Like many budding entrepreneurs, I saw a glimmer, aside from the huge discount that I got by selling Avon stuff. The catalogue itself was my version of kiddie porn; all the perfumes, grownup makeup and shower gels artfully displayed for my salivating pleasure, bringing me close to my favorite and first vice, American patting powder. I was so close to it and that was enough for me. For one summer, I went around the tony villages on a pedicab (I could not ride a two-wheeler to save my life and I certainly was too proud to use training wheels) that my mom bought for our household to run nearby errands. I rang each doorbell, looking quite the part in a mini skirt, Top 40 shirt, scrunchie and, yes, my dolled-up-in-Avon-makeup selling wares to amused housewives and bewitching pre-teens to my craft. I was making a killing but by no means a profit. Everything I made went back to support my Avon habit, buying more lipsticks and even having enough money to afford Russian socialite perfumes.
Like every teenager who discovers boys soon after, I quit my dreams of being the premier Avon lady of Forbes and gladly blended in the herd of allowanced drifters who only thought of TV, boys, and the pretty girls they wanted to be friends with. In between my collegiate days, I was off to a career start once again. Although in retrospect I must have made more money as an Avon girl at eight than as an intern in a news station at 18, I felt very adult. I was on my way to greatness.
Fast forward to eight years later. I am really still sweating it like a pig waiting for the decapitation. I wake up every morning feeling that I’m going to be fired or bankrupt or homeless. Even after years of working in the fashion biz, every day I still find a reason to gnaw my nails to the quick and find no time to have a manicure, leaving me with very Gollum-like fingers and a shrink more stressed than I am.
People think it’s easy. Well, I just want them to see how it feels like dealing with hungover models, testy photographers and forgetful designers and try to still be a breath of fresh air to everyone while eating the seventh slice of a cold pizza. In the end, I have never really left my internship status; in Juicy Fruit moments, I’m still changing everyone’s diapers but with better pay.
To get things done, sometimes you have to be a bitch. No matter how nice you are, you can’t say there isn’t a bone in you dispensable enough to whack on some cretin’s head. Otherwise, you’re just boring and destined to marry well and live miserably. I like getting things done, and sometimes I have to raise my voice like a tenor just to be heard, and then everyone hates me and I lose sleep for two days. But in the end, I have completed a fantastic fashion story that everyone will likely forget but me. It’s a Catch-22 situation. I’ve learned who I love to work with but the excitement comes in forcing your way in unfriendly hemispheres. There’s no progress in complacency. Let’s face it: in some cases, the most bitchy models are also the best-looking ones, the most difficult of photographers are god-like, and the most forgetful designers are also the most original. In fashion, being a pro is secondary; the theatrics make more for their legend. As the get-go girl, I have to be a professional brown noser and bite the diva tendencies unless necessary. And I’m a Nazi, and yet I love these people who hate me. So, I sit there quietly and fetch the bitchy model some more tofu chips all for the sake of a great shot.
I’m not saying that they’re all bad. There are good and great ones, too – models, photographers and designers alike. But the artistic temperaments are a factor; the imagination needs some kind of madness to create some kind of aurora borealis for the eye. Except for the models – them you just have to take if you’re a sucker for beauty like me, or outright sabotage their careers through good old backstabbing.
Of course, along with this whole thing comes the crystallization of myths. First of all, you always have to look good. No one is gonna believe you if you look square. You have to look the part, shallow and immersed in the right ephemeral garments, but not look like you really care. In my case, there are days I do care and make a production wearing a really gorgeous dress that I probably will never wear again for fear of remembrance. And there are days when I just don’t and look like Domino Harvey, the real one, not the Kiera Knightley version, wearing something I probably took a nap in and just poshed up for a nah-nah event. So, yes, being shallow is a must in my profession; it’s part of the fairy tale or fantasy that I’m creating every week for my readers. Looking fight is equivalent to a PhD or something; you have to look like you know what you’re talking about. You must pretend to believe that clothes are the most important things. And the scary part comes when you start believing it.
Then, being in such a small industry, only the people in it understand the toils and pressures. The others who simply look at it from afar think it’s some easy feat like Martin Short waving his hands like a diva in Father of the Bride 2 to make it happen. My parents, for example, I always feel guilty about not spending enough time with. They don’t understand that sometimes it takes an hour to create a single frame or lots of exasperated down suppliers. Always saying tomorrow as if it were a new month on the calendar to celebrate Christmas. When my mom calls whimpering, using the dog as an excuse to spend time with me, I just feel like a broken and worthless person who wants her allowance and pigtails back.
Along with the package are the personal reward points that you give to yourself. Well, at least for me, I hardly deserve it. After a long week, I rationalize partying and shopping in some other country for the weekend as something I deserve. Leaving me with a very moody Monday broke and sad. If I have no such time, I’ll just throw it all on something Italian and scaly. Maybe I’m really at the point where I believe this is it. However, I know, I know, I’m not Wintoured out yet when I have my moments cuddling with my dogs and sharing jokes with my parents every time I visit them in their now empty and childless home. There is still a part of me that will always be that little girl, as opposed to the over-exfoliated brat I play for most of the week. That, for me with my hair down in baduy clothes, is the ultimate vacation. And I know I’m not vogued out to doom yet.