VOGUE INTERNATIONAL 3

Week 3 at Vogue International was a bit of a roller coaster ride, perhaps one which could be called Quik Boxes of Doom, as pretty much the whole of our week focused on the preparation for the return of that massive shipment frantically scrambled together before the Easter Holiday for the two Simon Robbins NYC based shoots. That's right. The boxes, the bane of our existance, all 50 of them, were back in all their jumbled, badly wrapped, and--on one occasion--broken Phillip Treacy archive hat glory. That's the thing about decorative plumage, Phil, light as a feather, crunchy as a pretzel.

It was like preparing for battle, watching the hours and minutes tick by in the office, preparing labels, boxes and return dockets for the onslaught. Then, just as we thought ourselves to be on the brink of battle, the couriers informed us that our shipment had been bumped from its flight and would not be arriving in England until the next day. Sorry. Cue the opening of the PR floodgates; Prada, Donna Karan, Vivienne Westwood, Modus Publicity and more all raising the bloodcurdling war cry of a PR who realizes they've yet again been outfoxed by the magazines, tricked into releasing their garments without any real control over when they'll be getting them back. One nearly burst into tears as she shakily told me on the phone that if a certain cape did not get out of the UK on the next flight to Milan, she'd probably lose her job, her head or worse, all I could do was apologize lamely and explain that some bastardry was afoot at JFK.

So that was most of the week.

Then, on Friday morning, they arrived. Like an ominous beige shadow of cardboard descending upon the tranquility of the office--apparently the biggest set of returns in Vogue Russia's recent history--we were overwhelmed by the full force of two Simon Robbins shoots unleashed. It took the courier nearly an hour to deposit them all in our territory, exploding out of the closet, into the hall and around the corner where it enveloped the bookstacks of back issues. Thank god we had a new third intern, Daisy, for the week for reinforcement.

Pre Box-Down

Some sort of decorative fur/crystal creature...I was totally intrigued

Rack o' animal prints: that's for you, mother

Daisy tries on a JC Castelbajac creation

They arrive

Each of these giant (and muddy rain covered for our convenience) bags contained at least two boxes. So step one: extract boxes from disgusting bags. See results below.

Step two: sort through each box and individually bag items according to designer and/or communal PR agency. Label bag. You'd think that by now a better system would exist, something involving scanning perhaps, or returns gnomes? Oh wait, interns are the returns gnomes.

Of course it's not all bad...thanks, Peter Pilotto

and some designer I can't remember

and Dolce-San, of course.

The Accessories

Clothes will be clothes, as they say, but, like learning Latin vocabulary, it's all the damn little bits--the quidcumques and the like--that are the real pain in the ass. Well accessories are the particles and compound indefinite pronouns of the fashion world. At least there are only so many words in the Latin language, the same definitely cannot be said for shoes. And hats. And jewellery. And tights. And god only knows what else, like bizarre bejewelled bird (below), whose role in the shoot one can only imagine (he is cool though). So after feeling like we'd made headway sifting through what must comrpise at least 75% of all AW09 RTW, we rounded the corner to discover a hidden (not so hidden) stash of virgin boxes. You know what they say, when god hangs up a Dior gown he dumps 10,000 necklaces into a pile in front of you on the floor. But oh the shoes, shoes shoes!

Accessory row

LV, just look at that heel

Perfection

Me amongst my people, the Rupert Sandersons & family

D&G

Fendi. Probably my favorite out of the whole lot. The size of the platform, the round toe...it's kind of the perfect heel.

The End Result

A fairly straightened cupboard with all garments and partial accessories, sorted and bagged. Monday's activity: label, address and get them the hell out of there. Time to do it all over again. Tally Ho!