She scrutinised me in silence and then the verdict came: she looked down at the ground. The make-up artist apologised, her voice full of anxiety: ‘Mi scusi, signora. Farò altrimenti.’ She then jostled me violently back into my chair and all four of them pounced on me, tearing at the skin on my face and pulling my hair out with brushes until I had tears in my eyes; they were erasing three hours’ work and trying something different, while Signora Prada inspected the other girls. When she came back to me a few minutes later, I was ready and completely transformed. She scrutinised me once again and gave the barest hint of a smile. Everybody immediately relaxed and Madam deigned to open her mouth. In a beautiful Italian voice like the wonderful Claudia Cardinale’s, she issued instructions on fine-tuning my make-up and my pretty triple bun and then disappeared into the adjoining room where the clothes were waiting for us.
They finished off our hair and make-up and then we had to wait for a good hour before each being summoned in turn for the fittings. I spared a thought for Riccardo, who had already been waiting for me for six hours downstairs, and this was surely going to take another three. Seb would be putting in quite an invoice, because he was paid by the hour.
When my turn finally arrived, I made the acquaintance of Olivier Rizzo, a charming Belgian stylist who handed me a pretty dress and chunky, very hard leather Prada trainers in size 5. I asked him if he could find me some size 7s. ‘Sorry, Victoire, we haven’t got any.’ I suggested that I could parade barefoot or in my own shoes, but it was out of the question – Madam wouldn’t tolerate me in anything other than her own shoes, no matter how small and ugly they were. And so he helped me get into them, uttering a thousand apologies. Going down two sizes was unbearable and hurt like hell. Olivier consoled me as best he could: ‘Be brave! At least if you’ve got this far, you can be sure that you’ll be at the show tomorrow!’
Once again, I waited for my turn while trying to focus on not feeling the pain in my feet. Madam eventually gestured towards Olivier, who took me over to her. Again, she looked at me without seeing me at all and scrutinised me from head to foot in silence. With a gesture, she ordered me to turn around; with another, to walk, and then to come back, and then to advance forward again; and then finally to leave.
I turned to Olivier and said, ‘I’m delighted to have met you,’ and then I turned away and, trying not to hobble, I went off to get changed. My cheeks and my scalp were on fire and my feet were bleeding. They didn’t bother undoing my triple bun, so I left as I was, with the humiliating feeling that I didn’t exist at all. Riccardo took me back to the hotel. By the time we got there, it was gone nine.
I hadn’t eaten all day and I had no provisions left in my room. Despite the insistence of my little voice, I still hadn’t figured out a way not to eat at all, and so I ordered a piece of fish and some steamed vegetables from room service, because I had no other choice. I hated doing it, because their portions were monstrous and, even though I never finished the whole plate, I never restricted myself to the absolute bare minimum. On this kind of diet, I was going to get huge. My scales confirmed it: I was touching on 49 kilos, despite the laxatives.
I took my make-up off as gently as I could. My skin was bright red. And then I set about the bun and something terrible happened: when I combed my hair to try to get out all the glue they’d used to hold it in place, a whole lock of my hair came away in my hand. In a panic, I rang Seb.
‘Ah, yes, at Prada they use very aggressive products. Whatever you do, don’t comb your hair, or all your hair will fall out! The only way is to run a very hot bath and spend a good two hours in the tub. The product will dissolve and you’ll get back your mane of hair.’
I hung up in tears. That bastard had sent me over there without warning me, although he was perfectly aware of the situation. Everybody knew that those products were disgusting, but nobody said anything, because this is what happens in this industry. I felt treated in a way the RSPCA would never allow animals to be treated, and yet everybody kept their mouth shut.
I ran a very hot bath and stayed in it for two hours, plus a good half an hour spent replenishing and drying my hair at a gentle temperature to avoid inflicting any additional trauma on it. It was gone one when I finally got to bed, having remembered to set my alarm for six: if I got chosen for the show, Seb would phone me at around 6.30 and Riccardo would come and pick me up at seven.
