Three Stories of Paris

These three little stories are from my experiences as a fashion model in Paris in the late eighties-early nineties.  

Story One

I had bought nine hundred franc shoes and six hundred franc shirts and dined out every night while the money poured in and the work was plentiful.  Then the work stopped coming.  It was between seasons in Paris and the work was elsewhere...Milan, Hamburg, Madrid, or London, but I didn't go.  I stayed and starved in my chic clothes and thought about George Orwell and what he would do.  Getting skinnier was never a bad thing so it was ok to live on bread and tea.  Only, it got to a point where I didn't even have the 2 francs to buy a loaf of bread.  

I had noticed the baskets of stately baguettes sitting pertly outside of the cafés each morning in my neighborhood.  I had always wondered what kept people from nabbing one?  The French Bread Honor Code?  In the spirit of living down and out in Paris, and also because, at 19, I felt I could get away with anything, I decided to take a loaf from a cafe doorway one morning.

I planned out my great theft.  I would wear a large coat, the better with which to hide my crime.   I wore shoes I knew I could make time in, (not the prized ones that could have bought me an endless supply of bread), and I went out very early, before the morning rush to the Metro station had begun. 

My stomach did flips as I neared the café.  I chose an upscale bistro, the one with the oyster shucker on duty outside at his well-stocked station in the evenings, deciding it wasn't fair to pick on the working-man's spot down the corner that had hard boiled eggs displayed on the counter in metal racks and a tobacconist in the corner.

There was no one else on the street.  It was a beautiful morning, crisp-cold and gleaming.  I quickly slid a baguette out of the basket, bent it in half, and stuck it under my coat.  I looked around.  No one.  I walked the two blocks quickly to my building, took the old rickety elevator up to the 5th floor, and as soon as I was in, raced to the balcony to see if anyone had followed me, if anyone stood looking up at my building trying to find the thief, the breaker of the Honor Code.  No one was on the sidewalk, just the early beginning sprinkling of cars in the intersection of Boulevard Berthier and Rue de Courcelles.  I was alone with my baguette.  

It tasted delicious with the salted butter from Bretagne that my friends had brought me.  

A few months later, when I had been engaged as a house model for Lanvin and was making a steady income, I went by the bistro early one morning and left the coins under the delivery basket for the baguette.  

Story Two

My typical outfit for go-sees was a black mini-skirt, low-heeled shoes, a tight-fitting black top, and my leather jacket.  I would sling a large black bag over my shoulder, equipped with a bottle of water and my portfolio, and begin my trek through Paris, Metro guide and appointment book in hand.  I usually went on six to twelve go-sees a day and they were often scattered all over Paris, from cheap garrisons of up-and-coming designers, to the plush palaces of world-famous names.   You could always tell you were getting close to the destination because you would begin to see tall women in tight clothes more frequently.  The amount of models in Paris always astounded me.  Several hundred would always arrive for the auditions, all mind-boggling beautiful.  How did the bookers ever choose?  

This day, I was meeting with a fairly obscure photographer who was trying to get-in-good with my agency and was offering to do a shoot for my portfolio for free.  I was to meet with him and discuss wardrobe and location ideas.   My agent wanted to change my look a bit, Euro me up as they thought my book was too American and I needed some edgier, harder looks to broaden my appeal.  

It was chilly and I had worn black tights under my mini.  Unfortunately, the slippery-ness of the stockings and the knit skirt created an annoying rise with every step I took.  If unchecked, my skirt would end up above my thighs, so every five steps or so, I had to grab the hem and pull it down.  I was nearing the photographer's studio when I noticed two young guys were walking behind me.  I didn't want to adjust my skirt in front of them, but they kept on behind me and I knew if I didn't pull it down soon, they would have a lovely view of my ass through the sheer hose.  I adjusted my skirt and heard a mumbling and I knew they were discussing me.  I crossed the street, the boys did too, and again had to pull down my skirt.  This time, the boys were closer behind me and they called out laughing, "C'est ne pas la paine."  My french was good, but I hadn't heard the expression before and had no idea what they were saying, only that I was embarrassed and mad at myself for wearing the damn hose.

I asked the photographer what it meant, and when he told me, I couldn't figure out if they meant, "don't bother, we want to see your ass," or "don't bother, it's just going to slip up again."

That silly encounter bugged me for weeks.  I wanted to know what they meant.  Though I was inviting the male gaze, actually trying to make a living off of it, I felt shamed by being leered at in the street.  The street was not business- the street symbolized danger.  I courted being looked at and was afraid of it at the same time.  The hypocrisy was beyond my understanding at that time, but somehow those boys and their comment stayed with me and symbolized my twisted relationship with the gaze.

Story Three

As I walked into my agency, Yvette's forehead crinkled up into a scowl as she glared at me.  I was perhaps 10 feet away from her, as she began her tirade: "You have a pimple! You cannot go out to auditions like that!  What are we going to do with you?"  The other models milling about turned to look at me and my pimple.  The shame burned in my cheeks.  I came and stood before Yvette, looking at her skin as she looked at mine.  It was thin and dry from her constant smoking, but she wasn't the one trying to make a living from her face, she was making a living from my face.  She jotted down a phone number and address and told me to make an appointment at a salon for a facial.  Meanwhile, I was to drink many liters of water and stay away from chocolate and frites, which I had been already doing.  

