Chapter 33
SHOWTIME
PaigeP:
Skinny black leather trousers
Charcoal grey silk cowl neck vest
Silver and diamond sculptural earrings
Designer sunglasses
Black finest cashmere shrug jacket
Highest platform black patent pumps
Up-to-the-nanosecond clutch bag
Like all wonderful, milestone events in her life, the fashion show passed in an intense blur of moments that even as they were happening, Annie felt she needed to imprint onto her mind so that she could remember them.
She kept finding herself thinking: This is extraordinary, I need to remember this…
as well as the eleventy-hundred things that are all happening at exactly the same time.
As soon as she arrived at Gallery of Textiles, all underslept and rumpled from the Glasgow adventures and the train – and with Saint Dinah drafted in at the last moment to take Owen and his hands from the train back to home – there was a flurry of last-minute hitches, crises, and downright tantrums to sort out immediately.
There weren’t enough chairs! Then Svetlana was in the main hall complaining that the flowers were awful.
Paula was stacking rails and the sales stalls all around the edge of the room and in several other smaller rooms in a wordless fury about Annie being so late to set-up day.
‘Paula, I am so sorry,’ Annie said, as soon as she found her.
‘Another family bloody crisis, as is normal, but don’t worry, I have dealt with it.
All is fine, Owen is fine, he’s just burned all the skin off his hands…
and he has no eyebrows or eyelashes… but, hey. He’s going to be fine… fine… fine.’
Trying to put the entire Glasgow adventure out of her mind, Annie listened to Svetlana’s complaints first.
‘We have nearly 800 guests and 500 chairs!! The flowers… I hate all these white funeral flowers. They make the place look like some government official has died and we are holding a wake not a fashion show!’
‘OK…’ Annie looked at the floral arrangements set out in the enormous room… they were very white and stately; she could see Svetlana’s point. ‘We need more helpers.’
Annie decided this was the first problem to solve.
There was her, Paula, two members of Paula’s events staff and several more coming later, but this was going to need a lot more bodies to fetch, carry, command for last-minute tasks.
A day like this needed extra people just hanging about ready to help at the slightest moment’s notice.
‘Lauren needs to bring in literally everyone she can find from her friend group. I’ll tell Ed to send every responsible sixth former round to us from 4 p.m. onwards.
We need willing bodies in every corner of the room to help fix things.
Now, calm, my darling. This doesn’t kick off until 7 p.m., and it is only…
’ Annie glanced at her phone, ‘3.30. So we have hours to sort everything. Honestly, all the best shows come together on the last day.’
‘The chairs? The flowers?’ Svetlana reminded her.
‘Let’s speak to the staff at the front desk. We’ve hired all these chairs in, but I bet this building has loads and loads of chairs of its own,’ was Annie’s suggestion. ‘They won’t be as lovely, but that won’t matter once the beautiful behinds are perched on them.’
‘The flowers?’ Svetlana didn’t budge. She wanted an answer on this. And she wasn’t going anywhere until she got it.
‘Let me go and speak to Paula and see what she needs from me, then I am personally going to sort the flower problem. OK, just trust me.’
* * *
Paula needed help, she told Annie. ‘All the help you’ve got.
All the help you can give.’ So for the next hour solid, until all the young helpers arrived, they hauled boxes from the basement room, decked out rails, stacked tables, made sure every item for sale had a ticket.
They worked out how many bodies would need to be at each stall and each rail to make sure that every fashionista would be able to buy all the fashion they wanted to.
‘How are people going to pay?’ Annie asked her friend, hoping this was something Paula had thought of.
Paula rolled her eyes. ‘What kind of amateur do you take me for? They can either pay cash and we have a lockbox in every room, or they can scan these little rented handsets with their cards and all will be transferred direct to the charity.’
‘Sounds perfect. Well done.’
‘Same with the items that are bid for on the runway. Someone with a handset will just run over to the winning bidder, cards will be swiped and… all done. Items over ￡10,000 will have a different process, and the buyers will expect that.’
‘And you’re going to organise the army of helpers, as soon as they start arriving?’ Annie asked.
‘Yeah, I’ll organise… because you are going to have your hands full with the compères, the models and the runway show.’
