GAP girl

PS: If you're actually interested in what you'll be wearing this autumn according to GAP rather than the model mayhem (gosh, aren't you the GAP PR's dream clientele) here's some things I am style jacking for long walks in the woods. 

- Slouchy knits layered over leather jackets

- Thick ankle socks peeping out of Pierre Hardy shearling heeled boots 

- Skinny chinos tucked into said boots 

- Grey accented with aubergine hues 

And a black shearling lined suede jacket you just know will be one of GAP's cult buys. How do they do that quite so well? 

Model Behaviour

Despite my best intentions not to judge, I'd always imagined modelling to be a doddle. Throw on a few clothes, throw around some poses, perfect a ridiculous walk. Perhaps it was an automatic reflex action. Insane jealousy over perfect skin had to be counteracted by a huge dollop of cynicism. Well if those assumptions weren't quashed during London Fashion Week - when I watched models cry with pain as hair extensions that had been glued for a show were ripped out less than an hour later, or saw 14-year-olds who didn't even know how to dress themselves (er, London requires a coat in September - especially if you're the size of a matchstick) let alone speak English struggle to find their way through the maze that is South Kensington tube station - they certainly were tonight. 

At an A/W '09 presentation for the high street giant that is GAP, there was a live catwalk. Dressed in (admittedly gorgeous) layered fair isle knits, biker jackets and shearling coats, 30 or so models were required to remain impassive whilst standing on a raised plinth under hot lights for over an hour. The fashion crowd, decked out in strappy Balmain/Zara (delete as appropriate for masthead positioning) on an unusually warm London evening, ogled their subjects as they wandered down the row, glass of wine in one hand, sausage roll in the other. The models looked miserable. Even the best were defeated. Tears streamed down Jourdan Dunn's face as she stoically tried to put up with the pain of a pair of Pierre Hardy shearling boots that were two sizes too small. Her neighbour, Jessica Stam, grimaced in sympathy as she had to be helped off the catwalk half way through. Ten minutes later, another girl buckled under the pressure. She fainted straight into the arms of LOVE's new Deputy Editor Isaac Lock, who came running to her rescue heroically. It was model mayhem. And made me wonder why these girls put up with the perils of the job - not to mention having to survive on a single floret of broccoli (apparently the new breakfast choice for top models)? Mind you, knowing GAP and their prolific gifting, I'm sure the Pierre Hardy boots they'll all leave carrying will help sweeten the blow. Somehow I don't think you'll see Jourdan wearing hers though... 

'Are you sure this is a skinny latte?'

Most of the time it's easy to believe you're working in a totally normal world. Sure there are the occasional insane remarks - 'Oh my god, I've just had an orchid injury' is still my favourite, which one assistant remarked when she brushed up against the flowers whilst wearing a white tee. But in general our office is relatively mundane. Working mothers  beat themselves up with guilt about failing to make Oscar a good enough Easter bonnet after working late. Single 20-somethings try to disguise their disgusting hangovers. (Tweeting about last night's shenanigans tends to give them away). 

But every now and then you hear a story that reminds you this isn't a normal 9 to 5, where the biggest concerns are whose stolen your stapler. The latest such tale doing the industry rounds today was a beauty assistant on a super competitive monthly magazine who every day volunteered to do the coffee run. 'Are you sure this is a skinny latte?' her colleagues would say each day as she returned from Starbucks. (Because you can really taste it). 'Well, that's what I asked for,' she'd reply, concerned. Until one day her ruse was discovered when, frustrated with, as she saw it, the Barista consistently getting her order wrong, the colleague confronted him. 'Nope, she always asks for full fat milk,' the no doubt super confused Starbucks employee insists. Oh dear. It's coffee sabotage. Now you might think said cheated colleague might think to herself, 'Wow, that girl has serious food issues.' But that would be forgetting that we're talking about the difference between a 100 and 350 calorie. For someone who measures out almonds as a snack, that's indefensible. 

Bitching over Balmain

When new POP Editor In Chief, Dasha Zhukova, failed to turn up at some of the major Milan Fashion Week shows, despite having been reserved a front row spot, she pissed off a lot of fashion PRs. Now it turns out they're not the only industry insiders she's irritated recently. Coming out of a particularly juicy fashion gossiping session today is the news that buyers at Selfridges have blacklisted her after she asked them to get her ten S/S '09 Balmain sequined mini dresses - we're talking an expense of over £90,000 - and then decided she'd actually only buy one at the last minute. Apparently she thought more might look 'too excessive.' Yikes. Still, at least we know where to head for bargain(ish) Balmain come sale season....

Fasharexia

'Not eating! God, that's, like, so 1995,' my fashion PR dining companion says in mock scorn as I tell her the latest gossip on the block - that interns at a newly launched magazine are told their lunch must be odourless and eaten by an open window. She goes on to order. We're at Gilgamesh - one of London's most buzzed-about restaurants - where she's taken me as a thank you for coverage we gave her brand's show during Milan Fashion Week. 'Oh, gosh. It's so hard. Um. I think I'll have a miso soup to start, and then some salmon sushi rolls,' she pronounces triumphantly. 'And edamame of course.' There goes my Thai green curry and sticky rice, then. 'Wine?' I tentatively suggest, gagging for my second glass. (I got there half an hour early just to pep myself up into cheery-happy-funny journalist-meets-PR mode with a swig of Pinot, but one's never enough). 'Oh, I don't drink. Haven't since I was 16. But you do go ahead.' 

