Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model

Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model Victoire Dauxerre A memoir of a brief career as a top model - and the brutally honest account of what goes on behind the scenes in a fascinating, closed industry.Scouted in the street when she is 17, Victoire Dauxerre’s story started like a teenager’s dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York’s major fashion shows, and part of the most select circle of in-demand supermodels in the world.But when fashion executives and photographers began to pressure her about her weight, forcing her to become ever thinner, Victoire’s fantasy came at a cost. Food was now her enemy, and soon, living on only three apples a day and Diet Coke galore, Victoire became anorexic.An unflinching, painful expose of the uglier face of fashion, her testimony is a shocking example of how our culture’s mechanisms of anorexia and bulimia can push a young woman to the point of suicide. It is the story of a survivor whose fight against poisonous illness and body image shows us how to take courage and embrace life. (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) Copyright (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) William Collins An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.williamcollinsbooks.com) This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017 Copyright © ?ditions des Ar?nes, Paris, 2016 English translation © Andy Bliss 2017 Cover photograph © Dan Kennedy Victoire Dauxerre asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This edition published by arrangement with ?ditions des Ar?nes in conjunction with their duly appointed agents The St Marks Agency, London. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008220525 Ebook Edition © February 2017 ISBN: 9780008220501 Version: 2018-01-22 Dedication (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) To my darling brothers, Alexis and L?opold To my Granddaddy, whom I miss And to every woman out there Epigraph (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) It is the stars, The stars above us govern our conditions. Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene III Contents Cover (#uc0aee6c6-3372-5075-99c4-d81410f4dda3) Title Page (#udb2832d4-7dee-56d6-b5e9-2188b10f4c2f) Copyright (#ubac845cb-e1d8-581c-81b2-ac31126d8b16) Dedication (#u0de1d064-bb9f-54f6-9a8a-db0af24be738) Epigraph (#u27c3418e-b31a-545c-add0-37ccb3ad6edc) Flashback (#u2915bf12-0d91-5ba5-8e3a-ed40ff80558c) Claudia Schiffer (#u666c6392-8df3-5f7d-bd18-a579811d69db) Waiting for Sciences Po (#ua4a8b1dc-facd-5e09-8bd4-2d4e998d6981) Something Vintage, Something Classy (#u3d44e119-7333-5e95-8564-d42c295f9d81) The Cathedral of Fashion (#u48617c01-a5a6-5886-9b30-2d888a6e431d) Playing With My Body (#u61f378a5-e4ae-5619-aedf-cd1b4eecfb8e) Learning How to Walk (#uef8a66eb-7605-5736-ae72-6625b19bc3ed) 33 23 34 (#ua4a0179c-ce60-5d98-b539-29d12791e326) Three Apples a Day (#u7d22f7d4-eebd-553d-8c49-db621bdc3b32) Y?ki (#ucb975afa-b215-5bb9-9f0b-c10485682ea4) The American Dream (#u3b781cd6-e81a-51c3-98ae-e05a5ee0193b) The Little Voice (#litres_trial_promo) Stop Eating! (#litres_trial_promo) New York (#litres_trial_promo) Casting Hell (#litres_trial_promo) Russell Marsh (#litres_trial_promo) Three, Two, One, Go! (#litres_trial_promo) The Heart of Fashion Week (#litres_trial_promo) Home Sweet Home (#litres_trial_promo) Milan (#litres_trial_promo) At the End of My Tether (#litres_trial_promo) And Now for Paris (#litres_trial_promo) The Holy of Holies (#litres_trial_promo) Into the Light (#litres_trial_promo) The Photo Shoots (#litres_trial_promo) The Fat Cow (#litres_trial_promo) Life as a Clothes Hanger (#litres_trial_promo) Weightless (#litres_trial_promo) The Bitch (#litres_trial_promo) I Quit (#litres_trial_promo) Disappearing (#litres_trial_promo) Not Alone Any More (#litres_trial_promo) It’s a Wonderful Life (#litres_trial_promo) Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Flashback (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) I didn’t want to think about it any more. I was feeling fine, or at any rate better. Normal life had resumed: I was studying again, I’d moved into a new place, I’d found a boyfriend, a job and a future of sorts, and my figure was now more or less acceptable. I was increasingly thinking about getting into acting seriously, because in the end it was the only thing that genuinely interested me. And then Mum called. ‘Loutch, I’ve written an email to that MP who’s trying to get a law passed on anorexia.’ She wanted me to read it to see if I was OK with what she’d said and if I wanted her to include my contact details. I read it, and of course I was OK with it. And yes, I wanted her to include my contact details. She sent it off, and then the journalists started calling with questions. So I told them my story, and everything started all over again. The eating. Eating to fill myself up, to fill this void. Hating it, but doing it all the same. Seeing my body transform itself, even though I emptied it just as soon as I’d filled it. Not recognising it, and hating it. Not recognising myself, and hating me. Feeling so awful, so ugly and so empty. So like nothing at all. And that’s when I decided to relive, one final time, those eight months of my life spent suspended in a vacuum. To write it all down. To write about that constant spinning sensation in my head, that savage and brutal fear that used to devour my body and, to the extent that I still had one, my soul. About the loneliness I felt when surrounded by all those cynics, the bastards, the lost and the miserable. About the unspeakably disgusting, skeletal ugliness in the midst of all that beauty. And about death itself, adorned in bright lights, make-up, fur, silk, rhinestone, lace, satin, soft leather and 7-inch heels. The death that was very nearly my own fate. Claudia Schiffer (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) It was Sunday. Mum had practically dragged me out for a walk around the Marais district to take my mind off things. I didn’t feel like it; I didn’t feel like doing anything. I was revising for my Bac, the final year school exams in France, and the entrance exams for Sciences Po, France’s leading political studies college, and as they loomed, my anxiety levels were rocketing. But mainly, I was brooding over my heartbreak. It was the first time my heart had been broken – by Hugo, who had just left me for Juliette. Dumped. Cast off like a useless, worthless object. The few words he’d said were like a slap in the face, a blow to the soul. A failure. Since then, I’d been hurting a lot, and had felt a bit scared too. Of being dumped over and over again, of being alone. Of not knowing what to do with my life, let alone with whom. Scared of the unknown, of getting it wrong, of maybe losing my way. All of a sudden everything had become really complicated. After a ‘problem-free’ time at primary school, changes in the timetable cut me off from all my friends when I started secondary school. I completely stopped working and then I decided that I’d never set foot in a school again – I would prepare for my Bac on my own, at home. I planned everything out before announcing my decision to my parents: the contact details for a school where I could study by correspondence; my timetable, planned out to the minute, so that they could see that I really had thought things through; and my promise to do what it took to be the best. My parents were hardly over the moon, but they agreed to it because they knew what I was like. I was a good pupil, I could put my mind to studying and more than anything I would never have let myself fail at something to which I’d committed myself. Especially when I’d just forced them into a corner. And I would pass my Bac, with a top mark. It gave some structure to my life. I like to work fast; as soon as things start to drag, I get bored. I got the whole year’s syllabus out of the way in six months so that I’d have time to do something else with the rest of the year. Like spending time with Granddaddy and Nan, my beloved grandparents. I learned how to dance the salsa and the tango and I also did a bit of acting. I hung out with my cousin Tom and his thirty-something friends, who used to take me out at night. And I spent time with my best friend Sophie, who I’d met at the dance classes. My life was very structured. I’d get up at eight o’clock and at nine I’d settle down to work at my bedroom desk with Plume my cat for company, while Mum worked upstairs in her workshop. My mother is an artist – she paints, sculpts, makes collages and draws. She can put her hand to anything. And then it would be the lunch break, watching dumb serials on the box. Mum has never had much of an appetite and didn’t stop for lunch. But I often went up to her workshop in the afternoons to spend some time with her, or we would go off to an exhibition or go shopping until the boys got back from school. I’ve got two brothers: Alexis, who’s a year and a half younger than me, and L?opold, who’s six years younger. I used to feel happy when they got home. We’d have tea together in the kitchen, and life was peaceful and safe. ‘No doubt about it – you’re the next Claudia Schiffer.’ We were window-shopping for watches in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois when a puny little guy accosted me. He hardly came up to my shoulders. I looked him up and down and he smiled at me. ‘Have you ever thought about being a model?’ Yeah, right, great chat-up technique. Thank you, and goodbye. But instead of ignoring him, Mum showed an interest. ‘Your daughter is extraordinarily beautiful. She has a great nose! It balances her face and would catch the light perfectly. Believe me – I know what I’m talking about.’ He knows what he’s talking about? When it comes to noses? I felt like laughing, because I know perfectly well what my nose is like. It’s got a little bump, which has been handed down the maternal line in my family for at least three generations and which I spent my whole childhood rubbing, trying to flatten it out and make it go away. So much so that it’s left a slight blue mark. Any true ‘connoisseur’ would know that what was not quite right about my face was my nose. He addressed me informally as if we’d known each other for ever. ‘I promise you, I know what I’m talking about. I work for a modelling agency called Elite. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them? You were made for the profession, believe me. I could get you to New York for September fashion week, and you’d go down a storm. Here, take my card. Think about it, and call me. I promise you, you really are made for it. If you let me handle things, I can make you into a supermodel.’ I said thank you, but that I was revising for the Bac and for Sciences Po and none of this was on the cards. ‘Just call me,’ he said, and off he went. Mum was looking at me with a big smile on her face. Once he was out of earshot, we burst out laughing. So they were true, then, these stories of scouts from modelling agencies accosting girls in the street and it all happening just like that, with a snap of the fingers in front of the window display of a jeweller’s shop! Supermodel? Whatever next? Mind you, Elite was a pretty big name. I might not have been a fashion addict, but I did read some of the women’s magazines and I knew that Elite was one of the top agencies. A quick search on the internet that evening confirmed what I’d thought: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista … Even though that Seb guy – the name S?bastien was on his business card – had gone over the top, it had still been nice of him to say that, just maybe, I could be part of that select band of the most beautiful girls on the planet! It did me some good. I stored away Seb’s card in a corner of my desk, and his fine talk in a corner of my mind, and plunged back into my revision. Deep down, I was trying to control the anxiety that gripped my stomach whenever I thought about the exams. I knew perfectly well that I would pass my Bac, and yet I was terribly afraid of failing it. As for Sciences Po, that was the great unknown. Not even my consistently excellent school grades were enough to set my mind at ease, and the closer the entrance exams got, the more petrified I became. I wasn’t just fretting a bit – I was terrified of failing and proving that I just wasn’t up to it. Waiting for Sciences Po (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) I passed every single one of my exams, with a warrior-like determination. I was quite the little trouper when it came down to it. The Bac was a cinch, but Sciences Po was another matter altogether. I stressed out crazily about not knowing a thing, about getting the one subject that I hadn’t swotted up on. I’d prepared as best I could, but it just wasn’t possible to revise the whole curriculum. I felt confident, as if I were in control of the situation, and yet at the same time I felt fragile and at the mercy of random chance, which could completely upset all my plans. The exam took place in a room without air conditioning where the temperature hit 40°C – it was an ordeal as much as an exam. And I wouldn’t know if I’d passed it, or the other entrance exams I’d taken, until the end of July. In the meantime, I decided to call Seb, just to see. When I asked him, ‘Do you remember me?’ he replied, ‘I was hardly likely to forget you!’ I know it was daft of me, but I liked hearing him say that. And after all, it was an option: if I wasn’t smart enough to succeed with my brain – in journalism, theatre, politics or something like that – then perhaps I could use my ‘dream body’ to get on in life? We set up a meeting and Mum dropped me off at his door near Saint-Michel. She must have said at least a dozen times: ‘If there’s the slightest problem, you leave, promise? And you call me. You call me and I’ll come and get you.’ Don’t worry, Mum. I just wanted to talk about what the job entailed, find out how things worked and see what he had to offer me. Then if I didn’t get into Sciences Po or one of the other colleges, there was still a chance of finding myself in New York for fashion week. I’d been dreaming of New York ever since Friends and Sex and the City and perhaps I’d take to fashion week really well. This guy really talked nineteen to the dozen. He didn’t stop talking from the moment I entered the room, going on about my nose, my blue eyes, my endless legs – ‘How tall are you? Looking at you, I’d say 5 foot 10, right? Bang on, I knew it! You’re just perfect, my angel. Perfect!’ – as well as the agencies, the fashion shows, the castings, the photo shoots, the sublime clothes of the top designers, the ad campaigns worth hundreds of thousands of euros, the fantastic hotels all around the globe and all the top-flight models he’d personally discovered and coached to the summit of their profession. I politely listened to him taking me for an idiot. If he was so successful, what was he doing in this shabby little studio, which didn’t even belong to him but to his girlfriend Cl?mentine, a pretty, slightly plump girl who wanted to become an actress and who he was ‘coaching’ too? Being an actress was my own dream. I’d known it since I saw Romy Schneider in Sissi when I was 8. I’d taken the Sciences Po entrance exam because I was a conscientious pupil and my father had advised me to get some qualifications first, but my goal had always been to become an actress. ‘You’re mad, Victoire, don’t even consider it!’ Seb declared. ‘You’ve got the physique of a model, not an actress. When I saw Marion Cotillard in Taxi, I knew straight away, before anyone else, that she would become a film star. She’s got that something extra. You don’t. You’re a supermodel. You don’t have a Hollywood face.’ He was increasingly getting on my nerves – all this talk about himself and the constant name-dropping. It smacked of lies, his whole spiel about being the African diplomat’s son who’d wanted to study at Sciences Po (what a coincidence!) but had ultimately decided to ‘coach his girls’ instead. A pathetic mixture of fake bling, dreams and drudgery. But we were talking about Elite, after all, and he was saying he could get me in with them! We did some photos, or rather ‘Polaroids’, as they’re called – it used to be the only way they had of creating instant snaps. Nowadays, they’re digital photos of course, but without any retouching or make-up or anything else, and he was going to use them to present me to Elite. In the Vogue magazines scattered on the coffee table, he showed me the basics of a pose: hair tied back to show off the face, head slightly inclined and looking straight ahead. ‘Show intent in your gaze. We need to get the impression that you’re thinking. And half open your lips, so that you don’t look withdrawn.’ One side of me wanted to take the piss out of him, while the other was concentrating like mad on trying to follow all his instructions at once. Seb was right: posing is a professional art. But did I really want it to be my profession? When the time came to leave, I told him I would think about it. My parents and I had a long discussion at home that evening. Dad was really into the idea: ‘Do you realise what an opportunity this is, Victoire? You’re going to be travelling around the world to the most beautiful places and earning loads of money for doing not very much. You won’t get another opportunity like this. You’re young, so you can afford to give it a go for a year.’ He was right: what if it was the chance of a lifetime? But Mum was more hesitant: if I got into Sciences Po or one of the other colleges, was it really a good idea to turn them down? Of course what Seb was offering me was an amazing experience, but wouldn’t I get tired of it very quickly, as I did with everything else? Wouldn’t I regret it? Or, worse still, would I hold it against her and Dad for allowing me to make such a bad choice? I went to bed with Seb’s words whirling around in my head – all the magazine images he’d foisted on me, all the professional jargon he’d spouted and all the illustrious names he’d dropped into the conversation: New York, Tokyo, London; Polaroids, photo shoots, ‘books’, castings; Dior, Galliano, C?line, Castelbajac; Claudia, Natalia, Kate … If I didn’t give it a go, would I spend the rest of my life regretting it? The following morning, I called him: yes, I did want to meet Elite. Just to see. Something Vintage, Something Classy (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9) From that moment on, everything happened very quickly. It was already the end of June. At the start of August, I was off with Alexis, L?opold and my parents for a grand trip along the western seaboard of the United States to celebrate my parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary, and the fashion week castings started at the beginning of September in New York. So I had barely a month in which to: get myself ready for meeting Elite, meet Elite, think it over, negotiate and sign a contract (or not), learn the techniques and the primary rules of the profession and get used to the idea. Seb arranged an appointment for just three days later. ‘I’d already spoken to them about you. When they saw the Polaroids, they said, “Bring her here immediately!”’ Immediately, fair enough, but not before I’d found my ‘model’s outfit’: ultra-tight skinny black jeans to show off my legs to best effect; a black Petit Bateau tank top to flatter my top half, and then ‘something vintage and something classy, that’s what creates the magic balance, baby’. And so off I went with Seb to the Marais for a shopping spree. He picked me out a disgusting khaki jacket, which reeked of second-hand, but which he found ‘subliiiime, exactly what we’re looking for’. So what ‘we’ were looking for was this shapeless and nauseating potato sack to hide my curves? ‘Trust me, it’s what I do for a living. Just wait until we find the shoes – you’ll see.’ For the shoes, we got the metro to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Champs-?lys?es and he led me directly to Balmain – it was the end of the sales, and we’d be able to find some ‘bargains’ for ‘barely’ €400. I’d never spent such a sum of money on shoes! I started browsing around the shop, thinking that he must have some faith in me if he was prepared to spend that much on a pair of shoes. He rejected all my choices and then triumphantly held aloft a faintly absurd pair of black patent leather sandals, featuring a complex jumble of zips and 7-inch heels. They were divine, but doubtless completely unwearable. I decided to give them a go nevertheless. It took a while to figure out how to get into them, but when I finally stood up to walk around, they turned out to be a thing of luxurious wonder! Contrary to all my expectations, they were actually quite comfortable. And even if I’d have to get used to it, I was acquitting myself quite well at these vertiginous heights. After all, I’d spent years playing the little princess in shoes borrowed from Mum, who’s always been very feminine and unafraid to wear high heels in the presence of my father, who is 6 foot 4. I’d never have believed it before trying them on, but Seb was right: these shoes were the touch of class and glamour that perfectly complemented my horrible military jacket. ‘Shall I pay half, and your mother makes up the rest?’ So nice of you, Seb, to get me just the one shoe! I only hoped my parents would be willing to chip in for this beautiful gift. We got the metro again, me with my incredible sandals wrapped in silk paper and nestling in an understated little bag featuring the Balmain logo, and Seb in a growing state of excitement and issuing an incessant stream of instructions and advice about my appointment in two days’ time at Elite. In a nutshell, I had to be smiley and relaxed and give the impression that I was pleased to be there. And above all, I had to let him do the talking and I had to make an amazing impression, because he’d spent days and days banging on about me and had managed to convince them that I was the supermodel of tomorrow. And the proof that he had managed to convince them was that a certain Flo, who only worked with the top-flight models, would be taking care of me and not Sol?ne, who was in charge of the new faces. ‘I want you to set off like a rocket, do you understand? I want you to get the best castings and the best fashion shows right away, without going through the “beginner” phase.’ I listened without saying a word, because that was what he seemed to expect of me. I was too well brought up to tell him that I was perfectly capable of taking all these instructions on board without him having to repeat them endlessly. I’d understood the basic deal, and even the finer detail, even though he had overlooked one crucial point that didn’t even seem to have occurred to him: I hadn’t yet decided if I would sign or not. Contrary to what he seemed to think, it wasn’t a done deal. For a start, Elite had to be interested in me. And I had to be interested in them too. Before I returned home to show off my combat outfit to the whole family, we stopped off at a caf? to see Olympe and Madeleine, two other ‘Seb girls’ he’d talent-spotted a few months previously and who I would be sharing an apartment with if I went to New York in September. I listened distractedly to the ramblings of our mentor, who was intending to turn us into the ‘Galactic’ (sic) superstars: three supermodels who would take the upcoming fashion weeks by storm. I listened a bit more attentively, but without really following everything, to his convoluted explanations about why he had decided (and what about me, when did I get to decide?) that in New York I would be represented by a small agency called Silent (‘much more efficient and better organised’) and in Milan by D’ Management (‘much better established than Elite in Italy’). The girls seemed nice. While Seb tucked into a huge croque-monsieur and downed Coca-Cola, I sipped on a freshly squeezed orange juice. My two (potential) flatmates were drinking Diet Coke. Seb was ribbing the girls about the lack of visible progress they were making with their respective diets: ‘New York is in two months, girls. And by the looks of it, you’re still a long way from a size 6.’* (#ulink_5aada6f9-a96e-56e1-9bfd-b283799ed8ba) I was a long way from that too. Not quite as far away as they were, to look at them, but even so. What with splitting with Hugo and revising for my exams, I’d lost weight – I could feel it when I put on my clothes. My size 8s were becoming a bit loose, but I’d never worn size 6! I was going to have to knuckle down … That evening at home I told them about my ‘Pretty Woman’ day. I paraded in front of my parents and brothers in my Balmain sandals and my camouflage jacket, which I then washed in the machine several times to try to get rid of the mouldy second-hand smell. I almost forgot about my Bac results, which had come through that day: I missed the top grade by just 0.3 points due to a marking error in the sports exam. I was going to have to appeal, because without that top grade I wouldn’t be eligible for the oral entrance exam for Sciences Po (which would give me a second chance to get in if I failed the written exam). I started to cry from fatigue, shame and anger. My father was certain that I would be given the top grade after my appeal and wanted to celebrate my results with a bottle of champagne which he had put on ice for the occasion, but I refused any kind of celebration. I was terribly disappointed and annoyed, and I wanted to forget all about it. Before he went to bed, Alex came into my bedroom and we had a long chat. He never expresses his emotions, but I could sense that he was both very proud and very worried. Just like I was. The following day, Seb paid for me to get my hair cut by ‘his’ hairdresser. This was a novelty for me, because from the year dot I’d always cut my own hair. And it was with this new look – which wasn’t so very different from the old one, in truth – that I went to visit Granddaddy and Nan, who were not exactly over the moon about the adventure that was opening up before me. And yet my grandmother should have been happy for me – she had always been so elegant and when she was young she used to draw such pretty fashion sketches! She’d always loved fashion and even worked as a fashion designer before deciding to pack it in and look after her four children instead. But she was a lover of literature too, and she couldn’t understand why I’d choose New York over trying to get into college. Granddaddy, for his part, was simply worried: his little Victorinette all alone in New York, surrounded by the sharks? Was it really a sensible thing to do? I reassured them as best I could before going home. We were all very excited. Dad suggested eating out to celebrate. But if I wanted to become a model, I was going to have to forget about eating out. Seb said I was ‘perfect’, but the girls had made a point of saying that a size 8 was still much too much. So we didn’t go out to eat. I spent a sleepless night, and the next day I headed off to Elite. * (#ulink_ad88c23a-f84f-52e3-96a7-cc8ffe7ff3f8) Sizes given throughout are UK sizes. The Cathedral of Fashion (#ulink_a166452e-fc53-52e7-a42e-09852a500fdf) I did exactly what Seb told me to do: skinny black jeans, black tank top, horrible khaki jacket, ballet shoes, and my Balmain sandals in my bag. My hair nicely done, no make-up at all and sweating profusely, all got up as I was in my ‘model gear’ instead of sporting the nice light dress which this early July heatwave called for. I met up with him at Saint-Michel and we jumped into a deliciously air-conditioned cab, where my body could get back down to a normal temperature. Seb spent the time drumming into me once again what he’d been repeating incessantly for the last two days: be natural, show willing, keep quiet and do what you’re asked to do. Amen. It was one of those wonderful Haussmann buildings on Avenue Montaigne, just next to the Plaza Ath?n?e. In the coolness of the entrance hall, I sat down on a step to put on my shoes, which was a whole palaver in itself, what with all the straps and my feet all clammy and swollen with the heat. Seb was watching me with a hint of irritation. ‘You’re going to have to work on your technique, aren’t you?’ Once I was perched on my heels, it seemed like he only came up to my navel – he was the ridiculous one. The first challenge: to stabilise myself at this improbable height. I was tottering a bit, but managed my first steps without breaking the heels or my ankles. Another sidelong glance from Seb: ‘Upstairs, you don’t want to be tripping, do you? It’s a minimum requirement, if you want to make a good impression.’ Thanks for the confidence boost, that’s just what I needed. We took the lift up without a word. First floor, second floor, third floor – I felt the stress rising up my legs and clutching at my innards the higher we went. The door opened, and my heels sank into the thick, dark red carpet. There was polished wood panelling and, at the end of the corridor, a large elegant door bearing the same shiny golden plaque as on the fa?ade, engraved with the word Elite in very sober and stylised black letters. Behind it, you could hear the hubbub of busy people. I had stage fright, like in the theatre just before walking on stage, when you can hear the buzz in the auditorium. Take a deep breath. Think of my parents and my brothers. Of Granddaddy, Nan and even Plume. Think about everything that makes me strong and makes me feel good. And go for it, like diving into the big pool. We buzzed, and the door opened onto a rather spacious reception area. Seb nodded at the receptionist, who recognised him and smiled back. She ushered us in with a wave of her hand. I could feel my heart pounding furiously. We entered a huge, bright white room, with light streaming in through tall curtainless windows. In the middle stood a gigantic black table which people were milling around, speaking French and English in hushed tones, their eyes fixed on their computer screens and their phones stuck to their ears. On the right-hand wall, there was a bookshelf full of perfectly aligned books with names written in capital letters on their spines. And covering the walls there were hundreds of images in neat rows: first names, faces, silhouettes and measurements. These are the ‘comp cards’, which models use as super-size business cards. They’re a sort of snapshot of who they are, with the contact details of the agency. The place was stunning – I felt as if I were in a cathedral, a cathedral of fashion, beauty and luxury. And this was perhaps where, in a few moments’ time, my baptism of fire was going to take place. I wanted them to take me on; I wanted to be a part of this amazingly big, bright, white world; I wanted a piece of the condensed and effervescent energy that this place exuded. Providing they liked me. Nobody was taking any notice of us. We walked across the room towards a small brunette wearing big glasses who was sitting at the end of the table. Her voice was deep and carried authority. I focused on walking with a casual, self-assured air, trying not to tremble. Seb greeted the woman with a ‘Hi, Flo,’ and she turned towards me. It was all happening very quickly. Just before she replied with a ‘Hello’ and a big toothy smile – almost too toothy, in fact – I saw her gaze slide attentively from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, and then back up again just as attentively, until it met me full in the eyes. Still smiling, she said, ‘Hello, Victoire.’ ‘Hello,’ I replied, holding out my hand. She shook my hand, though I immediately sensed that a handshake was a bit out of place here. And then she turned to her colleagues and loudly announced, ‘Look over here, everybody! This is Victoire, the new girl! Look how beautiful she is!’ They all glanced across to size me up in their turn, said hello to me very politely and then returned to their business, as if I’d already left. And yet I was still there, standing up to my full height of 5 foot 10 inches, plus an extra 7 inches thanks to my Balmain shoes, in front of Flo, who was sitting in her armchair and speaking to me politely but firmly: ‘So, you’d like to work with us? How did you meet Seb? What do you do in life? Could you take off your jacket?’ Phew! It was a huge relief to finally take off my horrible parka, which I’d been slowly dissolving in. Meanwhile, Flo was looking me up and down again. ‘Would you turn round?’ I felt like a cow at a cattle market. A piece of meat being scrutinised and weighed before being devoured. ‘Perfect. I’m going to introduce you to Vladimir, and then you can go and do the Polaroids with Nicolas.’ Did that mean that they were taking me on? Without discussion or negotiation or anything? She had said the ‘new girl’ as if I were already part of the team. And weren’t they even going to ask me for my opinion? Seb seemed to be in seventh heaven, as if he weren’t in the least surprised. As if everything had already been decided, without me having had any say in the matter. Flo introduced me to Vladimir, the short man with the nice smile and the Serbo-Croat accent sitting on her right. He was the ‘head of the bookers’ – the agents who are in touch with the casting directors and send the models to the famous castings and other appointments, and then negotiate and sign their contracts. He greeted me with a ‘My darrrling, how beautiful you are. Come along, I’m going to intrrroduce you to the boss.’ I followed him towards an immense room with huge windows that gave onto a massive balcony overlooking the Avenue Montaigne. In the middle of it was an enormous black desk, behind which was sitting the only man in the whole agency who was wearing a suit and tie. ‘G?rrrald, let me intrrroduce you to Victoirrre, the new girl.’ He looked up at me. ‘Hello, sweetie.’ ‘Hello.’ And he buried his nose back in his papers. Leaving his office, his ‘sweetie’ was asking herself what she was doing there and if she really wanted to get mixed up with all these people, who were seemingly from another planet. Nicolas, a very thin and very agitated young man, closed the large doors to the boss’s office so that he could photograph me in front of them. A first profile, a second profile, from the front, from the back, hair swept back over the ear. I remembered what Seb had told me two days earlier: a look of intent in the eyes, head slightly lowered, lips half-open. Once the Polaroids were done, we went to the other end of the corridor, where a very cool-looking woman – huge trendy glasses, black jeans, big-brand trainers and immaculate haircut – greeted me without a smile and without introducing herself. ‘Walk!’ I did as I was told, putting as much grace into it as I could. ‘Again!’ Going down the corridor for the second time, I tried to catch her eyes, but she was staring at my bottom, not my eyes. At my arms and my legs. The less she said, the more I felt I was moving like a robot. ‘OK. You’re going to have to take walking lessons.’ Walking lessons? Did such things exist? I was about to come up with a reply, when I realised that she wasn’t talking to me but to Seb. Still without addressing me directly, she took a tape measure out of her pocket and came over to take my measurements. Chest, waist and hips, or rather the fat of the buttocks! I sensed that it was a crucial moment, but I had no idea what score I needed to pass the examination. ‘34, 25, 36.’ Was that good or not? Seb said nothing. Flo appeared and asked, ‘Well, then?’ The figures were repeated to her. She sighed. ‘OK, we’ll lie, because you’re never going to get into the clothes – you absolutely have to be close to 34. We’ll put 34 and reduce the rest too. In any case, it’s eight weeks away and you’ll have more than enough time to lose it.’ She looked at me, giving me another of her toothy smiles. She was smiling, but in reality she wasn’t smiling. She was giving me a very strict order. ‘For the photo shoots, size 8 is fine and you can put some back on. But for the shows, you have to get into size 4 to 6. OK?’ OK. Before we left, Vladimir asked me to sit down at his desk – what a relief it was to finally take the weight off my feet! – and handed me a contract in a classy white sleeve engraved with the Elite logo. He also reeled off a list of the things that I needed to do as a priority: sign the contract in question, do a photo session with one of their photographers so that they could print my comp card and put together an initial portfolio, and arrange walking lessons. ‘You’re rrreally too beautiful, my darrrling. Do a good job in New York. We’ll be seeing each other again for Parrris fashion week.’ We signalled goodbye to Flo, who was on the phone, and found ourselves back in the lift. S?bastien, who had never been so silent in all the time I’d known him, became Seb once again: I’d been great, they’d been amazed, he’d done the right thing to make sure that it was Flo who took me on, he’d negotiated like crazy but it had worked, and thanks to him I was going to have an incredible first season and become the supermodel who everyone wanted a piece of, because when ‘they’ find a French girl, ‘they’ never let go. The French girl is the must-have, and there aren’t so many of them on the market – perhaps two or three. ‘And one of them is you! You’ll see. In New York, Milan and Paris, it’s you they’re all going to want!’ So that was it, it was a done deal? In the entrance hall, as I extricated my feet from my sandals from hell, I felt drained and dazed, excited and out of myself. All these people had chosen me, appraised me, measured me and given me a schedule without once asking me for my opinion. Perhaps it was better that way. I wasn’t sure that I had an opinion. My life was in the process of taking off, without me really having had any say in the matter. And so what? Perhaps that was how life worked? Going with the flow and letting life take decisions for me? Letting it take me wherever it wanted to take me? Ultimately, there was nothing I had to do personally, except do what I was told and do it to perfection in order to become the best. And stop eating, straight away. Mum was waiting for me in her old Austin Mini on the Avenue Montaigne – getting the metro in this heat was more than I could face. ‘So, what did they say, then?’ I gave her the low-down. Flo, Vladimir, G?rald, the contract, the Polaroid session, the walking lessons and the measurements. ‘An inch around the hips is quite a lot, Loutch. You’ve never been so slim, and you’ve got an iron will!’ She was right. But I was going to become a supermodel, the supermodel who everybody wanted a piece of. I was going to have a dazzling rise to the top, earn loads of money and kick off my adult life in an incredible way. I had just turned 18, Elite thought I was terrific, and in September I’d be in New York! When I got home, I weighed myself. At 5 foot 10 and weighing 58 kilos, I could get into a size 8. So I’d need to lose at least three 3 kilos to reach size 6, and three more to get to size 4. It was 2 July and the first castings in New York were starting at the beginning of September, so I had eight weeks to reach a weight of 52 kilos. Or let’s say 50, so that I had a bit of leeway. That meant a kilo a week, which I should be able to manage. I spent the rest of the evening on the internet, browsing sites and blogs by girls who offered slimming tips. It was pretty straightforward, in fact: I would just eat fruit. And more specifically, apples, because the pectin in them makes you feel full. I’d eat them three times a day, chewing tiny pieces very slowly, like Mum does when she eats a pain aux raisins. It was the same as preparing for my Bac or the Sciences Po exam: I just had to remain focused on my objective. I’d done it before and I could do it again. It shouldn’t be a major obstacle – it was just a question of willpower. And I had plenty of willpower. Playing With My Body (#ulink_dbdf3b0d-e613-5a3d-99fe-5ed46b32473c) Two days later, Mum dropped me off in front of the grimy old fa?ade of a disused shop in the 10th arrondissement. I checked twice to make sure that this really was the address where I was supposed to meet Seb for my first photo session, tapped in the code and pushed open a rickety door which gave onto a dimly lit staircase with a grubby carpet. I very nearly turned around and left. It was quite a contrast to the agency on the Avenue Montaigne! At the bottom of the stairs, I came to a dark and cluttered room. At the far end, in front of a large mirror, there was a small table piled high with dirty clothes and a heap of spent make-up tubes. Syringes and used condoms were scattered across the filthy floor. What was I doing here? A smiling Seb appeared in the frame of a little door hidden off to the side in the shadows, accompanied by a sort of hairy giant whose huge belly was spilling out of a T-shirt that was much too small for him. No need to panic. Mum knew where I was and I could call her at any moment. Plus, I knew Seb and it wasn’t in his interests for anything to happen to me. Seb introduced me to Sergei the photographer, who took hold of me as if I were a rag doll and planted a huge kiss on both my cheeks. I felt myself relaxing – the guy was a big teddy bear, who spoke English with a Serbian accent you could cut with a knife. He told me I was ‘wonderful’, that he was ‘so happy to have the honour’ of doing my very first photo session and that I had nothing to worry about, because we were going to have ‘so much fun together’. He led me into his studio, which was a large, very brightly lit room with a huge roll of something that looked like white paper hanging from the ceiling and spiralling down to the floor, partially covering it. The light cast by two large projectors was both soft and bright. It was exactly what I’d imagined a photo studio might look like. Seb was pleased to see that I’d followed his instructions to the letter: skinny jeans, shirt and denim jacket. Sergei politely asked me to take off my jacket and my bra, pointing to an adjoining room where I could get changed. When I returned, he came over to me and in a very considerate way said, ‘Can I?’ I nodded and he undid several buttons of my shirt. I felt both embarrassed and at ease – I could sense that he respected me. During the two hours that the session lasted, Sergei always asked permission before touching me – each and every time. He asked me to move into the middle of the paper, which was in fact a kind of very luminous fabric, got behind his camera and said, ‘OK.’ Yes, but OK what? I had no idea what he was expecting of me. And so, patiently and kindly, he explained and guided me through things in his Anglo-Serbian jabber. I needed to relax. To put my weight on one leg to get a sway into my hips. To lower my head and raise my eyes. To play with my body. Playing with my body – what a strange experience it was for me! I was 18 years old, with a woman’s body but the outlook of a well-behaved little girl. That was no doubt why Hugo had left me – after a few weeks of gentle smooching and lengthy and passionate conversations about literature, his hand crept a bit lower than my breasts and a bit higher than my thighs. He sensed my reticence: it was the first time a boy had touched me like that. I wasn’t ready, or even sure if I wanted to be. He said that it wasn’t a problem, that we’d take our time and that he’d be patient. The following week, he was gone. That was where I was at with body games when Sergei tactfully started encouraging me to be ‘more sexy, baby’, to open my shirt, undo my trousers, prostrate myself languidly on the floor and surrender myself up to his lens. I went along with it and let him do what he wanted to do, because he was extremely kind and professional. He enticed me into playing the game. The less tense my body became, the more I started to enjoy myself. ‘I love it, darling. Wonderful! Look up for me! Look down for me! Give me more, baby!’ I swung my hips, ran my hands through my hair and crawled around like a cat in front of his lens, looking into his eyes. I changed my outfit, opened my shirt, undid my trousers. I struck the poses and began to understand the rules a little. I forgot all about Seb and just had a good time with Sergei. It was novel, funny, sexy perhaps, but without being sexual, surprising, strange and exciting … Seb congratulated me on the session. ‘You did very well, but next time it must be a flesh-coloured thong and bra. That’s one of the basics of the profession. Underwear you can’t see, even in see-through clothes.’ There was no way I could have known that, but I should at least have thought of wearing some lingerie that was halfway presentable. The shame when I took off my jeans and realised I was wearing the tattiest pair of knickers in my whole pantie drawer! As I was leaving, Sergei took hold of me again and planted a big kiss on both cheeks. I deployed my best English to thank him for having been so sweet and so delicate with me. ‘Good luck, Victoire, and thank you for this beautiful moment.’ After this brilliant photo session, time seemed to speed up. There was no time to see Sophie and tell her about my adventures as a future global muse or hear about her trials and tribulations as a future student of journalism, or to spend an evening with cousin Thomas. I was booked for the fashion week in New York at the start of September, the one in Milan at the end of September, and the one in Paris in early October. If I’d understood correctly, in each city the idea was to do as many castings as possible during the first week and hope to be chosen for the fashion shows in the second week. If I was lucky enough to get noticed, after the fashion weeks I might be chosen to do photo shoots for the magazines, for all the catalogues of the brands and even – joy of joys – for one of their ad campaigns. That was the ultimate goal: to be chosen for a campaign, to become the face of a brand and to be paid a fortune for it. While waiting for glory, and before flying off to the States with my family on 11 August as planned, I still had to arrange a couple of walking lessons, an appointment with Dad’s lawyer friend to go through the contract, a meeting at Elite to sign the contract and take possession of my book and my comp cards, and another one with Silent, the agency that would be representing me in New York. I had to do all that before heading off in the last week of July and the first week of August to Marseille, where we’d be joined by my grandparents at the lovely house with a swimming pool belonging to some friends of my parents. I had also planned to spend three days in London with Alexis to honour an appointment I’d spent weeks trying to arrange and which I couldn’t bring myself to cancel, even though it didn’t seem very relevant any more. Being an actress had always been my dream and one day I’d make it come true. I had got it into my head to meet the agent of Robert Pattinson, who was my favourite actor at the time. His agent was a certain Kate Staddon, whose contact details I had found on the internet. I desperately wanted to talk to this woman about the options available to me for making it as an actress in England. I’d harassed her office every day for nearly a month until they were forced to give in to the inevitable: the easiest way of getting shot of this French girl was to agree to meet her, even if it was only for fifteen minutes. And so Alex and I headed off as planned for a little trip to London, where we stayed with his godfather and took in the pubs, parks and museums. This sibling escapade did us good, or it did me good anyway, coming as it did just before all these big changes in my life, and so in the life of our family too. We spent a long time talking about the events of recent days, and when I told him about my session with Sergei, he asked me: ‘Would you be capable of posing naked?’ I was completely unable to answer him, but we were in agreement on one point: if I ever did, it would be best if Dad never saw the photos. But above all, we took full advantage of our time in London together, exploring new parts of the city that we weren’t familiar with. On the day of my appointment, my brother accompanied me to the door of the agency and then stationed himself on the pavement opposite to wait patiently for me. Kate Staddon was charming. She told me that, in addition to being rather tenacious, I was really very pretty, but that nevertheless my only chance of becoming an actress in the United Kingdom was to knuckle down at one of the leading drama schools, where she advised me to spend several years doing a course in order to obtain a suitable qualification. And when I’d done that, she’d be happy to see me again to discuss my future. I thanked her profusely. I had understood her message loud and clear: theatre directors didn’t cast their actors by hanging around in the street. They audition professionals who know their trade because they have learned it, though perhaps they bumped into supermodels on international tours occasionally and suddenly felt a burning desire to cast them in a role in order to reveal their hidden talent? And supposing that never happened, perhaps those very same supermodels, after two or three years of modelling, would have amassed enough money to enrol in one of those fantastically expensive drama schools that Kate Staddon had mentioned? When I explained all this to Alex on the way to St Pancras to get the Eurostar back to Paris, where my walking lessons awaited me the next day, he listened to me attentively and indulgently. And then simply said, ‘Vic, don’t let yourself dream too much, will you?’ Learning How to Walk (#ulink_60a5cd3a-4a00-5045-ba12-3827279aab31) Seb had told me that she was a former model. According to him, he was paying for a session with walking teacher ?velyne (€150 an hour) because she was the best person to teach me how to walk the catwalks, on which I was supposed to be parading in a few weeks’ time with perfect ease and with that feline allure that their name suggests. ‘Don’t forget your Balmains, otherwise it’ll be pointless.’ And so there we were, Mum and I, standing in front of the door of an apartment on the thousandth floor of a dizzying tower in the 12th arrondissement. The woman who opened the door to us didn’t look like a model at all: her feet were bare, her grey hair was held up in a messy bun by her glasses, she was wearing a colourful silk djellaba and her fingers were bedecked with silver rings. She gave us a friendly welcome and ushered us into a purple, orange and pink apartment full of Buddhas, candles, Indian wall hangings, rugs, embroidered cushions and a faint but pervasive smell of incense. She offered us some tea, pushed all the furniture in the living room against the walls to create a corridor for walking, and installed Mum on a chair so that she could observe everything, remember anything I might forget and then help me practise during the holidays in order to be ready for New York. I put my hair up in a ponytail, slipped into my performing sandals and off I went. She immediately saw that I knew how to walk in heels – ‘You have the grace of Lauren Bacall’ (isn’t she a Hollywood star, Seb?) – but that I was holding myself too erect, a bit like a classical dancer, and that I was much too tense. She showed me how to relax my shoulders and arms, right down to my nails, with a few little exercises. We spent quite a while on the issue of ‘Playmobil hands’: how to make sure that I didn’t resemble a Playmobil figure with stiff arms and hook-like hands. And so I learned how to think about relaxing my fingers when walking. And also how to swing my pelvis to relax my legs and to inject movement into my arms, how to lower my head slightly while looking up in order to obtain that ‘killer look’, how to erase any kind of expression from my face – ‘Above all, never smile!’ – so that I would look superior and detached from the humdrum world, and how to concentrate on always walking in a straight line. And of course she also showed me how to adopt that ridiculous gait that is peculiar to models: one foot placed exactly in front of the other with a high knee lift and a big stride, which makes even the most beautiful of creatures look completely stupid. ‘It’s a convention, Victoire, and you have to master it. Never forget that they’re looking at the clothes, not you.’ After an hour of this, I was knackered. ‘Practise a bit every day. You’ll see, your body will internalise it all and you won’t even need to think about it any more.’ In the lift back down to earth, it occurred to me that not even a month ago I’d been completely immersed in revising. And I couldn’t help wondering if I really wanted to spend the rest of my life focusing my energies on crucial issues like ‘Playmobil hands’. We were a long way from Shakespeare and global geopolitics! The question of the contract still had to be dealt with, and I was reassured that Dad was taking care of it. I knew that he would do what was in my best interests. I went with him to see his lady lawyer friend, who explained that Elite would be looking after me in France; Silent, who I had not yet met, in New York; and D’ Management, who I would be meeting in Italy in October, in Milan. All these agencies negotiated each of my individual assignments, charged a fee to the clients, kept a percentage of these fees and paid a small sum to Seb, who remained my ‘primary agency’. All my expenses would be advanced to me and the agencies would reimburse themselves at the end of the season from my earnings. When I asked Seb why Elite couldn’t represent me all around the world, he got into convoluted explanations about how in New York and Milan the small agencies had much more clout than a big machine like Elite and that they would be much better placed to look after me. My job was to make them want me, and if I placed my trust in him, he knew this world like the back of his hand and knew better than anyone what would be best for me. And for him too, no doubt, though I didn’t say that to him. He was increasingly getting on my nerves with his incessant chatter – the mere thought of him opening his mouth tired me out. But I decided to trust him. When it came to the important things, he’d made good on his promises: he had indeed introduced me to Elite and had made sure that I went straight onto the roster of top models managed by Flo. He’d paid for my sessions with Sergei and ?velyne, who were just the type of professionals I needed. And above all, he would be in New York with me when I took the big plunge. It was the first time in my life that I was going to travel somewhere without at least one member of my family. I was trying not to think about it too much, but it was making me really anxious. The fairy tale would have been perfect if Mum could have come with me, but Seb had made it clear that this was not on the cards. And anyway, if Mum came with me, who was going to look after the boys? In September, L?opold would be entering Year Eight and Alexis Year Twelve, and so it was important for her to be there for them. I was the big sister and I had to learn