form and NDA. I barely read the words; I was too busy concentrating on trying not to do anything embarrassing.
Today, as ever, you could spot Mona’s sunglasses before you saw the rest of her. Huge, round Prada shades, covering at least half of her small, elfin face, came bobbing down the street, swooping towards the store like a large fly. Light chestnut boho waves with streaks of caramel blonde cascaded around her shoulders; now a flash of matte coral lipstick came into view. She was only average height, even in towering heels—in fact she was more shades and curls than actual person—but in the fashion world, she was God. She paused to take in the windows; I felt a prickle of excitement, hoping she liked what she saw. She looked the mannequins up and down, but her sunglasses hid any kind of facial expression. At last, Mona entered our pristine temple of style. As she made her entrance for the camera, Jas, Kiki and I simultaneously clocked a turquoise cocktail ring the size of a golf ball on her petite index finger. Behind me, Kiki let out a gasp.
‘YSL, new season,’ she whispered, as if we were observing a rare exotic bird.
And then the front door was locked, the shop sign switched to Closed, the French blinds rolled down and we pulled up ringside seats at the Mona Armstrong show. Of course there was no real need to pull down the blinds, to the average person, Mona was just an eccentrically dressed, extremely thin, seemingly ageless woman in OTT sunglasses. But in the world between these four white walls, she was the high priestess.
According to Kiki, my main tasks during this particular visit would be to silently hold clothes for Mona, refrain from taking part in fashion small talk (I wasn’t qualified), try to keep off-camera (not photogenic enough, presumably) and above all, concentrate on not tripping up in the stupidly high Nicholas Kirkwoods I’d made the mistake of thinking I could walk in (hello, bunions).
I’d been fully briefed that Mona’s long-time assistant, Tamara, would do most of the running around, trying things on, holding items to the light and offering opinions on the season’s hottest threads. Blonde and long-limbed, able to pass for a model herself, Tamara was a well-known face on the fashion circuit, too, having been Mona’s assistant for several years. She was the only person—other than Jas and Mona—who I had ever seen the Stick try to make an effort for. When Tamara had once retweeted Kiki (‘Smith’s is now stocking Roksanda! #Ledge’), she’d been bouncing off the walls for days. Today she was more exhilarated than ever about Tamara’s visit because apparently there’d been some rumours among the fashion Twitterati that Tamara might be on the
verge of setting up on her own—that it was actually her who had been dressing some of Mona’s regular clients. She had even been snapped spending New Year on board a yacht in the Caribbean with none other than the BAFTA rising star—not to mention former regular client of Mona’s—Poppy Drew. Plus, there were hints that Tamara, instead of Mona, would be dressing the actress Jennifer Astley for awards season this year, where she was hotly tipped to win a slew of Best Supporting Actress awards. But that’s just gossip.
Until today, when Tamara was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Two
Since Mona entered the store, Jas had been doing most of the talking. They’d begun with the customary detailed appraisal of each other’s outfits—the way peers traditionally greet each other in fashion land.
‘Mad about the ring …’
‘Those shoe-boots …’
‘You lucky cow, you’ve got the Balenciaga leather pants! Isn’t the stretch amazing …’
‘I must get your colourist’s number.’
‘Loving the matte nails. Is it gel?’
And so on. Then they finally got down to the juicy stuff.
‘No Tamara today, Mona?’ Jas asked.
Mona responded by handing her Pradas to Rob, who took them politely. Massaging her temples, she completely ignored the question. The Stick and I tried, unsuccessfully, not to gawp. We felt like we needed to drink up everything about her: her clothes, her shoes, her hair, her skin, which had the kind of pearly sheen that only really expensive make-up could achieve, her whiter-than-white teeth, her bag, her jewellery, the way she moved, her voice. If we weren’t so fearful of her, we’d have gone up and given her a good sniff all over, too. There was an intoxicating musky aroma around her, beginning to settle in the air. Everything about Mona was absurdly fascinating.