Jenna’s Model Life

Saturday didn’t end up being as bad as all that, despite the best efforts of my hips and Paris’ rain. I had just made it home from my long leisurely stroll through the BHV when I was asked to come back to my agency to meet an agent for a famous fashion photographer (he took certain notorious photos of a British supermodel for an American designer early in her career). The agent mentioned she was thinking of traveling along the coast between L.A. and San Francisco; I said Big Sur was one of the few places in the U.S. that reminded me of New Zealand, and that she wouldn’t regret it. She took some polaroids of me and that was that.

Sunday I had a fitting for a show, which it seemed I had booked — when I was leaving, the director said, “How are you feeling after that?” (It was an involved fitting/rehearsal, with a team of four hairdressers who descended on my scalp to weave my hair into a ragged mess of curls that stood four inches out from my head on every side, and the runway moves were exercised in front of a giant yellow wind machine — you try standing straight, shoulders back, eyelids attractively parted not comfortably squinty, for any period of time in front of a wind machine). The makeup made the models look windburned, appropriately enough — and I was wearing a teal dress landscaped with pleats on top of and perpendicular to pleats. The dress was gorgeous, but I couldn’t sit down in it. The shoes were too small and had a toe thong that burned by the final runway turn.

Still, I was excited as all heck, so I said I was feeling très bien, and he said, “Alors, tout va bien dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.”

I said, “Candide is one of my favourite books!”

He smiled, and said, “See you Tuesday.”

But to be really in a show, your agency needs to hear word from the client that you’ve not just spent three (paid!) hours listening to Cockney hairdressers click away at your crown with curling irons and talking to makeup artists about boating and writing and boyfriends in other cities and saying, A mardi! to casting directors. Your agency needs to hear word that you are “confirmed” for the show, and my agency has not.

Tant pis.

The best way to get over a heart broken by the vicissitudes of fashion? More fashion, of course! My room-mate, a lovely girl from Delaware, has inducted me into the mysterious ways of the model. We models enjoy primarily shopping, eating very little, dressing in black, wearing tall shoes to exaggerate our giraffe-like legs, and looking at ourselves in the mirror, while shopping. And the best part of being a model?

The tax write-offs. They include:

Shampoo Lipstick Clothes Airfares to and from the markets where we work Socks Eyeliner Conditioner Cold cream Meals Foundation Hairbrushes Make-up brushes Nail clippers Curling irons Cellphone bills Blow-outs Metro tickets Razorblades Stockings Manicures Mascara Haircuts Skin creams Orange sticks Blush Drycleaning Depilation Shea butter………………………………………….

and, most importantly, shoes.

Ever felt bad for buying a blouse on sale at Bloomingdale’s? You won’t if you’re a model: That’s a business expense you’re being complimented on! Paying 12 Euros to get my moustache waxed today at the esthéticien was a deductible expense; admittedly, not one I’ll cherish fond memories of. Today I bought a dress (black, of course) that in my ordinary life I wouldn’t dream of wearing — short, tight, V-necked, bra not even a remote possibility (silly, models don’t need or wear bras!) And I wore the new dress (which minimises my big old hips) to a shoe store, where I bought a pair of men’s patent leather dress shoes. (Unlike women’s, men’s shoes have arch support, and the added advantage of making you feel pleasantly subversive — so fashion-forward and downright modelish — when you cross over into the other part of the store to browse and try them on).

I’ll see if I can get a picture of me in the castings outfit tomorrow. For now, the shoes — I mean, my tax new write-offs. They are for walking to castings, you know!

Those stockings are new, too. One percent silk. On sale at BHV, where else. They have little heels knitted into them! I love France.