For the past seven hours, I’ve been sitting in the corner next to my rack backstage at the Hugo Boss show trying to will myself invisible. Normally, I’m not this anti-social. But Taylor and Damian booked this show too, and I’m not keen on seeing either of them, especially after the other night.
I return to staring at the little circled number one in the bottom corner of the Polaroid attached to my first outfit. That number one is a big deal, it means I’m opening the Hugo Boss show for the men.
The top model is always the first one on the runway, and the top model is always a girl. I can’t compete with the girls, but I’m the first guy out. That means I’m the top man. I look at Damian’s Polaroid, which has a little circled number two on it. This makes me grin.
“Models, first outfits!” A distressingly ugly man claps, and the entire room starts to drop their clothes. “Let’s go!”
This is Boyd. He’s the show choreographer and decided I’m the opening guy. He’s also the ugliest person I’ve ever met, without actually having something physically wrong with him. Boyd’s face wasn’t run over by tank treads and then pummelled continually with a shovel or anything like that, but just looking at him is to look into ugly. Maybe he’s unattractive because he’s a world class asshole.
“Excuse me,” he says, snatching an iPhone out of a grinning Brazilian girl’s hand in mid-conversation before chucking it over his shoulder into the air. “Todo bien, now?”
The smartphone hits the floor, the screen smashing to bits and the Brazilian shrieks. She turns to Boyd, who is at least two feet shorter than her but is standing his ground like a Hugo Boss clad pit-bull.
“Models!” Boyd yells, staring down the Brazilian who looks like she’s deciding whether to step on him or self-destruct into a flurry of tears and mucus. “When I say change, I expect you to change! I don’t expect you to keep yapping on the phone—blah, blah, blah—with your mama, or tia or whoever in Sao Paolo!”
The Brazilian girl’s lips quiver like Jell-O in an earthquake as she backs down.
“Wow. What a jerk,” Damian whispers, as he buttons up his shirt.
“It’s Boyd,” I say, wishing Damian wasn’t so casual with me all the time. “He’s the number one fashion show choreographer in Asia. He can do what he wants.”
Why Boyd is a colossal dickhead—because his parents never celebrated his birthday, he was never hugged by his Aunt Louise or because he thinks that’s how a fashionista is supposed to act—doesn’t concern me because I’ve never had a problem with him. I always book his shows and, for the past three, have opened the collection for the guys. Now I’m opening the Hugo Boss show ahead of everyone’s favourite superstar Damian and it’s all thanks to Boyd. Watching him stalk backstage looking for the opportunity to verbally dismantle someone, I could hug the little ball of fashionista rage. “This is the Hugo Boss show, models,” Boyd says, pacing like a caged animal. This is his fashionista version of an inspiring pre-game speech. “Each of you was handpicked by me, but don’t let that get to your pretty little heads. Being in one of my shows is a rare privilege. Some of you are new and some I’ve worked with before, but no one here is untouchable. Remember you are only as good as your last catwalk. When the lights go down tonight, and the show starts, you better strut your gorgeous legs down that runway with some proper attitude or I promise you, your next job will be freeze-modelling in a Park n’ Shop.”
A few of the teenage chicks look like they’re about to shit their skin-coloured G-strings but this rant doesn’t faze me. I’ve heard it all before, and I’m still here.
I fasten the top button on my three-quarter length charcoal overcoat. My dresser wraps a fringed black virgin wool scarf around my neck, and I can’t help but smirk as the girls getting dressed sneak looks at me.
“Twenty minutes to show time models!” Boyd announces as on stage My Trigger by Miike Snow starts to thump. “Where are my opening girl and guy?”
“Right here, Boyd,” I say, strutting toward him.
“Colin. Good,” he says, looking me up and down. Then he screams, “Where’s my opening girl?”
Whenever Boyd yells, his lips pucker into a stumpy beak shape. It makes him look like an angry octopus.
“Right behind you.” A girl wearing a bright pink sari-style dress takes a step forward. Her brown hair is pulled back and her green eyes are ringed in smoky eyeliner. The back of her dress is open and low-cut revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her silky-smooth back that forces me to imagine her supple breasts on the other side. The girl is gorgeous. Then the smirk I’ve had since I got dressed vanishes when I realize the girl is Taylor.
