by Roxy Jacenko
Instead of helping, Savannah disappeared, which was not surprising. Can you imagine the strop if I’d asked her to rinse out our teacups? I found her accidentally when I walked into the library to pack my mountain of garments back into their suitcases . . . and caught her shoving samples into her bag. Ah, so the blogger was a thief as well as a diva. She blushed bright red when I busted her with her hands full of $20 t-shirts – the same t-shirts that she’d previously called ugly and had to be forced into wearing.
‘I’m sorry, Savannah, but I have to return every sample to Stitched,’ I said politely. ‘However, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear you like the clothes so much, and could give you a media discount for the items you’d like to purchase. I wouldn’t insult you by giving them to you for free. I know free gifts don’t sit well with you ethically.’
As Savannah pulled the t-shirts back out of her bag, I also noticed she’d stashed a box of teabags from the kitchen, a bunch of bananas, and two bottles of hair spray from the makeup artist’s kit. As someone who flaunts her high-end handbags and designer shoe-drobe, you’d think she’d be above petty theft.
I’ve had some difficult days in my career – we once had a shooting at a Converse media event, although that’s another story – but the photo shoot with Savannah was up there with my top ten ‘wow’ moments.
By the time I finally got back to the Bulgari, where I found Shelley asleep under a pile of Harvey Nichols carrier bags, I was delirious with exhaustion and suffering a serious bout of ‘post-event depression’. It’s always the same after an adrenaline-fuelled assignment. Photo shoots and press events can be so surreal and so exhausting that you don’t know which way is up . . . and often fall back to earth with a crash.
I also always have crazy dreams after a day like this, as my brain struggles to process the eccentric characters of the fashion world. That night I dreamed that I was being chased by a chubby blonde driving a fire engine and spraying water from a hose which twirled from the roof of the fire truck like a cowboy’s lasso. I woke up drenched in sweat with a throbbing headache that felt like a hangover. God, I was feeling rough . . . and we hadn’t even got to the music festival yet.
17
I had been worried that I might look out of place at Glastonbury . . . and I was right. Oh, I fitted in just fine in the lofty confines of the pop-up hotel, but once I was inside the festival grounds, I stuck out like a sore thumb. My signature dress sense isn’t exactly bohemian.
Although the photo shoot with Savannah was over, I was still on Queen Bee duty during our stint in the fields of Somerset. On day one of Glastonbury, I was due to meet Bryony the photographer again to take street-style shots of the best-dressed revellers. The top snaps would be used as part of a marketing campaign for The Intersection, the shopping destination in Sydney’s Paddington.
You might think shooting street style sounds like a simple assignment, but it can be tricky – not only searching for cute girls but ensuring they sign the release forms and hoping they can remember exactly where they bought every element of their outfit (we’d got in trouble in the past by saying a patent-leather ankle boot was Dolce & Gabbana when it was actually from Target). It’s hard enough gathering this information at the best of times, let alone when the girl in question is sloshing a plastic cup of cheap cider and has pupils the size of saucers. But that’s Glasto for you!
Predicting that it was going to be a long and highly charged day, I had dressed in an outfit I knew could stand the pace: cropped Chloé pants, a crisp Ralph Lauren shirt and Chanel flats. This fail-safe combo had got me through many a Fashion Week marathon. Even my handbag was practical. While I was at the photo shoot from hell, Shelley had been buying out the high-end shopping mecca of Chelsea (the reality show based on the area was her guilty pleasure), and had picked me up a satchel from Mulberry. You know, the bag that Alexa Chung and her pals all have. She’d even paid extra to have my name embossed on the leather (that’s why she’s my BFF).
I had packed smart and my satchel contained the survival kit I’ve perfected for Fashion Week – bandaids, deodorant, phone charger and nail-polish remover wipes (the latter come in handy more often than you’d imagine). I’d also packed a bright red lip gloss, even though I usually only go for nude. I’d read an interview with Poppy Delevingne in which she claimed that a red lippie was her ultimate hangover cure (‘It really cheers you up’), and I planned to put it to the test if I did indulge. This was a big if, as I fully intended to be sensible . . .
‘Do you think my outfit looks Glasto enough?’ I asked Shelley as we shuffled around our tent that morning. A golf buggy would soon pick us up from our front door; all hotel guests were chauffeur-driven the fifty yards to the entrance of the festival. It really was impeccable service.
