FATSHIONISTA
By
Vanessa McKnight
© 2013 by Vanessa Smith. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author.
Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Prologue
“You.”
With one word, everything came to a halt.
Oh shit. Please don’t let him point; please don’t let him point to me. Oh dear God. Oh shit. Oh no, he just pointed; he just pointed right at me. Why did I have to sit in the front? Just let the floor open up and swallow my chair, my clipboard, my headset, and me.
The music stopped. The two models on the catwalk stood frozen in place, awkwardly wondering whether they should continue strutting their stuff or stand in slack-jawed amazement at the spectacle I was quickly becoming. The cameras that had just recently been pointed at the models turned on me. The flashes were going off so quickly it was like a strobe light.
It was as if every decision I had made over the last two months had come back to haunt me in one flamingly public moment.
And with that, the man whose name was emblazoned on the giant banner above him gave me one last cold look, dropped the microphone, and exited stage left. Fashion week had officially ground to a halt. And apparently I was to blame.
CHAPTER 1
If people could really see what working in fashion was like, they would never, ever think it was all glamour and glitz. Beads of sweat poured down my back as I stood at the top of a ladder and adjusted the fall of the draped curtain one more time. How was it that as producer of the show I was the one who was balanced precariously at the top of the ladder moving a piece of material one inch at a time?
Hadn’t I paid my dues? Where were the grips? Where were the interns?
“Millicent, I don’t understand why you insist on not doing as I ask.”
Yes, I was intentionally prolonging the amount of time my fat ass had to stand up on this ladder for the sheer joy of it.
“Marta, I’m trying very hard to make the adjustments you are requesting in the drapery. I am aware that I cannot see it from your viewpoint twenty feet below me, but from where I am standing, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between one inch to the left versus one inch to the right.”
Five years of working for this aging tyrant of the fashion world had garnered me some rights, such as quietly and respectfully voicing my opinion while grinding my teeth to tiny nibs. Yes, I had come a long way, baby.
“Millicent, please keep in mind that I see everything through the eyes of forty years of experience. It’s not for you to understand the nuances I see. What I fail to understand is how you have worked for me this long and have yet to grasp the length that is an inch. I believe that is the root of our problem—not your lack of understanding, but your lack of knowledge.”
Why don’t you move one more inch over this way and I could accidently drop this light on your head? It might actually shut you up, or at the very least remind you of your poor sister who had the house dumped on her.
“Marta, please just let me know if this is acceptable or not. I have a list of things left to accomplish before we leave tonight, and I really need to move on from the drapery.”
“Hmmmmm,” Marta said as she continued to pace back and forth across the end of the catwalk.
With less than twenty-four hours to go before the presentation of Greta Worthington’s capsule collection for her newest retail partner, I had much bigger concerns than the damn drapes that framed the massive logo hanging at the back wall of the stage. There would not be one soul—not one stinking soul—in the audience tomorrow evening who would even notice there was a drape framing the logo, let alone notice whether or not it completely framed the black border of the logo or simply brushed the edge of it.
Dear God in heaven, I would hope that the damn audience would be looking at the models who were wearing the damn clothes.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead before it rolled into my eyes again. I already looked like a foraging, woodland, night creature. I had been standing under these hot lights adjusting the stinking drapes for an hour. An hour. My thigh muscles were quivering, my feet were killing me. Even the sensible kitten heels of my Manolo Blahniks were no match for the wear and tear of the aluminum ladder I was perched on.
And because I was not exactly—how shall we say this—petite, I couldn’t turn around and sit on the steps of the ladder the way all the tiny girls in music videos did. Nope. This size-sixteen ass of mine was never meant to be this far off the ground, unless of course it was cradled in the soft upholstery of a plane seat. Coach, of course. My ass knew better than to get ahead of itself.
“I guess that will do for now. If I see it in the morning and it still isn’t working for me, you can get back up there and we can try this again.”
She was out of her freaking mind.
Slowly I began the descent down the ladder, gingerly placing one slightly swollen foot, now stretching the bounds of the soft leather to the limit on one shiny metal rung after another.
“You should wear more practical shoes when you know there might be a chance of running up and down ladders, Millicent. Really…you just don’t seem to be putting a lot of forethought into your wardrobe choices these days.”
And with that thinly veiled insult, Marta disappeared into the rows of seats, past the lights, past the camera stands, the sound of her Prada loafers snapping sharply against the concrete floor.