I had never had beautiful skin.  I couldn't understand how some girls ate just like me, washed just like me, and I ended up with eruptions and they did not.  I was always so afraid of breaking out.  I think partly my nervousness about acne caused the acne to happen.    

The salon was in a very upscale neighborhood by the Seine and I wondered how much would be deducted from my next paycheck for this visit.  The treatment included a burning hot mustard peel and then some terrible work with a steel implement that squeezed all impurities out of my face, pore by pore.  I left red and tender and wondered how I would be able to cover it up for the show I was booked for that night.  I went home to my apartment I shared with Odile and applied teabags to my face, hoping it would help soothe and calm my poor skin.  

I could tell the client could see my redness when I reported that evening for the show, but I lucked out and the make-up artist was an angel and after 45 minutes and an inch of make-up, I looked like a knock-out.

It was one of the first shows I had been booked for and I felt I couldn't say no to the work, but I didn't want to do it for ethical reasons.  It was for a famous furrier and I was a staunch vegetarian at the time.  I wanted to be like Carrie Otis and refuse to do cigarette and fur commercials.  I loved the idea of standing by your ideals no matter what, even if it endangered your career, but when it came down to it, I wanted the work, I wanted the career, and I said not a peep about not doing furs.

The furs were gorgeous, and the feeling of them sliding off my shoulder and down my arm, down to the floor where I dragged them behind me was sensual, powerful and that quintessential runway moment.  

After the show, the models were to hang around in their outfits, sip champagne and pose for the press with clients and the designer.  I felt so utterly alien.  I had no idea how to behave, what to say, how to stand.  I was hungry, my eyes burning from hairspray and makeup, the feeling of power and seduction I had felt on the runway had not lasted and I felt like a skinny girl from Stockton, California amongst the Crème de la Crème of Parisian society.  I'm sure I smiled too much, the insecure, "what do I do with my face" smile of a newcomer.  I watched the more experienced girls, but was not a quick study in this world.   

I didn't think I fit in, I didn't know how to succeed, but I wanted to keep trying, I wanted more. I wanted to drag more furs on the ground and pout like the rest of them.

Afterthoughts:

I never walked on an actual catwalk in Paris.  I did small, in-house shows, magazine shoots, three large, staged shows in Pakistan for Pierre Cardin, and some television work.  I worked for Valentino, Givenchy, Lanvin (Claude Montana), a Parisian furrier, Marie-Claire, and a handful of small designers.  I wore pants decorated with  hundreds of bird feathers carefully hand-sewn on, thigh-high red leather boots with a matching cape, evening gowns and suits for lunching in.  I danced the lambada with an upper official at the Prime Minister's house in Pakistan, had champagne with the admiral of the French Navy, spent two weeks on a yacht with one of the richest men in the world, and watched the fireworks over L'Arc de Triumphe on Bastille Day from the home of Arielle Dombasle.  I was invited to the South of France with the owner of the biggest radio station in Paris, dated the Armani model of the moment, and saw Marcel Marceau and Jane Berkin perform live (not together!).  I ate at four star restaurants, flew on private jets, and had paparazzi flashing photos of the entourage I was in and bodyguards taking out the film from those same paparazzi's cameras. 

Yet, I never actually made-it in Paris.  It was possible to rub elbows with this much stardom and cultural power and yet still be a nobody.  There were thousands of nobodies, young, skinny, willing girls like me in Paris, all having their moments of near-fame, all disappearing, to be replaced by the next airplane's load from Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Spain, and California.  I made a living now and then, and tasted enough of this life of "glamour" to know it was not for me.  I left Paris wanting to be an organic farmer.  Afterwards, sometimes I wondered if I had chosen correctly.  What if I had used the tactics of my room-mate, a beautiful Spanish girl with a mile-long name who was attempting to sleep her way to the top.  If I had accepted more of the invitations, schmoozed more with the big-wigs, been more calculating and bitchy, more demanding at my agency, studied the business and made it mine, could I have garnered some enjoyment out of it?  Instead, I felt its victim, constantly afraid of the rejection, of the scrutiny, always feeling like I didn't measure up and caring not enough to seriously attempt to conquer that world, but enough to be hurt by its rejection.    I was too wrapped up in my romantic life, and my dreamy desire for a fulfillment I had no idea how to achieve.  

I had come almost directly from Maui to Paris.  On Maui, I lived in a bathing suit, pareo,and flip-flops.  I didn't own underwear.  Never wore make-up.  I was a quasi-hippie (meaning I shaved).  After a few months in San Francisco, I found myself in Ibiza on a "photo shoot" for my portfolio that amounted to my agency having booked a half dozen eye-candy for the agency owner's personal friend to have around for a couple of weeks.  

I have chewed and sucked on these memories for almost two decades now, trying to figure out what it was all about.  I still sting from some of the moments, from my poorly made choices made from a  chronic hunger for love.  Having been an ugly duckling growing up, the too-skinny girl with greasy hair, glasses, braces, pimples, cheap clothes and a mother that abandoned me, I thought I had found a way to rewrite my life and prove to the world (of course,  to myself, though I didn't know it then), that I was beautiful and therefore worthy.  

One of my biggest regrets of that time is that I didn't write, did not chronicle my daily experiences.  I am able to still feel, smell, taste, and see my surroundings, but I wish I had more of the dialog and verbal snapshots to assist in writing.