‘You look stellar,’ enthused Shelley, who seemed to be going to Glasto in fancy dress – as a Sloane Ranger. She was wearing a pair of Burberry jodhpurs tucked into crocodile-skin Hunter wellies, and a trilby. We were going to a music festival, not a pheasant shoot at a country estate, but who was I to correct her? She’d clearly been reading too many issues of Tatler. I was surprised she hadn’t accessorised with a riding whip.
Yet I turned out to be the most inappropriately dressed of the pair of us. When it comes to Glastonbury, the dress code seems to be ‘cliché’. As we entered the festival gates, flashing our VIP wristbands, I was engulfed in a crowd of clones. When it comes to festival dressing, it seems you just need to follow one simple formula. Cut-off denim shorts with a fringed jacket and/or bag? Check! Suede poncho for cold evenings? Check! Flower hair garlands? Check! Long, tousled hair with a plait and/or feathers? Check! If I took a picture and sepia-filtered it, it could easily pass for Woodstock. In comparison, my front-row outfit made me feel like a nun.
‘I seriously need some coffee,’ I muttered to Shelley as a girl dressed in a sequinned onesie rolled past us on a skateboard, twirling a fire stick.
Luckily we didn’t have to queue at the food stalls for breakfast or lower our taste buds to a bacon and egg sarnie wrapped in polystyrene. I had begged and bartered us access to the VIP area next to the main stage. I instantly felt more comfortable once we left gen public behind us. I feel at home in any area you need to pass through a red rope to access.
No other festival draws quite the same It crowd as Glasto. It’s an institution, which is why the tickets sell out in twelve minutes. Shelley and I were goggle-eyed as we entered the VIP section, which was really just a glorified car park with a pavilion at one end that had high partition walls to segregate the important people from the festival hoi polloi.
The decor was . . . interesting. The area was decorated with mini lanterns, kilometres of fairy lights, and sculptures of life-sized animals, from rhinos to giraffes. There was also a Marc Jacobs pop-up store where you could try on the latest shades, and a Hunter wellies boutique selling limited-edition designs, including a pair with a five-inch heel. Shelley had her name on the waiting list without even trying them on.
Although it was only 8 am, the dance floor was filling up quickly and the stars were already arriving. In one corner Carey Mulligan was sipping from a steaming teacup, dressed in an all-black outfit. At the bircher muesli station, Sienna Miller was loading up a bowl with quinoa and almond meal, trying not to dip her fringed sleeve in the yoghurt. I tried not to obviously ogle Cressida Bonas, who was wearing a pair of denim overalls and her signature scrunchie. And was that Florence Welch chasing a man across the dance floor, shouting that she wanted her wellies back? If only cameras weren’t banned from the VIP area, this would be Oscar-winning content for the Queen Bee blog.
I couldn’t wait until nightfall, when the VIP area was sure to get even rowdier. I have a publicist friend in Palm Springs who oversees the VIP section at Coachella. Last year she texted me all the gossip as it was unfolding. As the cocktails flowed, the celebs turned the area into a playground. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Katy Perry went head to head on the volleyball court. Meanwhi
le, Daisy Lowe got into a ping-pong battle with George Clooney. Who needs sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll?
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay in the VIP sanctuary forever. I had arranged to meet Bryony at 8.30 am by the circus big top so that we could start our street-style search. As we were leaving, we passed Cara Delevingne, wearing denim shorts (of course!) and a fluorescent-yellow shell-suit jacket, with sunglasses in the shape of love hearts. I was starting to feel like a real fuddy-duddy in my smart-casual ensemble.
And I didn’t feel any better when we met up with Bryony. She’d obviously got the memo about the festival fashion cliché and was wearing double denim with a paisley headscarf. The first thing she said when she saw me was, ‘What are you wearing, Jazzy Lou? You look like you’re going to a board meeting. We need to cool you up!’
I looked down at my outfit. This was cool . . . in suburban Sydney. Yet in Bryony’s eyes I needed a makeover, and pronto. There was no point in me going back to the hotel, as my suitcase only contained more of the same. We were standing next to the entrance to a pop-up cafe (everything is ‘pop-up’ these days. Nobody who knows anything says ‘temporary’). Grabbing my hand, Bryony pulled me inside the cafe and over to a picnic table in the corner.
