by Olivia Besse
The wide-eyed child had taken in all of the sights and sounds in wonderment, wanting to take mental snapshots of her first major season. Every intricate detail in the couture shows entranced her, and she always found herself looking around to see if everyone was taking note of all of the amazing things that she was seeing. She watched the seasoned models glumly chain smoke cigarettes, wrinkling her nose at the acrid odor. Why would they smoke those? she had curiously wondered, unaware of the fact that she would one day be smoking upwards of one pack a day.
She shuffled from casting to casting and got barely any sleep during the entirety of her stay, the bags under her eyes expertly camouflaged by strategic applications of concealer and highlighter before the shows. The girl found nary a moment to eat as she was thrust into couture gowns and marched down brightly-lit stages. But who needed food when she was feeding off of the excitement of it all?
After strutting down her last runway, the Valentino Haute Couture show to be exact, an enthusiastic Elodie had pranced into the backstage area in her sneakers and waved goodbye to all of her new friends with a big grin. An older model named Lily had patted her on the head with a sad smile, which had perplexed the then-simpleminded Elodie. What did the beautiful girl have to be so sad about?
Despite her excellent season of walking in seventeen shows and even earning a profile on the New York Magazine Models Directory, she still found that she was left with an exorbitant amount to pay off to her three different agencies. Ever the optimist, the young girl had shrugged the number off, assuming that she would be able to pay it back many-fold in due time. Especially since she was going to be a world-renowned modelling sensation. She was sure of it.
Once her whirlwind stint in Paris was over, she had returned to London to work with Janet, choosing to live in an overpriced model apartment there rather than return to her depressing existence in Châteaudun. Being a dramatic teenager, she had declared that she simply could not bear to return to the small town and face Felix or her obnoxious classmates.
After all, once word had spread when she had first secured her modelling contract, her quiet school life had been flipped upside down. The boys around her would not leave her alone, following her through the hallways and asking her to pose for them.
When she went to the bathroom, she would hear the girls gossip viciously about her while sneaking cigarettes outside of her stall. One of her few former friends, a mousy girl named Berenice, had even started a rumour that Elodie had fabricated the whole story and was actually being sent to Serbia to work on a plum farm.
The day before she was to leave for London, she had heard Marine Villeneuve casually mention to Emmanuelle Thomas that Elodie had the ugliest knees that she had ever seen.
How could a girl become a model with those knees? Marine had demanded loudly while she washed her hands. The cruel girl had then gone on to comment on Elodie's face, stating that she had always thought the model hopeful looked like a cat who had sipped some sour milk. How could Felix have ever liked someone like Elodie Marais, she pondered aloud as Elodie listened from behind the stall door with bated breath.
Emmanuelle had then made a snarky quip that Elodie had probably been wearing pants when the scout had met her. Perhaps even a mask of Kate Moss's face, she had added with a cackle. The two had then left the bathroom in a fit of giggles, the door slamming loudly in their wake.
Elodie remained seated on the toilet seat for the remainder of the day, not bothering to eat lunch or return to her desk. She simply sat on the seat for hours, staring at her wrinkled knees, which she would resent for many years to come, as fat tears dripped onto them. In that moment, she decided that she never wanted to return to her miserable existence in that school. While she had once loved classes and learning, she had grown to resent the lycée and its entire student body as a whole.
And then there had been Felix. He had artfully ignored her for the many months that had passed since that cold winter's day, and Elodie's heart had grown cold towards him. But as she had finally peeled herself from the toilet seat and begun walking home from school at the end of that day, she felt a light tap on her shoulder.
"Salut, Elodie," he had said with a tremor in his voice. She had turned around to stare at him with a blank expression as he continued. As he spoke, she felt nothing but a hollow feeling where her heart used to beat warmly whenever he was next to her. Even as he stood but two feet in front of her, his raspy voice sounded as if it were coming from miles away.
He was sorry for having been so distant, he had said, and that he would really like to speak with her after she returned from Milan. She had given him a tight smile and assured him that they would, to which he had nodded excitedly with the grin that used to make her heart flutter.
And with that, she never saw him again.
Janet had proved to be somewhat of a mother figure for Elodie, forcing the young girl to finish her studies online via the CNED so that she could sit for her baccalauréat. "I don't want you to be one of those dumb girls who ruins her future for this," she had said. "You're going to have a degree to your name, or I'm not going to book you for anything!"
So Elodie made her deals with Janet and worked out of London as a real model. She booked fashion and beauty editorials in major magazines and worked hard to build her portfolio and reputation. Elodie was given opportunities that she could have only dreamt of on her tiny little bed in the group home. She modelled couture that cost more than her life, posed with exotic animals in breathtaking locations and travelled all around the Eastern Hemisphere. The Japanese market, in particular, loved her, and she spent three hectic months in Tokyo shooting bubbly commercials and cartoonish beauty campaigns.