But he didn’t call – Louise had been right: they preferred fresher girls whose skin and hair they hadn’t spent the previous day screwing up.
And, as it happened, I bumped into Louise again the very next day! It was at a casting at a little Venetian-style palazzo, where we were asked to wait in a delightful garden in an inner courtyard. That made a nice change from the dark corridors and austere antechambers. I told her all about my hair and make-up session the previous day and Seb’s reaction. ‘But Victoire, haven’t you got rid of that guy yet? How do you manage to put up with him? Make up your mind once and for all that Elite is your main agency, and good riddance to him.’ We were in the middle of laying into him when we saw a very tall blonde Russian arrive, accompanied by two guys in vests with rippling muscles and tattoos. Their skin was oiled and they were covered in gold jewellery. Louise commented in a low voice: ‘You see, it could have been a lot worse for you!’ We both laughed. I hadn’t seen that in New York, but here you often came across these pretty girls from the east, escorted by distinctly dodgy-looking Goliaths, who would turn up in these enormous gleaming cars. It all reeked of coke and dirty money …
When I left the casting, it was pouring with rain. Seb was waiting for me in the car with Riccardo. He got out to let me into the back seat. By the time he’d pulled his seat forward and I’d folded myself into four to get into the back, we were both soaked through. I got cross and had the audacity to ask him if it wouldn’t be simpler if he waited for me in the back seat and I sat in the front seat. ‘You must be joking, Victoire. I’m a man and I’m not about to sit in the back.’ What a wanker.
To top it all off, he announced triumphantly that he’d found a new recruit who was arriving that afternoon: Melissa, a ‘very pretty girl’ he’d spotted in I don’t know what street and who, needless to say, would go down a storm. ‘You’ll see, she’s sublime! A real beauty. I’ll introduce you, and I hope you’ll get on well.’ You can count on that, Seb.
How awful – here was I, thoroughly disgusted with this city, this guy and this profession, starting to feel a stupid pang of jealousy! As if I needed that too. How could I feel jealous about this loser being interested in someone other than me, and to whom he’d doubtless given the same bullshit, rather than feeling supremely indifferent to it all? It was high time that Mum came and got me out of this nightmare.
At the End of My Tether
I met Melissa the following day at the first casting, where she joined me with her own chauffeur – fortunately we weren’t going to be obliged to do everything together. She adopted a patronising attitude and described how Seb had spotted her, introduced her to Silent and then launched her without further ado into this whirlwind that I knew so well. I felt a little bitter when I learned that, when all was said and done, her trajectory had been a carbon copy of my own, except that she was arrogant, smug and aggressive. And that she was doing virtually all the castings in Milan.
I was devastated.
At the following casting, I was virtually the only non-Russian. I waited for hours amid this hornets’ nest of spiteful blondes, who spent their whole time poking fun at anyone who wasn’t part of their gang. When my turn finally came and I went over to the casting director, he was in mid-conversation with his assistants, and not one of them so much as looked at me. I put my book on the table in front of them and still they didn’t look up. I did a little parade to the backdrop of their clearly very animated conversation and when I got back to the desk, they were still talking. I wondered if I should interrupt them, get their attention and suggest without being aggressive that I could do another cir
cuit. But I didn’t have the courage or the energy any more. I took my book from the table and left, convinced that they hadn’t seen me and that I’d wasted my time. Seb confirmed this the next day: they’d expressed their surprise to him that I hadn’t turned up for the appointment! How rude could you get?
I had one more casting before returning to the hotel, where I hoped there would be an email from Mum announcing that she’d finally arrived. We waited in a grim meeting room, all sitting around a large table and waiting in deathly silence for a door to open and for just a few girls to be let in each time. One hour, then two, three and nearly four. At a certain point, I just couldn’t bear it any longer, even with Alexis’s music on a loop in my ears. I couldn’t get rid of this knot in my stomach, which I’d been carrying around for days from casting to casting, and so I got up to walk around. They all looked at me as if I were committing the deadliest of sins. I just carried on walking up and down, waiting for something to happen in this room, and in my life. I couldn’t see how I could spend the rest of my life just waiting for hours on end for somebody to deign to look at me and maybe choose me; waiting for people to treat me like an animal, an object, a clothes hanger; waiting for people to speak to me and use me without knowing who I was; waiting for people to choose me without giving me anything in exchange, except perhaps a bit of money.