How can so much scathing criticism and venomous attitude exist so peacefully within that seventysome-year-old body? No one knew her real age. I was sure, knowing Marta, that she had personally set fire to whatever building had once housed her birth certificate in whatever small town in Russia she had been born in. Those who didn’t have to work with her or, hell, even know her, thought she looked like the most kind and elegant woman. But those of us lucky enough to work with her knew what was hidden in the depths of those designer clothes. It was as if Jabba the Hutt was encased inside of Audrey Hepburn. Not Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn, but the older, Unicef spokeswoman Audrey Hepburn.
Seriously. I honestly thought if the face was ever peeled back, I would see the giant Jabba tongue come out and lick those giant Jabba lips while simultaneously pulling the chain that was wrapped around my neck. Only I wouldn’t be dressed in the slave girl Princess Leia outfit. That look just can’t be carried off with a softly rounded stomach and sturdy thighs.
“Is she gone?” Two figures emerged from the depths of the backstage. So…they had been back there all along. Nice to know I had such support from my interns. Cowards.
“Ha! Now you show yourselves. Where have you been, you traitors? You abandoned me. I’ve been stuck on this ladder for over an hour—a ladder, I might point out, that one of you should have been at the top of.”
Ryan grinned and stroked his poor excuse for a beard that he had been trying to grow for the last three months. Lizzie h
ooked her thumbs in her stylishly cute coveralls and rocked back and forth on her Timberlands.
“Traitors? Yes, yes, I could rock a turncoat look,” Lizzie said, grinning from ear to ear.
“I’m sure the British are ecstatic with the news. Is there a reason you’re not helping me get this equipment packed up? Would you like to be here when she comes back and notices that the light on the third grid has a slightly darker blue gel than all the others?”
“Hell no. How did you notice that?” Ryan said as he quickly gathered up folders and notebooks.
“Because I’ve been standing on a ladder and staring at it for the last hour, you jackass!”
“Wow, traitor is starting to sound pretty good right now.” Ryan grinned while he took the ladder from me.
“So are we all finished up for the night?” Lizzie asked.
“How is it that you all are always around when there’s pizza or models but never around when I need you to work?”
“Excellent timing on our part, I would say.” Lizzie twisted her short dreadlocks and shot me her innocent bystander smile. I had become immune to that after about two months of working with her, but she kept using it on me.
Ryan and Lizzie were the newest interns at M. Spencer Productions. I had hired them right after the fall collections were presented back in February, and they had never been with us through a true “fashion week.” So far, we had only done some private collections and launch parties, which included a show. This was only their second runway show, but they had quickly learned how to avoid the drama that was Marta. They learned just as quickly that I was the only one who could handle her—or maybe just the only one stupid enough to try. I had certainly been here longer than anyone else. I had a hand in hiring almost everyone who worked at the small, boutique company.
Lizzie finished packing up the remaining seat holder cards and Ryan picked up the leftover water bottles that were strewn around the stage. Models were notorious for disposing of things wherever it was most convenient for them, which was certainly evidenced by the littered catwalk.
“Remind me again why I hired the two of you?” I asked while I flopped down in the chair marked for Italian Vogue and tried to pry my Manolos off my swollen feet.
“Because we make you look good,” Ryan said. “Important people always have lackeys. We make you look good simply by showing up.”
“Oh, yes. ‘Cause I looked real good perched on the top of that ladder. I looked like the plumpest sugarplum fairy perched on the tiniest little Christmas tree.”
“You are so hard on yourself, Millie,” Ryan said as he gathered the rest of the trash from the runway. “You’re the majority, remember? Most women in America—hell, most women in the world—look like you, which, as I have always maintained, is a good thing. Bony women are scary; I’m so afraid I’ll break them. As Jack Black says, real women offer a little more cushion for the pushing.”
“Wow, is it any wonder you’re alone? For someone who professes to love the ‘everyday woman,’ you sure spend quite a bit of time hitting on every model that walks into the office.”
“Merely practice, my dear Millie. I practice on the mannequins so one day I can try my hand at a real woman.”
Lizzie sat down next to me and draped her arm over my shoulder. “Well, I for one like hitting on the models. I think they’re like gazelles, all graceful and delicate. Of course, it helps that a lot of them are into chicks. And of course I just have to wait for Ryan to hit on them and they come running into the arms of the next live normal person they see. Isn’t that right, Millie?” Lizzie pulled me in and kissed the top of my head as she chuckled.
“Yes, certainly. At least now I know why the two of you seem to disappear when the models show up. I had no idea I hired two such shallow lechers who wanted nothing more than to leer and fawn over the talent. How could I be so flawed in my judgment?”
