Model Behavior

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Due to the wonderful response I got with yesterday’s post, I decided to make this a 2 parter! I guess your suspense didn’t have to wait too long. Ill tell you all about my first day in the big A. By the way this was all about 3 years ago and it’s so much fun to go back and reminisce about it as I write! Such a fun exciting time in my life! Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures documenting the following events, but since I don’t like posts without pictures, i will throw in some random pics for you.

Where did I leave off, aahh yes, arriving at the model apartment.
So Helen and I unpack and she in her eternal sweetness shows me all the essentials, the grocery store, the Walgreens, the H&M, kidding, kind of. And then Elite calls Helen on her cell and asks her to escort me to the agency. And so I had to face the first demon: the subway! (pause for dramatic music: Dun dun DDDUUNNN!!!!!)

*Pics of me with some of the other girls in the model apt

A subway can be a scary thing for a little Midwestern girl who had never even been on a public bus. Helen helps me buy a month pass and then we set off through the bars into the station. The overwhelming scent of urine and homelessness forces me to cover my face while I get shouldered by 15 people rushing off the platform (that’s right y’all, it’s not all glitz and glamour!) Helen grabs me and yanks me into the subway car as the doors are closing and of course they slam shut on my bag. Subway doors will reopen an inch or so rapidly and repeatedly if something is caught in them to give you time to snake it out before the train takes off. It takes me a minute to realize this and by the time I get my bag out 25 people on the train are giving me death stares because I’m holding up the whole car. And these aren’t just normal people death stares, these are NEW YORKER death stares, the most angry breed on earth! Not really, but they are pretty intense. And they probably all have guns so…you know. I sit down and try not to make eye contact.

At the agency I finally get to put faces to all the voices I have been working with over the phone. All is well until my main booker drops the bomb that makes me feel like I swallowed a hamster and it’s now trying to claw its way back out: I am booked for a fashion show at 9 PM. Uumm hello, don’t I need some sort of training for this? I am 5’10, I don’t wear heals, I’m gonna fall on my face! But I have to play it cool, don’t want to come off as the shy Nebraska girl. Plus the job pays 600 bucks for 3 hours work, not to shabby where I come from.

When we get to the fashion show I am relieved to find out that at least there are no outfit changes. I have been doing my homework before I came, watching America’s Next Top Model, I have seen the episodes where they do shows and change extensive exotic outfits in 3 seconds flat while walking to the stage, hello stressful. The dress is AMAZING but the heels are about 4 inches to high for my liking…and a size to small. Everyone else’s shoes seem to be ill fitting as well so I keep my mouth shut, after all none of them are complaining.

*I’m not going to lie there was some drinking

Let’s talk for a second about intimidation. Picture a lanky awkward girl within hours of being thrust into this intense situation, standing in a beautiful dress that she doesn’t fill out and shoes that pinch and make her stand like someone with Scoliosis, surrounded by 9 of the most beautiful, well groomed, confident, sophisticated, cool, sexy (do I need to go on? You know how models come off) women on the face of the earth. THAT my friends, is INTIMIDATION!
But amazingly, they are all incredibly nice and supportive! They are all asking me questions about who I am, where I’m from, who I’m signed with. These girls are smart, quick witted, funny, and absolutely supportive, one even offers to trade shoes with me!

But inevitably I make an ass of myself at the show. I’m the 4th or 5th girl to walk the “runway” which was really just a hotel lobby with a strip of carpet strewn across tables, this was not a very prestigious designer. But there are still about 60 people crammed in this room and I feel like every single one of them knows that I have no idea what in the hell I’m doing. I try to watch the girls in front of me and imitate them but I can only see the first few feet of the runway. I start my walk, holding my breath the whole time. I get to the end without much of a hitch but then realize…I have no idea what to do now. None of the girls passed by me on there way back which means they were exiting somewhere else…but where? Did I miss this in the instruction manuel? I stall by holding my “pose” for an uncomfortably long pause at the end of the table, then finally do this very awkward turn as slow as I possibly could to give me time to scan for the exit.

They teach you in entertainment, if you mess up, act like it didn’t happen and keep going. This is wonderful advice; I wish I had followed it. I began my walk back, and immediately stumbled. But I got my footing back and kept moving. I’m concentrating so hard on not falling again that I realize a little too late that a woman about 5 ft behind me was trying to usher me off stage at a side exit. Sweet. I should have just kept walking. I should have just shoved past the other entering models and acted like the whole thing was planned. But I am awkward and terrified and afraid I may just burst into tears. So I turn around, bumping into another model trying to pass me, almost knock her off the tables, walk the 5 ft back to the woman who is looking at me completely bewildered and get off the stage.

Need I add that attempted to book a flight home that night? I honestly can’t tell you what kept me there after that. Drive? Not wanting to face people when I came back home unsuccessful? Knowing on some level that this was just the first time and it would get better? Probably the latter, but I did stay. And got some training, and now I can sashay a catwalk with the best of them. I even got booked for a Gucci show in Japan, but I left before show season started L

And there you have it everyone, a story I don’t think I have ever recounted to anyone accept to my parents that night over the phone while in tears.

I would like to add some sort of corny life lesson in here like, never give up. Or Things will always get better. Or no matter how much of a dumb ass you feel like you are there is always someone else out there who is more embarrassing then you? Well whatever you want to take away from it is fine with me, as long as you keep reading Believe me I have about a million of these types of stories.