I didn’t even realise that I had started to cry. Only when I caught the scornful gaze of the other girls and the triumphant smirks of the Russian assassins did I realise that I was in the process of cracking up. I wiped my eyes, and when the door opened to let the next girl in, I just went on in. Nobody protested. They got me to put on a very beautiful long voile dress and I walked for the ‘jury’, my face stern and the anger welling up inside. I did a little circuit and found myself back in front of the casting director, who asked me to change into another outfit. I said no, one was quite enough. They couldn’t believe their ears.
I said goodbye, took my book, got dressed and fled.
I’d been in this profession for a month and a half, and already I couldn’t bear it any more. But there was happiness just around the corner: Mum was waiting with Seb in Riccardo’s car! I flung myself into her arms, told her that I wanted to quit right that minute, that I didn’t want this life any more and that it was just too hard being treated like this. Seb didn’t flinch. It was dark by now and Riccardo took us back to the hotel. We went up to my room and Mum listened to me for a long time; she consoled me, comforted me and hugged me. We decided that I’d stick it out until the end of Paris fashion week and then we’d have a serious think about what should happen next. I fell asleep in her arms.
I had the next day off, but Mum and I nevertheless went to the agency to have lunch. Everyone gave her a very warm welcome and said lots of nice things about me, without seeming to be in the least surprised that she was there. Seb arrived with his new bitch and I went out of my way to avoid him. But at one point he said to me in a saccharine voice, ‘You’re really very tired, my darling. Close to depression, even. You should take advantage of your mother being here to have a bit of a rest.’ I caught Mum’s expression and I thought she was going to kill him! She couldn’t stand the guy any more either, but we’d talked it through the previous evening and it wasn’t yet time to send him packing. We’d sort that out with Vladimir and Flo after Paris fashion week.
For the time being, there were no more castings and so I had a free schedule until the next day, when I was booked for two shows, and there would be a third the day after, and then I could go home: the Milan season had clearly been a washout.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, but Mum and I simply stopped talking about the whole thing – we both needed a break. For weeks she had been listening to me talk about my anxieties and had been trying to console me, reassure me and give me the strength to carry on. For weeks, I’d been fretting over what was in store for me, how I should go about things, the choices I should make and my ability or otherwise to succeed in this new life that I was confronted with.
Both of us were tired, exhausted even, and so we decided simply to do a bit of tourism. We walked around the Castello Sforzesco, visited the cathedral, from the top of which you can admire the whole city, had a look around La Scala and went window-shopping in the impressive Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, with its immense glass-vaulted arcades. On the mosaic floor, we located the bull that brings good luck: legend has it that if you spin round three times on its testicles and make a wish, it will come true. I didn’t pass up the chance. My wish was that the Milan bull would turn me into a contented and renowned supermodel – you have to keep hoping …
We rediscovered some of the Italian friendliness that we’d loved so much during our holidays in Tuscany and which contrasted so sharply with the frostiness I’d encountered since I’d been in Milan. At the hotel that evening, we spent a long time chatting to Dad and the boys on Skype. It was my first family evening in ages! I managed to help Alex with a critical commentary of the kind I used to do at home and which he was having trouble with. He’s the scientist and I’m the literary one. After our chat, we turned on the telly and treated ourselves to two episodes of Desperate Housewives in Italian. It reminded me a bit of my school years at home with Mum.