“Ahh, come on. You know you hired both of us because secretly you wanted your own version of Three’s Company, only with a truly gay Janet, not an in-the-closet Janet.”
Ryan threw his hands up in the air. “Would you please stop with the Three’s Company lesbian conspiracy theories? Janet had just as many boyfriends as Chrissie; you’re judging her based on that super butch haircut she always sported. You of all people, Lizzie, should be past clichéd stereotypes.” He prided himself on his ability to advocate for all women, even the misunderstood late 1970s too-short haircut TV actresses. Both Ryan and Lizzie adopted their late-night TV Land addiction from me.
“Enough. I can’t listen to this argument again. We’ll all agree that you both have excellent taste in women, you both have no interest in pursuing event planning or fashion as a career, and if I were smart I would fire both of you. Done? Done?”
Ryan shot me a completely fake, offended look. “Seriously, Millie, I do have some goals around here. I will give you 110% until the day some hot, rich model who wants to spend her retired 30s gaining a little weight and being waited on hand and foot by a hot young artist sweeps me off my feet.” Ryan had big dreams of finding a soon-to-be regular-sized sugar mama.
“Trust me; it’s a plan worth pursuing,” he argued. “Many men live happily ever after with their hot model wives. David Bowie, Orlando Bloom, Ed Burns.”
“John Mellencamp, Seal, Mick Jagger…oh wait…divorced, divorced, divorced.” It never ceased to amaze me how easily everyone remembered the marriages that lasted and quickly forgot those that didn’t.
“And you’re forgetting one crucial point, Ryan. All those men, they were famous—oh yes, and hot,” Lizzie pointed out.
“Details, details. Mark my words, ladies, it’s only a matter of time before these hands are wrapped around the ever increasing waist line of America’s Next Top Model.”
“Well, I guess it’s a step up from what those hands are usually wrapped around.” Lizzie rolled her eyes and stood up. “I think it is ridiculous that you’re shopping around for a rich, hot model, only to fatten her up. Sounds like some warped Hansel and Gretel fantasy you got going on there.”
I laughed out loud and bent over to put on my shoes, images of Ryan basting some poor model in a roasting pan with carrots and potatoes like the witch did in the Warner Brothers cartoons.
“Don’t make my mascara run any more than it already has, Lizzie. As it is, I’ll be hard-pressed to avoid animal control on the way home. They might be worried that I’ll forage in garbage cans or bite someone and give them rabies.” This raccoon look was not doing me any favors.
“Let’s get out of here. First drink is on me,” Lizzie said as we all shuffled to the backstage door. We grabbed our coats and bundled up before opening the door. Winter in New York was no joke, and no matter how many years I lived here, I would never get used to it.
“Coffee. I need some coffee. I still have a night full of last-minute place card arranging and reviewing the schedule for the rest of the shows this week.” I rarely got in the bed before 2:00 a.m., which wouldn’t completely suck if I didn’t also have to wake up at 6:00.
“Coffee it is.”
As the stage door slammed shut, the drapery billowed in the breeze and settled two inches to the left.
CHAPTER 2
And who is wringing her hands together about her upcoming show? Your mama heard that a certain German designer with years of success (read “old”) was worried that her new collection would be considered dated because of the ‘60s silhouettes and calico prints. Your mama thinks it might not be dated but belated…as in the show happened forty years too late. Maybe our German friend got stuck in some steampunk time machine and just made it back to good old 2012. We shall see if it is Little House on the Prairie meets Laugh-In or something chic and sophisticated. Only time, and your mama, will tell.
--February 12th “It’s just fashion, bitches” blog--
My alarm was the sound of the ocean. I had read somewhere that gently waking into your day was better for your health. Jarring sounds and loud music actually over-s
timulated your body and your mind first thing in the morning and could make for a challenging day ahead.
The problem with soothing ocean sounds for an alarm was that more times than not I found myself imagining the soft sand of the Turks and Caicos, the warm feeling of the sun, and I found it practically impossible to shift myself into a vertical position. Thankfully that was where the reality of New York came in. It was kind of hard to sink into the sand and meditate when I could hear the traffic horns outside my window and the toilet flushing in the studio apartment next to mine.
My place was a palace compared to where I had lived when I first moved to the city, but $1,100 a month didn’t buy much insulation and soundproofing between units. Luckily for me, my neighbor was a retired librarian who spent her days visiting with neighbors outside on the stoop and watching Hardball in the evenings. If there was anything I needed to know about what was going on in the world around me, and that was quite frequently as I rarely got a chance to see the news or read a paper, I just had to ask Avis.
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