Chapter 1: The September Issues
The morning sunshine wasn’t enough to spill ontothe ground of Bryant Park, instead, it slashedthrough a blue gallery poster and struck the opposite glass window, skimmingpast drifting dust motes and landing over a battlefield of discarded silk scarvesby John Galliano for Christian Dior and a leather hat box stamped with Louis Vuitton.Though the wind moved freely from the white-tinted entrance through, the air backstagewas thick with a cloying cocktail of Elnett hairspray, stale Marlboro Menthollights and the bitter, synthetic scent of ‘Glade’ waterfall.
‘Lila. The electric blue, now!’ Harper’s impatient voicecut through the hum of the radiator, he didn’t look up, one hand alreadyextended, demanding without hesitation.
‘Just one minute’ Lila snapped, grabbing the eyeshadowduo for Chanel from her pink makeup kit, her jaw was tight, and eyes flickeringto the clock mounted on the center of wall, thirty minutes had already vanished.
Meanwhile, at the center of the Chaos sat Sienna, motionless,a golden idol draped in a tan silk knee length dress from John Bartlett thatclung to her skeleton frame like a second skin. She stared into the double-sidedmakeup mirror, but her eyes, dark, glazed and dilated, it looked past with herown reflection. As Harper pressed electric blue pigment on her eyelid with hisclassic Bobbi Brown blending brushes, she didn’t blink while he dusted theiridescent powder beneath her under eyes. She couldn’t breathe but tasted the copperof blood and dead skin where she’s bitten her lip too hard, hidden beneath thicklayers of MAC Lip gloss.
‘Make it pop boy’ Jade shouted out from across the fittingroom, she wore a white pullover with matching pants cinched by a jeweled belt,her silver shoes flashing like a weapon as she moved ‘I honestly don’t know whythis designer went full heroin chic,’ she added. ‘But it looks expensive, itdoesn’t make me and Sienna look dead’ she added, grinning ‘and it looks….Immortal!’
‘Indeed, honey!’ Asa said, crouching in the shadowsbeneath a rack of unreleased samples.’ This is even crazier; he wanted me toaccentuate my boobs with this heavy blue necklace.’ She laughed softly with hollowsound ‘what is that even supposed to mean?’
From her seat on the floor. Asa noticed the tremorin Sienna’s eyelids, she saw the hunger in Lila’s lips, and it knew whathappened before, but this time. Something in the room was about to break.
‘Do you job and don’t look at me Mr Pringle’ Lilaleaned against the makeup station, ignoring Harper’s glare as she inspected herown reflection in Sienna’s face. ‘So, how was the great migration? I thoughtyou finally dragged your ass from Lawrence St to SoHo?’
Sienna didn’t smile, her face felt stiff under thelayers of Laura Mercier translucent setting powder, like a mask that crack.
‘Oh, nothing special hun,’ she murmured, her voicebarely rising above the hum of the below dryers. ‘Day after day, nothings feelfresh here…. not until I have to bleed out to pay my fucking rent.’
Lila let out of sharp, knowing laugh while applyinganother layer of Lancôme Définicils, ‘Honey, the agency says we take thosechecks as a ‘courtesy’ consider it the benefits of …. Professional sassybehavior.’ She winked, mocking the industry’s bullshit. ‘We sell the attitude,they keep the soul, fair trade, right?’
She paused and tilting her head to stare atSienna’s eyelid. The electric blue pigment was jarring against Sienna’s paleskin, violent but beautiful.
‘Oh, good job though.’ Lila drawled, her tone hoveringbetween compliment and jealously. ‘Nothing wrong with a little blue color, isthere?’ It hides the lack of sleep.’
‘All set, stand up and could you please step back alittle bit?’ Harper interrupted coldly, pulling the white style chair away.
Sienna stood. The tan silk dress rippled down herbody like a Mississippi river. It was a masterpiece of bias- cut engineering, designedto cling, but on Sienna, it hung dangerously loose. The ruffled necklace dippedlow, hovering preciously over her chest.
‘It’s too big!’ Sienna whispered while she looked downthe skirt, the silk felt cold against her skin. She could feel the fabricsliding with every breath. ‘Harper, it’s going to slip, I need tap.’
‘No time for tap golden angel!’ Harper snapped,grabbing a can of shimmer spray and coating her collarbones in a choking mist.‘Just don’t slouch, okay? And for god’s sake Sienna, don’t breathe so deeply,you look extremely expensive; now go be immortal.’