The following day, I had an appointment with Stephan Janson, a French designer who had worked with Yves Saint Laurent, Kenzo and Diane von Fürstenberg before creating his own brand in Milan. The show was taking place in his very pretty villa, in the middle of a superb garden. It was billed as a small gathering, but there were some sixty guests all the same. Sporting a large djellaba, he greeted me by my first name, as if I were one of them, from the top of a majestic staircase in the middle of a hall whose walls were covered in mounted butterflies. ‘Victoire, I’m so happy you’re here! Come out onto the patio, the others are waiting for you!’ I was pleased to see Kate was there, the tall red-headed Canadian I’d met in New York. I didn’t know the other girls, but the thinness of a small German girl frightened me. How could you let yourself get into such a state? Her complexion was almost green, she had the shining eyes of an invalid and she looked completely exhausted. For a moment, I found myself thinking that she was going to die soon.
Stephan had provided some divans for us to relax on and there was a copious buffet of fresh vegetables and fruit, delicious fruit juices, hot drinks and champagne. He flitted among us, keen to make us feel at home, because he felt that his show would only be a success if we were all enjoying ourselves. ‘This is la dolce vita, so make the most of it! I’ve chosen you for your personalities and you’re all wonderful. I’m fed up with models who sulk. Have fun, be happy and gay – that’s why we’re here!’
He was like an angel and I felt as if I’d arrived in paradise. Then it was time to see my outfits: an asymmetrical light cotton dress with a large, off-white strap and another one made of silk and printed with multicoloured flowers, as if to match the butterflies in the hall. And hallelujah, little finely pleated sandals that were completely flat so that we could ‘dance, turn and twirl’ without any danger of falling over on the catwalk, which was a series of tables set up in the middle of the living room with the guests’ chairs around them.
Before the start of the show, Stephan came to see me to tell me that he’d be delighted if I would agree to open and close his show. ‘You’re like a butterfly, Victoire! When I saw you, I knew that you were made to be an actress. So feel completely free, have fun, be alive and soar!’ I was touched, almost overwhelmed, by so much attention and consideration. There was no way he could have known how much his words meant to me and how much good they did me after the dreadful week I’d had in Milan. He served us each a glass of champagne and repeated how honoured he was by our presence, thanking us for having agreed to do his show. This was the world upside down! I drank the champagne and felt the bubbles race directly into my brain and start to fizz there. The music began, he half opened the curtain that separated us from the catwalk and I danced on the tables among th
e guests with a huge smile on my face. Stephan had made us feel so at home in this wonderful house.
When I came back to get changed, he said, ‘That was perfect! Exactly what I had in mind! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ I paraded for a second time to close the show and then went to get him from behind his curtain so that he could take the applause with the rest of us. He was so shy and didn’t dare come forward, so I took him by the hand. He was murmuring, ‘This is too beautiful, too beautiful,’ and he had tears in his eyes.
After the applause had died away and we were back behind the curtain, he took me in his arms and gave me a hug. I hugged him back, this extraordinary man of such refined sensitivity and of such humanity, who had just bestowed on me such an infinitely precious and unique experience.
And then I had to rush off, because that moron Seb had had the bright idea of booking me for another show two hours later, knowing perfectly well that I’d never get there at the allotted time.
It was for Francesco Scognamiglio’s collection; he was a wonderful and completely off-the-wall designer, who was already famous for having dressed Madonna and Lady Gaga. I arrived barely twenty minutes before the start of the show, at the same time as the guests. I was sincerely sorry and kept on apologising, but nobody was listening – they just all pounced on me to get me ready. Two manicurists were desperately working on my false nails, which were still colour-coordinated with Stephan’s outfits, but they just couldn’t get them off. The hairdresser was a magician – he undid my braids and managed to give me a perfect, volume-enhancing blow-dry in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile, the make-up artist was putting on false eyelashes and applying midnight-blue glitter to my eyebrows. At the last minute, I slipped into the sumptuous, shimmering violet-blue satin coat-dress and the towering platform heel sandals with a mauve panther-skin pattern that completed my outfit. I ran to the catwalk and set off just in time, trying to suppress my anger and hide my left hand, on which the manicurist hadn’t had time to glue the last three nails.
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