‘Oh yes… I am. And can I just say, Paula, you are a genius event organiser. This show will put you on the map.’
‘Thanks, babe… we all want it to go so well,’ Paula replied. ‘I’m frightened just thinking about how well I want it to go.’
‘Going to be fabulous, babes,’ Annie said, hoping and hoping this was true.
* * *
By 5 p.m., the tension, the feeling of out-of-control chaos was ramping to danger levels.
Yes, Annie might have solved the flower problem – she’d gone to the nearest three supermarkets and bought them out of everything colourful she could lay her hands on.
Then she’d flower-bombed the stately white displays, sticking sunflowers, roses, dahlias and bright blue ornamental thistles everywhere that she could find space.
But everywhere else, problems were cropping up.
The construction of the catwalk was taking longer than expected.
The DJ wasn’t happy about the space he’d been allocated.
Connor and Vince were meeting for the first time and going over their routine together.
Only for Connor to sidle up to her and complain.
‘How can I work with this guy? He’s a complete buffoon! ’
‘You will just have to, Connor, please,’ was all she could say, as she tried to carry an enormous heap of clothing into the makeshift backstage area and get all the right things set up for all the right models, before they went to pieces…
what with Gwen and Phyllis still arguing over who was going to wear the fuchsia and the ballet girls all huddled up and anxious with nerves.
‘I don’t know if we can do this…’ one of them blurted as Annie and her armful of clothes came into sight. Annie knew a few moments of her offering calm and reassurance was needed to nip these feelings in the bud.
‘Of course you can,’ she began with her kindest smile. ‘You girls are performers. You’ve got some pre-show adrenaline flowing through your systems and it’s making you feel jumpy, but I promise you, when the lights are on and the music is pumping, you are going to love it and totally rock it.’
‘But Bria heard that PaigeP is coming,’ Shivani worried. ‘I mean… PaigeP! She goes to all the best fashion shows in the world. We’re going to look like complete amateurs to her. I really don’t think I can do this.’
‘Or me…’ Chloe worried.
The argument about the fuchsia dress was still going on in the background.
And for a moment, absolutely frazzled, Annie just wasn’t sure if she could do this herself.
PaigeP was coming… she really was coming to their hastily cobbled together show that might go well or might teeter off the rails and into disaster at any moment.
By the end of this evening, they were going to have pulled off a fashion show that put their name on the fashion map in London, or they were going to have been in charge of a potentially career-ending disaster.
She could hardly even think about how high the stakes were.
It was at moments like this, that Annie felt she had to lean on a higher power…
and that higher power was currently striding around in front of the catwalk shouting at minions to re-position chairs.
‘I’m going to get Svetlana, right now, and she’s going to come in here, talk to all of us and remind us why we are doing this show, why it’s such a great idea and why we all have to pull together.’
Connor, Vince, all the models, Paula, Annie, the DJ, Lauren, plus some of the Lauren friends, school pupils and other helpers all assembled beside the catwalk and Svetlana, in pink Chanel, because this was definitely a day for the fashion greats, stepped up onto the raised catwalk and delivered her speech like the motivating army general she was.
‘All of these clothes, they were just hanging in wardrobes all around London, wasted,’ Svetlana began, looking deep into the eyes of her helper audience.
‘The money was spent, they had been vorn, their owners had forgotten all about them. And I wanted to take all of these things that were once wonderful, expensive and loved, and make them useful again. They are coming out to dance, to play, to find new homes. And all the money that is raised tonight, money from nothing, from items gathering dust and attracting moths…’ she pulled a face, ‘this money is going to a wonderful cause. People who want to go to their job interviews and their big events and the important moments in life looking together, looking wonderful, they are going to have that chance, because of you.’ She paused to let these words take effect.
‘And it’s not just the outfits. This charity gives training, counselling, guidance, and gives everyone who wants it the help they need in those times when things haven’t worked out and they are feeling down and feeling lost.
‘We have all had those times. Every single one of us,’ she said looking at each face in turn, meeting eyes, bonding with her troops.
‘And if someone is there to help you get back on your feet, choose a nice outfit, style your hair, lend you a lipstick, tell you you can get back out there and do this – it makes all the difference.