Sienna looked at herself one last time. The dresswas beautiful, a golden skirt for a golden girl. But as she turned to line up, shefelt the silk shift, a milliliter of skin exposed. This time, she wasn’t justwearing a dress; she was wearing a ticking time bomb.
Sienna stepped out the makeup station, the cool airof the hallway biting at her exposed skin. The lineup area was a narrow arteryclogged with nervous energy, cigarette smoke and the heavy, predatory gaze ofonlookers. It wasn’t just the production crew. The hall was lined withstylists' assistances, PR girls with clipboards clutching Diet cokes, somephotographers were testing their flashes like lightening in a storm. Theyweren’t here to help, but they were here to witness a catastrophe. In thisindustry. A disaster was just a valuable as triumph. Sometimes even more.
The models assembled like soldiers awaiting orders,a line of impossibly beautiful creatures draped in silk and sequins, theirfaces blank canvases waiting to be projected upon. Sienna found her placebetween a willowy redhead she didn't recognize and Asa, who had somehowmaterialized beside her, a silent sentinel in the chaos.
‘You're shaking,’Asa murmured, barely moving herlips, a ventriloquist's trick they had all learned to avoid the wrath ofdesigners who demanded stillness.
‘I'm always shaking,’Sienna replied, the confessionslipping out before she could catch it. She pressed her palms flat against herthighs, willing the tremors to subside, feeling the cool silk beneath herfingers like water.
The music shifted, a crescendo building thatsignaled their cue. One by one, the models began their procession, a serpentineriver.
Ahead of her. A fresh-faced girl from Australia, barelysixteen stumbled. A sharp echoed off the concrete floor. Her left heel, a strappyManolo Blahnik has given away.
‘Shit!’ The girl hissed and her face draining ofcolor.
Nobody tried to help her, A casting directorstanding near the monitor just crossed his arms, watching with cold amusement.‘Take them off if you got fail!’ the stage manager barked mad not unkindly, butwith the efficiency of a butcher. ‘Two choices, go home or take off yourheels!’
The girl kicked the broken heels aside. Her barefeet hitting the dirty on the cable-strewn floor. She kept walking, chin up, tryingto salvage her dignity, but the whispers had already started. They weredissecting her failure before she even reached the curtain.
Sienna swallowed hard, her hand hovering over thedangerous cowl neck of her dress. She knew the norms, if a hell breaks down,you’re clumsy. But if a dress slips? If a breast falls out on the runway?
You weren’t a victim of gravity. You were branded.
‘Hey, look at her you folks.’ Lila whispered frombehind, her voice dripping with fake concern as she eyed another model who wasadjusting a sheer top.’ Desperate for a cover shot, isn’t she? Some girls willshow anything just to get a page six to print their name on it!’
That was the verdict, indecent, trashy and loose.Even if it was the designer’s fault for cutting the silk on a bias to steep itdefied physics, the shame always belonged to the girl inside of it.
Sienna pressed her arm against her side, pinningthe loose fabric to her ribs. She felt the gaze of the room shift towards her- the‘Golden Idol’ in the dress that didn’t fit. They were waiting. They werebitting on when the boob would explode.
‘Cue Music!’ The stage manager screamed into his headset, his face flushed with stress.
The atmosphere shifted instantly. The hum ofhairdryers was drowned out by a deafening, industrial baseline that shock thefloorboards. It was heavy, violent and hypnotic, the heartbeat of the cityamplified.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ A hand shoved the Australian girlforward, Sienna wobbled on her bare feet, terrified but obedient, disappearinginto the blinding white wall of light that marked the entrance to the runway.
‘Okay girl, chin down; shoulders back, and don’tlook at them.’
Harper hissed in her ear one last time, spraying acloud of hairspray that tasted like prison.’ You are a goddess, you areuntouchable.’
But as he pushed her toward the curtain, Siennadidn’t feel like a goddess, she felt like a specimen in a jar.
She stepped through the black velvet curtains andinto the void.
The light hit her like a physical blow, it wasscalding white, erasing her peripheral vision, all she could see were the rowsof photographers at the end of the pit, with a multi eye mechanical beastflashing continuously. Click. Click. Click-click-click. The sounds were likecrickets in a nightmare.
Sienna walked with tempo of left and right beats. Herhips swayed with the exaggerated, languid motion that was popular that season –the ‘Zombie walk.’
But with every step, the bias-cut silk betrayedher, the dress, designed to flow like water, was now sliding like oil. The coolair of the venue rushed over her shoulders, seeking out the gab between thefabric and her skin.