‘Luckily for you, I have my Glastonbury tool kit,’ she exclaimed, unzipping a huge canvas bag with ‘Paul’s Boutique’ stamped on the side. I cringed as she pulled paraphernalia from the pockets – a bag of sequins, a packet of bindis. And was that pink hair dye?
‘It’s only hair chalk,’ insisted Bryony, seeing my worried expression. ‘I just rub it in and it washes out. It will only last as long as your hangover, don’t worry.’
I was about to protest but then I was distracted by the return of Shelley, who had been queuing at the food counter for breakfast. I had asked her to get me something healthy – perhaps an egg-white omelette or some porridge. But she’d totally ignored my instructions by the look of her tray, which was weighed down with food that I couldn’t even identify.
‘What the hell is that?’ I asked as Shelley plonked the plates on the table. They smelled like an explosion in Heston Blumenthal’s laboratory.
My best friend looked proud of herself. ‘They’re all the latest London food trends. I thought we should try them all for the authentic Glasto experience. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Jazz. You can have freakin’ egg-white omelettes at the Four Seasons any day.’
Apparently, I not only had to look like the cool kids but eat like them too. This meant tucking in to bacon sticky buns with date butter, caramelised cauliflower, and a bowl of ‘thirty-ingredients noodles’ which contained a medley of ingredients including ginger, jalapeno peppers and Nutella. Yes, Nutella! I have to admit it was tastier than it sounds.
‘I also got our first round of drinks in,’ added Shelley, who seemed to have conveniently forgotten that I was meant to be working. ‘I got talking to a guy at the bar who looked exactly like Liam Gallagher . . . in fact, maybe it was him. Anyway, he gave me a quick lesson on hipster cocktails.’
She passed me a jam jar containing a cloudy, fizzy liquid. ‘It’s called a “Spiced Daisy”,’ she explained. ‘It’s tequila, orange curaçao, lime juice, agave nectar and juiced cucumber; also maybe some other stuff but I’ve forgotten already. I may have downed a drink while I was waiting for the barman to make the others.’
It was a good thing the alcohol had hit my bloodstream by the time Bryony finished her makeover and handed me a pocket mirror. Holy cow! I looked like a hippie who had fallen into a candy-floss machine. My blonde hair was dusted with pink, there were daisies woven into the ends, and I had star-shaped sequins stuck to my cheeks. But I didn’t want to sound ungrateful.
‘Umm, lovely,’ I muttered, as Bryony started laughing.
‘Loosen up, Jazz,’ she giggled. ‘It’s not like it’s permanent. Anyway, it only looks weird because you’re teaming it with that outfit. I’ve hippied you from the neck up, now we need to transform you from the neck down. Wait right there . . .’
Before I could stop her she was up and running through the crowd, heading towards the cafes. Obediently, I stayed where I was, listening to echoes of Mumford & Sons coming from the nearby stage. Next to me, Shelley was devouring a ‘tequila ice-cream sandwich’: imagine two gluten-free coconut cookies with tequila-infused ice-cream between them. ‘My yoga teacher’s gonna kill me,’ mumbled Shelley with her mouth full. ‘Oh, bugger it. I’m on holiday, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’
That was when I noticed a pile of fabric jogging towards us. By the looks of it, Bryony had just bought a market stallholder’s entire stock. ‘Okay, I may have gone a little overboard,’ the photographer laughed, ‘but a girl can never have too many tassels . . . or rainbow harems . . . or denim hot pants. Now put these on . . .’
And that’s how I found myself at Glastonbury Festival in a mosh pit with 10,000 Kasabian fans, jumping up and down with a glow stick in each hand, yelling at the top of my lungs, ‘I feel aliiiiiiiive.’ I blame the outfit – there must have been some sort of intoxicating substance in the fabric. I even came up with a name for my alter ego, my hippie twin. ‘From now on you have to call me Moonshine,’ I insisted to Shelley and Bryony as we queued at the bar for more cocktails.
I don’t know whose bright idea it was to take a video of me and Shelley in the VIP tent dancing the Harlem Shake with four members of One Direction, but according to my iPhone record I not only sent the video to Michael . . . but also to Hayden Smith. My husband texted back kind of huffily: ‘Well, it looks like you’re really missing us.’ As for Hayden, he texted back a photograph of himself standing topless in his bathroom. OMG! What had I started?
