Oh the intern glory days. Long hours spent huddling in close quarters with clothes, shoes, bags and other interns alike in the recesses of the fashion vaults of magazinedom. Filing returns, packing and unpacking endless deliveries of gowns so beautiful they bring a tear to your eye just to later shove them hurridly into huge vacuous suitcases to be whisked off to shoot locations as if they were hoards of dirty laundry to be dropped at the dry cleaners instead of £10,000 designer gowns. The hours are rather long, the tasks almost always a tad on the tedious and painstaking side: such is the reality of the bottom rung of the glittering fashion world. A far cry from the inner closet antics of Lauren and Whitney at Teen Vogue, but that's not to say that the reality of glamour behind closed doors isn't, in fact, all that glamorous. Because, for anyone who keeps fashion in their heart all the year round, despite the tedium of fashion manual labor, it still is.
It's really about the clothes, afterall. And the shoes. And the jewellery...Rail after rail exploding with the best of the best of SS09, catwalk magic come to life before my very eyes...it's like meeting celebrities in person. The stunning silver bugle beaded cut out evening gown which when it glided effortlessly down the runway last September earned a gasp from Joley Richardson in the front row, right there, before my eyes, for me to touch...and as the gown continued to break hanger after hanger with its massive beaded bulk, I suddenly found myself thinking about the runway model who had made this armour like dress glide down the runway as if she were sporting a lightweight silk kaftan in a whole new light.
Cupboard contents aside, it's watching the fashion editors/assistants/et al at work that's the true prize of landing just such an internship. All week we've been preparing for a cover shoot in NYC with a certain mega pop star (who shall remain nameless due to the fact that blacklisting from Conde Nast is not something to which I aspire in the slightest) and it's when the fashion editor ascends from the editorial floor to edit the racks containing myriads of looks--and two entirely concept stories--that the real learning begins. "She would never wear this...this chunky knit sweater will not be kind to her shape even though it's a stunning piece...in one shot she'll be lying on a bed and this YSL tuxedo coat won't shoot well from that angle..."
Every detail is thought of, no stitch or embellishment unturned, down to the hundreds of pairs of underwear, bras, tights etc we had to call in. Attention to detail, meticulousness is the name of the styling game. It's truly impressive. So as the editors, assistant editors, their assistants and their assistants' PAs head to Heathrow this morning to pop on over to my home town for the shoot on Monday, I can only imagine how their vision will come to fruition...But I can tell you this: given what I've seen and what I've heard, the June issue of UK Glamour will be a good one.
Outside the Bond Street office
Long term interns Emma and Katie hard at work
Fellow Glamour newcomer, Sabina
Her truly fab ASH platform trainers
Glam intern goddesses
0 Whisper-backs:
Post a Comment