She felt exactly what it might happen in slowmotion.
The right strap, already precarious on her skeletalshoulder, shifted a millimeter, then an inch.
A collective gasp rippled through the front row,the editors, the buyers, the socialites. It wasn’t a gasp of awe. It was thesharp intake of breath a car crash.
Sienna’s heart hammered against her ribs,threatening to bruise the skin from the inside. Don’t look down she persuadedherself. If you look down. You admit that defeat. If you look down, you arejust a trashy amateur model losing her dress.’
But the fabric was heavy, it dragged down, exposingthe curve of her breast, pale moon of her areola hovering dangerously in theharsh spotlight. She was nearly one step away from total exposure.
She saw a woman in the second row, wearingoversized sunglasses indoors with lean forward, whispering to her neighbor.They weren’t looking at the John Bartlett dress. They were looking at her. Theywere waiting for the money shot.
Sienna kept walking, her expression frozen in amask of heroin chic indifference, while inside, she was screaming.
Sienna felt the cool air kisses her skin before shesaw it. The silk hadn’t fallen completely- it hovered, caught on the sharpangle of her ribcage, leaving half of her right breast exposed. The pale curve,the hint of a nipple, sliced through the conservative elegance of the dresslike a scar.
The flashbulbs erupted, with the sound ofClick-Click-Click transformed into a continuous, blinding roar. They weren’tshooting the clothes anymore. They were shooting the scandal.
For a split second, Sienna’s hand twitched, aninstinctive urge to pull the fabric up, to cover herself until apologize.
In that microsecond, the fragile illusion of hersafety shattered completely. The blinding lights stripped away not just theJohn Bartlett silk, but her dignity, leaving her stranded at the absolute bottomof her own terror. She was no longer a golden idol, she was just a naked, terrifiedgirl failing spectacularly in front of the world’s must ruthless elite.
Her heart screamed to hide, look at you, a voice whisperedin the dark corners of her mind, you are ruined. Unsexy, Defeated. She had tolook at this ultimately vulnerability dead in the eye and ask herself thehardest question; does this broken version of me still deserve the runway?
If she reached for the silk, she would be beggingfor forgiveness. She would be participating in their life. The lie that thisindustry was flawless, and she was just a clumsy mistake from queens. She wouldbe burning alive just to keep them comfortable.
But then, A cold, hard realization hit her.
If she fixed it, she was admitting that was amistake. If she covered it, she was just another clumsy girl from Queenscrumbling under the pressure. But in the city island, weakness was the onlysin.
So, she didn’t fix it.
Instead, she extended her neck.
Now she lifted her chin higher, exposing the long,fragile line of her throat, offering herself up like a sacrificial lamb thathad decided to enjoy the knife. Her eyes went dead – glazed over with thatperfect, impenetrable heroin chic stare.
She walked. With each step, the exposed flashbounced slightly with her step, vulnerable and raw against the harsh lights.She didn’t speed up and slow down. She forced her breathing to remain shallowby letting the camera shutters eat her alive.
Reaching the end of the runway, she pivoted on herheel with robotic precision- the silk flapping dangerously and walked back intothe darkness, she left them wanting more.
As she crossed the threshold back into thebackstage chaos, the adrenaline crashed.
The deafening bass faded into the background noiseof screaming dressers and rushing bodies. Sienna slumped slightly, her handfinally flying up to clutch the dress to her chest, her breath coming in jaggedgasps.
‘Hey!’ A pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders,it was Lila.
Sienna flinched, expecting mockery, expecting her tolaugh at the disaster. But Lila pulled her into a tight, almost suffocatinghug. She smelled of cigarettes and Christian Dior Eau De perfume.
‘Yes, good job honey,’ Lila whispered into her ear,her voice was super low and surprisingly steady. She pulled back, her handsgripping Sienna’s bare arms, looking her straight in the eyes.
‘The pose was the best, the attitude was perfect,you didn’t flinch. You didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you bleed.’
Lila smirked, reaching out to fix the fallen strapwith a rough, proprietary tug. It wasn’t kindness, it was camaraderie in thetrenches.
‘You sold the garment, and you sold the tragedy,that’s why they pay for.’
She patted Sienna’s shoulder aggressively, ‘nowladies,
Go back in line! Be ready for the grand final walk’Stage manager’s voice boomed over the chaos, drowning out any moment ofreflection.
Sienna stood up straight, the mask slipping backinto place. The tragedy was over, now, it was time for the encore.
