‘You have to be very thin to wear white,’ said a famous Vogue fashion editor.
To me.
I had tried to make conversation in the lift (I later learned this was not acceptable behaviour) and enquired if she would be sporting the colour favoured by hip designer Rifat Ozbek this coming season.
Even my gauche 19-year-old self understood from her withering tone that I wasn’t svelte enough to wear the shade. It was 1994 and back then I was a size 10-12. In the normal world this passed as slim, but in 90s fashion land it was fat, fat, fat.
Lucky I wasn’t wearing white in the lift, but a bubblegum-pink suit from Marks & Spencer I had bought in Birmingham for my two weeks’ work experience at the famous glossy.
Playing dress-up in the Elle fashion cupboard
This was all wrong, too.
I’d thought it had supermodel energy but knew from the moment I passed through the famous revolving doors of Vogue House in London’s Hanover Square, it was absolutely, irredeemably, wrong.
The Hubba Bubba two-piece was my first style faux pas of many. At this point everyone in the office was in pared-back grey Prada V-necks and tailored black trousers. It was humiliating, but I was not deterred. Oh no! I threw myself into nailing a Vogue-acceptable wardrobe with the same determination a spawning salmon might launch itself at a weir.
Jennifer Lopez in the iconic Versace Jungle dress
With hard work and tenacity (aka pestering) I made it from Vogue to the Elle fashion cupboard. In this windowless 10ft by 6ft space I was surrounded by all the clothes that had just been shown on the international catwalks. From Galliano to Givenchy, Chloé to Anna Sui, Versace to Dolce & Gabbana. This was the epicentre of the magazine, where all the ‘looks’ for fashion shoots arrived and were then to be returned, in pristine condition, once we’d finished with them. My job was to make this happen seamlessly.
I loved all the clothes, but when Tom Ford’s blue silk shirt and midnight-blue velvet trousers look arrived from his 1995 Gucci collection – the one worn by Kate Moss on the catwalk and Madonna at the MTV awards – I was compelled to try it on. I had visions of me looking like a modern-day Bianca Jagger. I waited until everyone had gone for their liquid lunches, locked the door and… the trousers wouldn’t go past my knees. I couldn’t even get my arms into the sleeves of the shirt.
Wearing a fateful Alberta Ferretti dress to a wedding, 1999
These clothes were cut to fit an eight-year-old. I felt gargantuan.
But like a moth to the flame, this did not put me off. I began sporting Philip Treacy butterfly headpieces, Chloé jeans and Chanel caps, often while processing returns dockets. Or, more daringly, while making tea to match the colour my boss had marked on a Pantone chart. (Yes, really.)
As my career progressed from intern to assistant to writer to stylist to director, I borrowed clothes to wear out out, often sanctioned. Sometimes not. I felt this was essential because fashion magazine salaries were more Primark than Prada, so if you wanted to look appropriately attired at fashion dinners and awards you shopped the cupboard. If it didn’t fit, you made it.
Shining in Sonia Rykiel, 1997
In the mid-90s, Gucci jersey cutout dresses were the bomb. Plein Sud did a (slightly) more accessible version. The one I tried on stretched to fit, had a very deep V neckline and clung to every curve. Wearing knickers was not an option because, well, VPL. I wore it to the Elle Style Awards and hit the dance floor with the models, editors, designers and celebrities and danced with abandon. Suddenly the male fashion director sprinted over, grabbed me by the wrist and hissed in my ear, ‘I can see your bush!’ I looked down and it turns out my abundant muff (this was before Brazilians) had somehow worked its way through the fabric so when I stood side on in front of the disco lights everyone could see protruding fuzz. Mor-ti-fying.
Meanwhile, extremely low-rise jeans were becoming essential daywear, thanks to Alexander McQueen’s bumsters. In practice, this meant my bottom crack was on display for the best part of a decade. I remember one old lady telling me, as I put some shopping in the car, that her husband was affronted by seeing so much of my backside. In hindsight, I can see his point.