The joys of fashion dinners, hey? To be honest, I don't know why the fashion world insist on meeting over food. They might call them Power Breakfasts, Celebratory Dinners, or Time out for Tea, but they might as well stick to saying let's chat business over a cup of hot water and lemon. It'd be more easier. And a hell of a lot cheaper, I'd imagine. Because it's not like you're going to Pizza Express. Fashion PRs, and therefore the journalists they are wooing, go to the top venues in London: The Wolesely, The Ivy, J Sheekey. Places you'd luxuriate over with a group of girlfriends or for dinner a deux. But places that are just painful with a workdate (so not the same as a workmate). Mind you, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. Especially considering the next sentence out of said dining companion's mouth tonight was: 'I honestly think they'd fire me if I ever went above a size 12.' 

Tittle tattle...

There's nothing like a Media Guardian interview to get the industry buzzing. It's the sign your appointment is taken seriously enough by the powers that be in the media that they'll send a journo down to nose around your office and take you, well, not very seriously at all. Introducing Catherine Ostler's 'It's a bit posh. OK, it's very posh' summation of her five days in charge at Tatler. Yes, I said five days. Because despite being appointed Editor In Chief of the socialite's bible over six weeks ago - over a quick breakfast with Nicholas (that's Conde Nast's MD Coleridge to you and me) - she's barely had time to be in the office. There's been the scrum of Paris Fashion Week to attend and a serious dollop of digging up the dirt on what Tatler's former Editor In Chief Geordie Greig is up to at her former Evening Standard offices - a worrying obsession, I feel. So preoccupied is she with the Russian intervention at Associated Newspapers, she's commissioning her first Tatler feature on how new owner Alexander Lebedev made his money and how his 20-something son Evgeny is ripping up the capital. [Note to self here: must make effort to track down potential billionaire whose daddy could give me a job at Raffles, some time.] 'It's all about shifting the mix and cast of characters to reflect the changing nature,' Ostler explains, before quickly realising she's made an error that inadvertently shows how wrapped up in the past she is. 'I keep saying London but 40% of readers are outside the capital.' Yes, Editor In Chief - most Tatler readers reside in the countryside. In big piles of bricks, or the hovels that surround them, where nowadays there's less shooting and more shooting up at the infamous after parties. 

If I sound bitter about Ostler's appointment, let me clarify. I have nothing against her personally. Never met her in fact. But she managed to make ES Magazine - the weekly glossy that should capture the amazingly diverse and cheeky irreverence of London - staid and irrelevant to all those who lived outside SW1.  And I worry she'll do the same to Tatler, a magazine that in the last eight months has pushed itself into my must-read pile of monthlies. (Yes, yes, perhaps not that hard). It's managed to recognise the shifting nature of 'high society' - where Sloanes go to boxing matches, Royals fall out of nightclubs and Pixie Geldof's a cover star - without loosing any of it's cache within that set. The features team especially, Ticky Headley Dent and Richard Dennan, are spot on at spotting a trend (from K&C, mixing Ketamin with Coke, to the rise of the after party) and expertly bringing it to life to make it accessible and amusing to those both living it and on the periphery wanting to look in. Surely that's the key to a successful Tatler? Let's hope Ostler realises that. 

Lost In Fashion

I never intended to be a fashion journalist. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always been a bit crazy about clothes. Spending an entire month's budget as a student on a white fur coat, I'd mostly likely ruin by spilling chips, cheese and beans down it after a night out, say. Or trawling around New York for three days trying to find a pair of UGGs. It was 2003, ok. But my career was something different. 'I'm going to write for a women's magazine,' I announced to the scorn of my uber-feminist Oxford tutor in my first seminar there as a young, idealistic student. She didn't share my belief that as most women I knew obsessed over magazines, it was the best place to both represent and speak to them, provided you could find an intelligent, engaged version. 

Luckily, I did. And for two happy years I persuaded the woman at the centre of the news agenda who you just wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea with to talk to me, I interviewed the new TV phenomenon all my friends and I were obsessed by and I managed to put our rants in the pub into think pieces against some scarily well-respected journalists. I was living the real life of a journalist at a high-profile women's magazine. 

But what I would soon come to realise was that the core element to this, and indeed every, womens' magazine is, of course, fashion. I don't know why it didn't click earlier. After all, that's where the money came from. The freedom to go out and talk to the women surrounding Michelle Obama let's suppose, comes from that Giorgio Armani advert. Versace's sun-kissed images of Kate Moss pay for an investigative trip to India. And so, with a hop skip and a jump around the internal office career ladder, it has come to be that I am suddenly immersed in this world where shoe samples, ripped jeans and fashion show schedules are filling my days. 

There are certainly some clear advantages: endless pots of moisturers and make-up, access to sample sales and experiencing some mind-blowing beautiful clothes in the most amazingly orchestrated fashion shows. Not to mention meeting the people - and I mean everyone from designers to stylists and make-up artists - who have made me realise the enormity of this multi-billion pound industry. But being in fashion land has also been incredibly strange. Trying to explain to friends that you don't have a life in February and September when the shows are on, always thinking almost six months ahead and navigating the front row politics - that seem to last all year in different guises. Because we haven't even talked the uniform rules and air kissing etiquette. It's exhausting. And, for you to be the best in this world, it's all consuming. No time for non-work events or non-fashion friends, no money for non-office attire. As for a sex life? Forget it. The cliche about only meeting gay men is 100% true. 

So eight months and two seasons into my virgin journey into fashion land, I've decided it's time to take stock. This blog will partly be an attempt to chronicle the quite unexpected and insane activities my life now entails. (If you'd told me as a geeky, library dwelling student self I'd be blowing off drinks with friends with the excuse, 'dinner with Dolce & Gabbana' I'd have thought you were on study drugs.) And this blog will partly be an attempt to understand quite how to navigate my way through the choppy sea of an uber-fashionable life. Because when your mistake of going for a double cheek air kiss when you should have only done one is greeted with, 'Oh we're doing the European hooker thing are we?' you know you're in trouble.