“Stand next to each other,” Boyd orders. Taylor nods at me and I catch myself with my mouth hanging open. “Okay. Let’s see.”
Boyd is examining us and I need to scrape myself together. Don’t gawk at the opening girl in a fashion show like they just let you out of computer camp. Even as I’m telling myself this, I can’t help but keep stealing little looks at Taylor. In case she’s looking my way, I keep my forehead wrinkled and a little smile frozen on my face so my dimples are visible.
“You!” Boyd yells at Damian. “You just shot the Shanghai Tang campaign, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Damian strides over. “How’d you know that? You spying on me?”
Boyd studies him with beady asymmetrical eyes.
“I know everything that happens in this city, my boy,” Boyd says, and then grins. “Smart ass. Get in line.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Boyd smile. It looks like someone is stabbing him with a pitchfork.
“Stand here.” He points Damian next to me, and I act like I don’t notice as Taylor gives him a tiny smirk, but Boyd notices. “You two know each other? You’re not a cute little couple, are you?”
“Nah,” Damian grins, and I know he’s going to say something stupid that everyone else will think is oh-so-fucking-delightful. “This is my sister.” Taylor can’t stop herself from laughing, and Boyd stifles his own laugh as he brushes unseen lint from Damian’s shoulder.
“Lying to me? Naughty boy. She’s not your sister,” Boyd shakes his head. “It’d be a crime if such a beautiful pair couldn’t mate and have some beautiful offspring.”
What the fuck. Damian has managed to charm evil fashionista Boyd in three fucking seconds.
“I know what I want,” Boyd says, tapping the dimple on his chin with a stubby finger. “Damian. Colin. Switch outfits.”
I stare at him.
“But the show is about to start,” I say. My heart is sinking into my genital region. “Fifteen minutes, my boy,” Boyd says. “Plenty of time, so strip to your Underoos and swap outfits.”
Damian has whipped his pants off and is unbuttoning his shirt as Boyd watches. I can’t bring myself to look at anything but the floor, and I can feel all the other models staring at me. I have to do something.
“Listen, Boyd…” I say, trying to sound cool, but I feel like there’s a volcano erupting in my head. “Why don’t Damian and I swap the other outfits, but let me keep the opener.”
Boyd glares at me looking so much like an octopus, I swear, I see angry tentacles radiating out of his head. I start unbuttoning my overcoat. My heart is thumping. Damian is standing in his underwear, waiting for me to hand him my clothes. My head feels light.
“Hey, Boyd,” I say. “We’ve worked together eight times now.”
“Have we?” Boyd snaps. “I don’t keep track.”
“Yeah, like eight times.” I’m trying to keep my voice low so the other models can’t hear me. “Look, man. Dude. Don’t do this to me right now. I can open the show. What walk do you want? Milano? London? I can do whatever. Just let me open the show.”
“Did I or did I not, tell you to change?” Boyd glares at me. “Of course, you’re going to walk the way I tell you. This is my show! Now do what I say and take off your fucking pants!”
Boyd’s face has turned the same shade of red as those baboon’s asses on Animal Planet and I know
I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Honestly, who do you think you are? Naomi Campbell?” Boyd continues. “You think you’re too good to come out second? I’ll tell you what, my boy. If I say you’re coming out fortieth you’ll come out fortieth. In fact, if I say you’re not coming out at all, maybe I’ll go out there wearing your outfits and do your job for you. Do you want that?”
I take my pants off and hand them to Damian while I stare at the floor praying that some model’s phone is going to ring and divert Boyd’s fashionista rage.
“I’m asking you a question,” Boyd stands with his hand on his cocked hip. “Do you want out of my fashion show?”
I shake my head.
“What?” Boyd says, in an overly sweet tone. “I can’t hear you.”
“No, Boyd. I don’t want that,” I say, standing in my underwear. Taylor, Damian, all the models in the room are watching. “Don’t take me out of the show, okay?”
“I swear, you think I can’t get a monkey to do your job?” Boyd glares at me. “You’ve got your balls tucked into your ass if you think that.”