After considerable success in Europe and Asia, Janet decided that it was time to let her rising star move on to bigger and better things. So, just as she turned seventeen, Elodie followed Janet's advice and signed to Elle Model Management in New York City, one of the biggest and most prestigious agencies in the world.
In Manhattan, Elodie shuffled endlessly between castings and her model apartment, making few acquaintances other than her handlers and roommates. Many of the other rookie models around her were still fresh and excited, often chirping with each other during the excruciating wait periods before castings. Despite her young age, however, Elodie was already as jaded as a retired movie star.
She often wondered what the other young models were so excited about. Had she ever been that happy and hopeful? A good majority of the new girls, particularly the Americans, were starting their careers out in New York, not having had the extensive experience in the Eastern Hemisphere that Elodie and many of her European counterparts had been given. Thus, they had yet to be ripped apart by casting directors, looted by their agencies, used and abused by the older male models and harassed by smarmy photographers.
They'll see it soon enough, Elodie often thought to herself as she watched the perky bright-eyed girls from Kansas and Missouri chat amiably with each other in the crowded waiting areas. In a few months' time, they won't have anything to smile about either.
Elodie had seen it many times before. So many times, in fact, that it was actually quite humorous, despite the fact that there was nothing funny about it at all. The occasional fifteen-year old rookie would strike it big, causing other genetically-gifted teenagers from around the world to make the costly journey to New York, the mecca for hopeful young models. Fresh-faced girls arrived in droves everyday, each one as determined as the one who came before her. Little did they know that the city and industry would eat them alive so long as they allowed it. She knew the story very well. After all, she had once been one of those starry-eyed girls too.
When she had first arrived, the buzz of the city had given her a new lease on life. She could hardly believe her luck that, at just 17-years old, she was living in the most glamorous city in the world, about to burst onto the scene of the top global modelling market. My whole life is about to change, she remembered thinking as she got out of her fi
rst bright yellow New York taxicab. Sure, the driver had smelled like day-old Mexican food and had grumbled acerbically at her, but nothing could have dampened her naive and cheery mood that day.
Walking into the dingy tenement-style accommodations to which she had been assigned didn't faze her. Nor had the detailed list of the agency's endless fees that the bookkeeper had handed to her upon her first visit to the office. Having her new agent, Adam, tell her that she needed to lose five pounds and an inch in her hips merely spurred a feeling of determination within the girl's hopeful little head. She didn't even mind too much when one of the transient roommates took the $60 bottle of Bumble and Bumble hair conditioner from Elodie's luggage as a souvenir on her way back to Germany.
"She must have mistaken it for her own," Elodie had reassured herself aloud as her Texan roommate, Cassandra, rolled her eyes.
It was only after a few weeks that Elodie slowly began to realize the realities of her situation. Watching her roommates eat only the occasional bowl of spinach caused her to start monitoring what she consumed as well. When the other girls went to sit on the fire escape to smoke cigarettes in their pyjamas, Elodie eventually joined them. And when her roommates explained that cocaine worked excellently to quell hunger pains, Elodie was more than happy to partake.
Soon enough, she was the stereotypical chain-smoking model with a permanent scowl affixed on her face. The endless rejections and critiques had hurt her feelings at first, causing her to spend countless nights weeping silently into her pillow. She constantly found herself comparing her body, face and hair to those of every other girl in the room whenever she went to castings. What do they have that I don't? she often wondered with tears in her eyes as she flipped through the glossy advertisements in fashion magazines.
Eventually, she developed a thicker skin that allowed her to shrug off comments about her supposedly uneven shoulders and slightly lopsided lips. Some casting directors said that her calves were too thin, while others said that they had a tad too much muscle tone. Her lashes weren't lush enough for mascara advertisements, and her arms too long for handbag campaigns. She was too blonde, or not blonde enough.
While she had been warmly welcomed by the European and Asian markets, the gatekeepers of New York's modelling bubble always found something scathing to say. Simply put, there were too many girls competing for too few spots, and the margin for error was, essentially, nonexistent.
In a few months' time, Elodie did not give one fuck. In New York City, she was disposable, as there were at least twenty other girls who had the same look with the same imperfectly blonde hair and the same lopsided lips. They were all interchangeable, and nobody ever let them forget that. At times, she felt hopeless, unsure of how she would ever get a chance to show the world what she could do when none of the clients would even give her the opportunity.
When she turned eighteen, she was freed from the confines of her chaperoned dormitory and allowed to move into a smaller apartment with just three other models, all of whom were just as fed up with the industry as she. And, with time, Elodie began doing fairly well for herself.
By the time she turned nineteen, she was booking the occasional editorial or small online campaign. Not much had changed, save for the fact that she had finally learned how to play the game. That is, she had received one vital piece of advice that had become somewhat of a lifeline for her fledgling career.