Going for bust on a photo shoot in the late 90s
By 2000 I was styling the covers of Elle magazine and working with all the celebrities. There was Cameron Diaz (good sport, worried about her skin, as fun as she looks) and Elizabeth Hurley (incredibly polite and professional, don’t call her Liz, prefers Concorde but will settle for seat 1A on BA and doesn’t like showing her legs – preferring trousers or gowns). However, Sarah Jessica Parker was the first big A-lister I worked with and to say I was winging it was an understatement. When she asked me if I could tape her boobs (surprisingly big for one so small) I had zero idea what she was talking about. A mischievous photographer’s assistant passed me gaffer tape and I proceeded to try (and fail) to create slings for her breasts with it while she politely looked on.
Meanwhile, I was still cramming myself into too-small sample sizes for parties. At a Versace gala with Anna Friel in Los Angeles, I was allowed to borrow a corseted black dress. I could barely breathe but it gave me the heaving embonpoint of a Bridgerton heroine. At the bar an old man turned to me and said, ‘Nice t*ts, can I buy you a drink?’ It was Jack Nicholson.
Madonna in Gucci, 1995
That same year, I requested a jungle print, chiffon, slashed-to-below-the-navel dress from Versace for some celebrity shoot or other. After the shoot it was hanging on the rail and, as I had some fancy event to go to, I tried it on. It looked fabulous, so I thought why not? (Ah, the insouciance of youth. If I were to even contemplate wearing that today it would take me three days of body prep and temazepam). All of the dress’s chiffon and jewellery was anchored on to a bodysuit that had poppers in the crotch. No underwear allowed. I went
to the event and spent the night avoiding the label’s PR, comedy capers style, as they had not expressly (actually, in no way at all) said I could wear the dress. The next day a request came into the office to Fedex it to New York now. No time for dry cleaning. A few days later, JLo broke the internet wearing it to The Grammys. So Jenny from the Block and I have shared a gusset. A gusset I hadn’t so much as spritzed with Febreeze.
Elle cover styled by Rosie starring SJP
Surrounded by so many sheer fabrics, underwear as outwear and sky-high hemlines, I started to suffer from fashion blindness. Near nudity was normalised in fashionland. It was only when I wore an Alberta Ferretti dress that was largely made up of transparent chiffon to my boyfriend’s rugby mate’s wedding that I realised this attire was not acceptable in the real world. The groom said to my boyfriend, ‘Er mate, I can see your bird’s t*ts.’
But this was nothing compared to my biggest fashion faux pas, which I’ve left ’til last because it still makes me blush.
In the fashion cupboard there was a totally see-through Blumarine dress. It was pale blue and sequined in a Gatsby-esque flapper style. It was so beautiful it made my heart ache. (Incidentally, JLo had worn this too.) I had yet another event to go to, so I bought a nude body from John Lewis in a very small size (it was all they had left and I was used to cramming myself into doll-size garments, so this was no obstacle for me). Yet again, it was fixed by poppers under the crotch. The do was, unusually, in the daytime. So: bright lights, high visibility.
Elle cover styled by Rosie starring Elizabeth Hurley
There where hundreds there, tables of industry power players. As I left mine to go to the loo, weaving in and around the seats, I felt the body strain and, oh god, please no… pop. In an instant the fabric sprang upwards, rising above my bellybutton, revealing my (still) untamed bush for all to see. I scurried towards the exit, my hands attempting to preserve some shred of decency. I was hyperventilating with shame but as I reached the doors, I hoped to find some sort of shelter the other side. No. I found myself in the hotel lobby being stared at by many Japanese tourists partaking in afternoon tea. I darted left hoping to find the powder room but instead found myself on a busy London street. I reached below my crotch and, with as much dignity as one in such a situation could muster, popped the body back together in full view of Park Lane traffic. Then I walked back in and inhaled my wine and mineswept most of everyone else’s.
After that I wore items I actually owned, mainly black, in the right size. And thanked god daily that there were no camera phones back then.