The models part like the Red Sea as Boyd storms through them like a couture-wearing angry Moses.
I surrender my clothes and start putting on the number two outfit. Assistants are already crossing out my face on the first Polaroid using thick black marker and sticking it on Damian’s rack.
“I’d let you have the first outfit,” Damian whispers. “I don’t really care.”
“Hey, me too,” I scoff. “I just didn’t feel like changing out of my clothes. What a pain in the ass, right?”
Damian holds out his fist and I bump it. When I look up Taylor is staring at me from behind a layer of smoky eyeliner, and I pretend tying my shoelaces is a big deal.
As Damian moves down the runway, his left arm repeatedly swings further forward than his right. His eyes are cool and confident, and he scowls with a hint of a smirk on his lips. He poses at the bottom of the T and puts his hands in his pockets, lingering as dozens of flashes go off. His smirk nearly becomes a smile as he turns and heads back up the runway.
Pure fucking genius.
It hurts me to admit it, but Damian’s walk has the perfect mix of playfulness and sophistication required for Hugo Boss. I turn away from the backstage monitor. My dresser finishes buttoning my pants and I line up in the dwindling queue of models. Damian comes off stage ripping his shirt and pants off, as he passes me he says, “Quick change, bru. Quick change.” I grin, but really I’m hoping Damian is in such a hurry he gets his penis stuck in his zipper and can’t get back onstage in time. Then Boyd would know he should’ve let me open the show. I’m so angry I want to spit skin-ripping shrapnel, I want to piss flesh burning acid—but mostly I want to be better than Damian. Maybe then Lucia in Milano would want me,
rather than him. Backstage is full of naked teenage girls whipping their clothes off like they’ve been offered an orgy opp with Justin Bieber, but even that can’t cheer me up. I need to get out of here so I can work on my walk. It’s embarrassing that I’m going to go on the runway with my tattered, clunky old one. It’s like going out in public wearing Calvin Klein from two seasons ago.
“Are you ok?” Taylor says, stepping into line behind me as dressers fluff her white rabbit fur scarf. “You look kind of pale.”
“I’m fine,” I shrug. She really knows how to deliver a kick in the nut sack. “Don’t worry about me.”
Another model goes on and we move up in the queue. “That Boyd guy is really something,” she says.
“Yup.” I say, refusing to say anything else. Why the fuck does she want to torture me like this? After what she saw, she must think I’m an idiot. Just leave me alone.
The next model goes on, and now I’m standing in front of an assistant. She’s waiting for the word from Boyd in her earpiece to send me out. I want to get out on that runway and away from Taylor.
“Go!” The assistant says, and I turn the corner and I’m bathed in light. Black Out Days by Phantogram vibrates the stage. Twenty metres of runway stretch out before me, and I’m surrounded by rows of filled seats. I strut to the end of the T, ignoring the fact that my walk is terrifyingly out of date. Now’s not the time to test new walks. You don’t experiment with new lineups at the World Series. At the bottom of the T, I do my usual glare at the cameras. I pose as dozens of flashes blind me, before I turn to head back.
As I move up the runway, Taylor steps on stage. She’s walking towards me, confident in her towering heels, her hair swaying back and forth with every step. In the Hugo Boss dress, wearing thick eyeliner, and with her long legs thrusting her steadily forward—she looks like some kind of couture goddess.
As we get closer to each other, I realize she’s not staring out into the crowd, she’s not looking into the flashes at the end of the runway, her eyes are on me. She’s watching me watch her. My back is to the crowd but Taylor is in the spotlight. She should be staring into the distance with her runway face but she’s not. We’re a few meters apart when she tilts her head down and narrows her eyes. She’s still looking right at me. Taylor’s not walking for Hugo Boss, she’s walking for me.
Then, as we pass, she winks before focusing into the distance. I want to turn around but can’t. I hear the symphony of cameras clicking away at the end of the runway, and I’m forced to continue offstage.
Backstage, assistants are already yelling for me to queue up. I rip my clothes off and soon I’m standing in my underwear. At my rack, dressers pull pants over my bare legs and a shirt over my arms, but I’m not paying attention. I’m trying to understand what happened. Just now on the runway, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Taylor was flirting with me.