While working on a job for an old client in Paris right after her eighteenth birthday, a veteran model named Maarja had decided to take the virginal and frustrated Elodie under her wing. Maarja was wildly successful and always had the most beautiful bags and shoes. Elodie yearned to have even half of the success that Maarja had. And one day, Maarja decided to let her in on a little secret.
They had been sitting in their respective chairs after getting their makeup and hair done, waiting for the production intern to call them over to the set. They were shooting an advertisement for a French skincare company's special care line for teenaged skin, and were to play the parts of best friends frolicking through a park in pink dresses, flippy ponytails and deranged smiles.
While they were sitting around until they were needed, Maarja was purring to someone on her phone, making suggestive comments that made Elodie blush.
"Beebi, you are going to buy me La Perla?" she cooed in a high-pitched voice. "You know I only like lace lingerie. Do you not like it too? It is more for you than me, no? Yes, we can do that... Of course, beebi."
After hanging up, Maarja had looked over at the young girl and smiled sumptuously, to which Elodie squeaked out, "Your boyfriend?"
Maarja had looked at her with a bemused smile and replied, "One of them, I suppose you can say."
"You have more than one?" Elodie had choked out with huge eyes. Who was this woman?
As she admired her own reflection in the mirror, Maarja had given the naive girl a sage piece of wisdom.
"Oh, beebi, I am going to help you. You do not have a boyfriend, yes? Good. You are your body. Modelling, it is all about selling your body. Your body gets you power. It gets you money. It is not about who you know, it is about who you fuck. You are just a mannequin. Bat your pretty little eyes and you can have anything you want. Remember that."
And remember she did. On the plane ride home, Elodie thought back on all of her failed auditions and castings. There were always those girls who sparkled, who touched the rare straight casting director or photographer's arm and giggled charmingly. She thought of the many times that she tortured herself by looking at those finished editorials or campaigns that she had been passed up on, only to see that the giggling girls had been chosen instead.
She thought back on how the girls in the images stared back at her with taunting eyes, as if they were part of some secret society to which Elodie didn't belong. How one revered photographer had refused to keep taking test shots of her when she didn't want to take off her shirt, irregardless of the fact that the photos were to be beauty shots of her face. How one of the skinny teenaged models of the moment was well known to be sleeping with the 55-year old head designer of the fashion house that had shot her to fame. How Elodie had none of it, but those minxes had it all.
Sitting in her crappy seat in Economy, she pondered what Maarja had said. It was glaringly obvious that the woman knew what she was doing. The only question was if Elodie was up for the challenge.
All she knew was that she didn't want to live in debt, and she didn't want to wait amongst a sea of girls for her chance at thirty seconds with a photographer who could care less, only to get rejected for the hundredth time. She wanted to be one of those girls in First Class, sipping on champagne and sleeping in her fully reclinable seat. She wanted the money, the fame and the good life. She wanted what she had come to New York for.
In that moment, she vowed to let the frightened child inside of her go. The little brokenhearted girl, what with her emotional scars and low self-esteem, had held her back for long enough. She knew very well what she needed to do, as had the many girls who had come before her.
Taking a deep breath, Elodie swore to herself that she would get as much experience as she possibly could and make it big. Maarja had passed her the golden ticket. This was her chance. She was going to become the best mannequin that she could be.
Two
There had only been one problem.
While her peers had spent long nights partying and hooking up with the male models, an eager young Elodie had usually chosen to stay in, slathered in face masks and hair treatments. When her old roommates had been busy nursing their hangovers and ruminating over their bad decisions until noon the next day, Elodie had gone to the gym or yoga class instead. She had been so focused on keeping herself in tip-top shape that she hadn't noticed that everyone else around her had been busy embracing their hormonal urges and learning about the power of sex appeal.
If only she had known at the time that her efforts would prove futile, she could have begun her climb to the top at a much earlier
time-point. As she had been focusing all of her attention on trying to book jobs and charm casting directors the old-fashioned way, she was as completely naive as the trepid fourteen-year old girl in Felix's father's office. But, being the determined young woman that she was, she wouldn't let a trivial matter such as inexperience get in the way of her future endeavors.
She still vividly remembered how she had breezily lost her virginity to a male model from Kentucky named Tyler, who had just booked a Prada eyewear campaign. They had all been drinking champagne on empty stomachs at the agency holiday party at a fancy gallery in SoHo, and she had been tickled by his Southern twang.
Tyler was simply beautiful. Standing at 6'2", he had the ideal high fashion body type with a thin torso and long, toned arms. With deep chocolate brown hair that was parted at the side and framed his lightly chiseled face, he looked not of this world. He had thick, impeccably groomed eyebrows that highlighted his stunning light green eyes. She remembered thinking that he reminded her slightly of Felix, though she barely remembered what he looked like.
"You're Elodie, right? I'm Tyler," he introduced himself after she had caught him glancing at her repeatedly throughout the night.