At some point in the evening, Bryony and I also received a text we weren’t expecting – from Savannah Jagger. We found out later that she’d sent the same group message to both of us, the stylist, the makeup artist and the three assistants from the photo shoot. Oh yes, the saga continued,
I need someone to come to my hotel room right now. I can’t get this fucking glue out of my hair. One of you plebs needs to come and do it for me. I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T WANT HAIR EXTENSIONS.
It had actually been Savannah who’d insisted the stylist give her hair extensions, but that had clearly escaped her memory. I remember reading on Savannah’s blog that she usually visited the hairdressers three times a week because she hated washing her own hair. Well, I wasn’t about to drive four hours back to London to do it for her. It turned out none of the crew answered her SOS text. It was the final straw: she’d have to deal with that first world problem herself.
Anyway, when her text was sent, at 2 am, I was too busy leading an Australia versus England dance-off in the VIP area. On one side was me, Shelley, Jess Hart and Ronan Keating’s model girlfriend Storm Uechtritz. On the other side was Henry Holland, Katie Hillier and Pixie Geldof. The Brits were awarded the makeshift trophy (fashioned out of a pint glass covered in tinsel), but I still argue it was a fix, as Elton John was the judge. I knew we should have asked Robert Pattinson to referee it.
By 3 am, the VIP area didn’t seem to be winding down but I had drunk myself sober. As I sat slumped in a deck chair massaging my bicep (I think I pulled a muscle doing ‘Big Fish, Little Fish’), I heard someone holler my name. ‘JASMINE, fancy seeing you here!’ I dizzily turned my head to see Cleo Jones, superstar DJ and Aussie export. Following closely behind was her girlfriend (sorry, fiancée) Chelsea Ware, looking ethereal in a white linen dress, which strained over her burgeoning belly.
Chelsea was due any day now. I know because every detail of her pregnancy, from choosing a sperm donor to insemination and ultrasounds, had been documented on her reality TV series The Bel Air Life. Love them or hate them, they were cranking up the ratings. It had been nearly two years since the pair met in an elevator at one of my parties; if the relationship was all a publicity stunt as critics claimed, they were certainly playing the long game.
‘Jasmine, it’s so nice to see you again,�
� cried Chelsea, who looked suitably more sober than her fiancée. Impending co-parenthood obviously hadn’t dampened Cleo’s party girl – her eyes were wild and she was waving her arms as if conducting an invisible orchestra. She was also carrying a teapot, pouring liquid straight from the spout into her mouth. Was she channelling Lady Gaga?
‘Pssst, Jasmine!’ she hissed, beckoning me closer. ‘Do you want some tea? It’s mushroom flavoured . . . and it’s magic!’
Now call me naive but it took me a good few moments to figure out what she meant. ‘Umm, no thanks, Cleo. I’m actually thinking of getting to bed soon.’ I may be a woman of the world but I’ve never touched a party drug. I’ve been on the receiving end of too many cocaine-fuelled monologues by members of Sydney’s social set to be tempted by backstreet narcotics. And yes, I realise I sound like a hypocrite. I know I once had a packet of Nurofen pumped from my stomach, but those were pharmaceutical pills and I needed them for medical reasons. Kind of. I don’t like the thought of anything bought on the black market – this includes knock-off handbags and illegal substances.
‘Go on, Jazzy Lou, have a swig on me,’ insisted Cleo. ‘It’s amaaazzzing. I can see rainbows in my eyeballs. I can hear our unborn baby singing to meeee.’
I glanced at Chelsea to see if she was buying into this bullshit, but she had wandered over to the snack station and was guzzling hot chips out of a paper cone. So much for the trendy food options – even A-listers want a greasy takeaway at the end of a night out.
By this point I just wanted my own bed. My feet were killing me, and I’d misplaced Shelley, who I’d last seen snogging the Liam Gallagher look-alike (who could well have been the real Liam Gallagher. I’d only seen the back of his head). I couldn’t believe my best friend had hooked up with someone. This was the first time I’d seen Shelley succumb to a man since we were teenagers. It seemed I wasn’t the only one not behaving in their normal manner.