CHAPTER 8
Colin Bryce Hamilton
Ultimate Catwalk Fail. http://youtu.be/TpvuvFkggaw
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SUBWAY ISN’T THE most impressive choice of restaurant to take your booker for lunch, but Apple wanted something quick.
“One Italian BMT with everything, and one turkey sub.” I turn and give Apple a thumbs-up. She presses her glasses up her nose as she waits for me at the table. “And no bread with the turkey sub.”
“No bread?” The guy stares at me beneath his green Subway cap. “We have salads—”
“Just wrap the meat and veggies and give it to me,” I say, and the guy shrugs. It’s clutch time, and carb-loading never helped anyone get to Milano. I pay and bring the food to Apple.
“Thanks for lunch, Colin,” Apple says, as she puts her mobile phone on the table. She’s in love with everything Hello Kitty and has enough Hello Kitty paraphernalia dangling off her phone that she can barely fit the stupid thing in her purse. I don’t know why anybody would want to hang enough shit on their phone to decorate a Christmas tree, but it seems to make her happy.
“No problem.” I unwrap my sub, pick a slice of turkey and a piece of tomato out of a pile of ingredients, and drop them into my mouth. Eating a breadless sandwich isn’t impossible. It’s dedication.
We sit chewing our lunches in silence for a couple minutes. I always keep my agencies at arm’s length and One Models is no different. Apple is probably wondering why I’ve extended her this courtesy today. There’s no point in pleasantries. I might as well get on with it.
“I want you to take a look at something,” I say, getting up and sitting next to her with my iPhone in hand. “It’s a video.”
I had an epiphany a couple days ago while watching a Cantonese commercial for KFC. In it, chicken exploded out of buckets into people’s faces, but instead of bleeding to death with a fried chicken thigh embedded in their skulls, they were devouring drumsticks and grinning-all to an upbeat melody. I realized I’m exactly like KFC, not that I’m smeared with the Colonels secret batter and deep fried, but rather I’m a product. The best way to advertise a product is with a video.
I’ve named it Ultimate Catwalk Fail because the videos with models in them that get the most views are models falli
ng on catwalks. But the title is pure click bait, because this video isn’t about failing. It’s about succeeding beyond your wildest dreams. I press play and the hairs on the back of my neck tingle. I’ve spent the past two days putting this little slice of cinematic genius together.
It starts with a black screen, then the words A Storm is Coming. Then Thunder by Imagine Dragons starts to play. The song starts quiet with a finger snapping beat and the vocals just a young gun with a quick fuse as two head shots of myself brooding in the distance hit the screen. Then my name in big letters flash Colin Bryce Hamilton. As Dan Reynolds is singing not a yes sir, not a follower—which describes me to a tee and makes me feel this song was written just for this moment—the word failure hits the screen followed quickly by never.
As the drums pound and the chorus starts up I cut to my new walk in slow motion. Thunder, feel the thunder, lightning and the thunder, thunder goes the song as I strut toward the camera scowling, forehead creased, eyes squinted. Thunder, thunder, thunder.
It’s so awesome it’s difficult to hide my smile.
Dan’s singing Who do you think you are? Dreaming about being a big star and now it’s a visual assault of good-looking. As Dan’s telling his haters that now I’m smiling from the stage while you’re clapping in the nosebleeds— something I can’t wait to tell my haters—I cut back and forth from my new catwalk to my headshot collection which covers a variety of different angles and versatile expressions. As the song moves into its last refrain and thunder is repeated for the 463rd time Apple is privy to a selection of topless shots of me for Men’s Health to me on the beach in Crete. The beat cuts and silence then Colin Bryce Hamilton, lightning before the thunder, before it fades to black.
Apple seems unable to continue chewing. She must be blown away. “I’m looking to go back to Milano,” I say, giving her just enough time to recover. I could’ve asked my next question to Marek or Damian but don’t want them to know I’ve been dropped by Beatrice. “Who do you think is the best agency for me?”
Catwalk Fail Page 8