how to fend for myself, and so I was very happy in the knowledge that that pain in the neck Seb would be by my side to guide me through this alien world. Naturally it was Seb who took me to see Silent a few days before I left for Marseille with Mum. Rather than receiving us in their offices, they asked us to come to a photo studio in the suburbs where they put together the images and videos that they use to promote their stable of models. And so the meeting took place on the top floor of a warehouse, which you accessed via a goods lift. How cool! Everyone was quietly busying themselves in this rather grand loft space, which was like a well-ordered beehive. In one corner there was an open kitchen with a well-stocked buffet which Olympe and Madeleine were busy nibbling away at. I greeted them with a smile. In another corner, between two bulging clothes racks, there was a sort of dressing room where the girls were getting their hair and make-up done. I immediately recognised the very beautiful actress Emmanuelle Seigner, who was getting a blow-dry. Technicians and assistants were beavering away in a huge empty space that was surrounded by projectors and all the photographic and video paraphernalia. Seb introduced me to Louis, a tall elegant man with a piercing blue gaze who was wearing a pristine shirt and perfectly tailored trousers and was casually sockless in his smart shoes. He was one of the founders of the agency. He greeted me as if he’d known me for ever and hadn’t seen me in ages: ‘Ah, Victoire, I’m so happy you’re here! You know, we’re so pleased to be taking you to New York with us. We’re going to do beautiful things together! Have you met ?mile?’ He led me over to his partner, who was at the buffet. He had a nice-looking face, was slightly too tanned, perfectly shaved, had very white teeth and was wearing a rather crumpled linen suit and a pair of flip-flops. It was another kind of elegance, which jarred somewhat with the way he spoke: he was in the process of giving Olympe and Madeleine, who hadn’t moved an inch from the buffet, a dressing-down. ‘For fuck’s sake, girls, you have to know what you really want! We’ll be in New York in six weeks, and you go on eating regardless. Stop eating! We’re not going to take you there in that state.’ I felt embarrassed for them and I could see that they were furious that I was witnessing this scene under Seb’s satisfied gaze. But above all, I found it unfair: they were perfectly slim. I wasn’t sure I would be able to do any better. For the time being, the apple diet was working: I’d weighed myself that morning, and I was touching 56 kilos. And I wasn’t even really hungry! Amid this whirlwind of preparations, the fact was that I didn’t really have time to think of eating. But would I hold firm over the long run? And why had they ordered this gargantuan buffet for a gathering of models who were all supposed to be on a diet? ?mile greeted me very sweetly too and introduced me to Nicolas, the hairstylist who was going to look after me. They were absolutely insistent on having me in the photos and videos that would serve to showcase the agency in New York. And so before I could blink, I found myself being made up and having my hair done all in one go. They took possession of me and all I had to do was let them get on with it. Nicolas was in ecstasy about the quality of my skin: ‘Wow, Victoire, you remind me of Daria Werbowy. And I know what I’m talking about, I did the Lanc?me campaign with her.’ I was flattered. For the last fortnight, I had been browsing through the magazines to familiarise myself with this new world and I’d spotted this sublime, blue-eyed brunette who, according to the papers, was one of the ten highest-paid models in the world. Let’s hope that the comparison would bring me luck. ‘Everybody will just adore a complexion like that! And you’re right for every type of hair and make-up.’ He explained how it worked: a few days before each fashion show, a model is assigned to the make-up artists and hairstylists, and they use her to create the make-up and hairstyle look for the season. ‘After that, they take Polaroids which are posted up in all the dressing rooms so that the other make-up artists and hairstylists can reproduce the look on all the other models in the fashion show.’ I didn’t even have time to ask Nicolas if Daria was nice, because it was now my turn to be filmed. An assistant put me in front of the camera and a huge fan started up, sending my hair, which Nicolas had taken great pains to style, flying all over the place. ‘Go ahead, Victoire! Walk around, use the space, enjoy yourself! Look at me. That’s it! Now to the left. Your eyes, give me your eyes! Great! Laugh! That’s perfect, we’re done!’ It had been short, but intense. And I loved it! Louis and ?mile came over to say goodbye. ‘We’ll see each other again in New York very soon. Between now and then, get plenty of rest. We want you at the top of your game. And don’t whatever you do get tanned! Stay in the shade – that’s a must.’ In the taxi on the way back – thanks, Seb, for sparing us the train – my ‘primary agency’ insisted on this point: white skin, face and body. A tan was out of the question, and no bikini line either. And especially no muscles. ‘Don’t be doing any sport, will you? They want feminine women, not athletes. The only exercise you’re allowed is walking. You even need to watch it with swimming – wide shoulders are not attractive.’ I couldn’t help looking at him with a certain annoyance. ‘Well, what did you think, honey? Being a top model takes effort! It’s a profession.’ That same day, Vladimir, the head booker at Elite, took my parents out to lunch at L’Avenue, a chic restaurant on the Avenue Montaigne. No doubt Dad’s constant calls about each little detail of the contract had started to irritate him. He’d probably decided that it would be easier just to speak to my parents directly and also get to know them a bit in order to put their minds at rest. They must have been used to that at Elite – I was almost old for a debutante. Most of their recruits were not even over 16 and I assumed that coaching the parents was also part of their job. Be that as it may, the contract issues were sorted out and my parents seemed reassured when they saw how serious the agency was about looking after me: ‘In any case, it’s in their interests that no harm comes to you. We trust you, but do be careful, Sweetpea.’ I don’t think it ever occurred to Vladimir to invite me to this lunch too, which was fine by me, because there wasn’t much for me to do in a restaurant. As somebody who worked in the industry, he knew that you didn’t invite a model out to eat. 33 23 34 (#ulink_3adf4db1-c3ab-560c-ac3d-f100485a2ed2) I returned to Avenue Montaigne accompanied by Seb to drop off my contract and pick up my book and my comp cards. It was Vladimir who greeted me with a wink and pointed to the wall of photos behind him: in the midst of all those other faces, I spotted mine. It took me a moment to realise that this girl, who looked every inch a model like all those girls in the magazines, was actually me. What a strange feeling it was! It was as if I could recognise my outer shell, while knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t me inside. I sensed it was going to take me a while to get used to my new image: of me the model … The book made an even bigger impression, when I saw Sergei’s photos for the first time. The sexy girl in the oversized shirt was me! The one whose breast was peeping out a bit (I wouldn’t be showing that one to my father), the gentle dreamy one in front of the mirror, the one with the killer look … All of them were me. On the comp card, slipped into the back of the book, it said: ‘Victoire Ma?on Dauxerre, 5'10", 33–23–34, brown hair, blue eyes’, complete with the smart Elite logo. I left feeling a bit dazed, with my comp cards and contract in my bag. A month previously, I was a totally stressed-out girl about to take the entrance exam for Sciences Po, and a month later, I was a totally stressed-out girl who everyone thought was a super-sexy woman and who was on her way to New York fashion week. The night before we left for Marseille, I went to the cinema with my parents to see Picture Me, a documentary by Sara Ziff, an American model who had filmed her life over the course of a year. She recounts the happy times – the fashion shows, the adorable designers, the incredible hotels – but also the harsh side of this profession: the endless waiting at the castings, the occasional cruelty of the people who dress you, style your hair and do your make-up, the rivalry between the girls, the disjointed lifestyle, the jet-lag, the pressure and the feeling of being treated like an object, or sometimes worse than an object. As I came out of the cinema, a man came up to me: ‘Excuse me, Mademoiselle. Have you ever thought of becoming a model?’ I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say! He introduced himself, said that he worked for a major agency and that, if I was interested, he would be happy to … I laughed as I told him that I had just signed with Elite. ‘I’m out of luck, they were quicker off the mark than me! I wish you a wonderful career.’ In the car on the way home, my parents spoke very frankly: the film clearly showed that it was a profession that could be very brutal. They stressed that I should never forget that I had a free choice and that I could decide what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. That I should never put up with people treating me badly. That they would always be there for me, and that I could call them at any time of the day or night. ‘Well, preferably in the daytime, actually.’ Dad was trying to make light of it, but deep down inside I could feel something electric rousing itself in the pit of my stomach. The same thing that had stopped me sleeping before the Sciences Po exams. In fact, it was something I’d been familiar with for virtually my whole life. It was a stabbing anxiety that implanted itself in my guts and then wouldn’t let go. The same anxiety that had made me ill at primary school, that had stopped me returning to secondary school and that demanded that I be the best at everything all the time, so that people would choose me, love me and stick with me. It was that bastard fear. That evening, I felt it stirring within me. And I realised that it would be my sole companion when I set off for New York. Three Apples a Day (#ulink_6194e944-8013-5690-99dc-a399ff5bc247) Mum, L?opold, my grandparents and I left for Marseille. Dad was due to join us the following week, while Alexis had decided to go to the Bayonne festival with his friends instead. And so there we were on holiday in a pretty villa and the only thing on the agenda was to enjoy ourselves and each other’s company. Well, not quite, because I did have a bit of ‘holiday homework’. For a start, Seb and Flo had both insisted that I swot up by reading the fashion magazines and taking note of the postures and faces of the models and the names and styles of the designers, the make-up artists and the hairstylists. That way, I’d get a better idea of what was expected of me. Then I had to practise walking according to ?velyne’s instructions: relax the facial muscles and the shoulders, think about my fingers in order to avoid the Playmobil arms, move my pelvis smoothly, focus on keeping straight, stare into the middle distance (for the killer look) and put one foot in front of the other like a big old horse. I performed all this by the edge of the pool, which made for a perfect catwalk, but only on the shady side to avoid getting tanned. Finally, I had to continue to lose weight so that I could easily get into that famous size 4, which I hadn’t even known existed before being spotted by Elite. Up until that point, I’d managed things impeccably: three apples a day, carefully selected on the basis of their appealing colour and appetising shape. Before each meal, I picked out a pretty plate and laid out the contents of my unchanging menu on it with ever-increasing artistry: in a mosaic, in a fan shape or cut into little dice or thin slices, all to be savoured slowly, biting into them and chewing well before swallowing. I also drank a few coffees, but not too many, and a lot of Pepsi Max (because it tasted better than Diet Coke and the bubbles made you feel full). I didn’t drink anything else at all. For the first three days, I felt a bit hungry, but nothing I couldn’t handle. And in the days that followed, I began to feel lighter and lighter and stronger and stronger, like a sportswoman pulling off a good performance. In the space of a week I had already lost nearly 2 kilos. Losing weight was quite easy, in actual fact! But things began to get a bit complicated in Marseille. As I had nothing else to do but think about what lay in store for me, Flo’s voice started to echo around incessantly in my head: ‘Like that, you’ll never get into the clothes.’ This was just around the time that I was beginning to get fed up with apples. Sometimes I replaced them with other fruits, but how could I know what their exact calorie content was? Did half a melon or a punnet of strawberries contain more or less than an apple? On top of that, I had constant stomach ache. I didn’t realise initially that eating nothing but raw fruit could cause these symptoms. I thought that it was the anxiety, because my fear had flooded into the vacuum and silence of the holidays, as if I’d opened the taps on a big pipe and a nasty, heavy anxiety was bubbling up inside me. And I had to fight hard to avoid drowning in it. The results from Sciences Po finally came through: I’d failed. The doors to the other colleges were also beginning to close: I called F?nelon, Henri-IV and Louis-le-Grand to see if I could potentially postpone my starting date by a year. They said that I couldn’t, but that there was nothing to stop me from reapplying the following year. This time, the die was really cast: I had no choice but to succeed in the path that fate had set me on. If I screwed up in New York, I’d have nothing to fall back on. Since I wasn’t all that intelligent, the only option left to me was to be beautiful. I’d signed with Elite, and so I was going to be the best model in town. Impeccable, beyond reproach, utterly in keeping with what was expected of me. I was going to lose even more weight, learn to walk perfectly and do everything to ensure that my skin was an immaculate white. I was going to stack absolutely all the odds in my favour so that I would have a meteoric, explosive and dazzling career, because this was now my destiny, and it was up to me to grasp it by the horns. So long as I managed to ‘get into the clothes’, obviously. When, for the second day running, the scales stubbornly continued to read 52.9 and refused to go any lower, which they had been doing regularly since I’d started my diet, I cracked. I opened up to Mum, who always looked trim and sublime, no matter what. I’d never really broached the subject with her till then and she’d been watching me eating my fruit day after day without uttering a word. Naturally she did everything she could to reassure me: she told me that I was very beautiful, that I was already decidedly thinner than when they’d chosen me and that there was nothing to get worked up about, because I still had another month in which to lose that inch around the hips. But I did go back onto the internet to look for some info on diets. All the websites talked about ‘plateaux’ – those times when, even if you stick strictly to your diet, your weight remains constant instead of dropping. If only I could have done a bit of sport, that would doubtless have helped me to get past the plateau, but all sport was forbidden. I did, though, permit myself a few lengths of the pool and I went to buy my fruit on foot so that I could get a bit of exercise – but only at the end of the day when the streets were in the shade. It was the first time in my life that I hadn’t spent the summer at La Baule. Every year from the year dot we’d always got together there with my grandparents. I loved their cute little house, nestling in a garden awash with lavender and a stone’s throw from the beach. Granddaddy would take us shrimping and there was the smell of the sea and the seaweed. At teatime we would stuff ourselves on niniches, those long soft lollipops in all the colours of the rainbow, and large slices of brioche with redcurrant jelly, which was Nan’s speciality. Or else a nice slice of buttered bread copiously smeared with rillettes. Granddaddy was a real food lover! When I was 10, they stopped renting that house and took a large seafront apartment instead. I was the one who first noticed that Granddaddy was trembling. I remember it very well: it was the year I turned 13. I’d decided to interview him about his life story, because I admired him and I wanted to know everything about him. For several hours every day, he spoke into my microphone about his childhood and his youth. After studying at the ?cole des Arts et M?tiers, his dream had been to become a master glazier or else an art teacher and to take over the stained-glass workshop that his great-uncle had bequeathed him. But his grandmother had been firmly set against it. And so he set aside his dreams of being an artist and became an engineer and surveyor instead, always telling himself that once he retired he would take up painting, for want of stained glass. He drew wonderfully well, perfectly even. But when he finally did have the time for it, his hands began to tremble. In the space of a few months, his Parkinson’s had put paid to his drawing. That summer, Granddaddy had been too ill to enjoy the beaches of La Baule. And that was why we were now in Marseille, in this large, comfortable, one-storey house where he could get around more easily. The more the days went by, the worse I felt. I was afraid of what lay in store for me, of not being up to it, of being separated from my family. And seeing Granddaddy in this state made me really sad. I loved him so much and I think we were very much alike in many ways. He knew about anxiety too and the fear of not being where you ought to be. Of passing the important things by, of not doing what you should have been doing, of missing out on the essential things, of failing in life. As my father wasn’t there, I slept with Mum. Right up against her to draw in her odour and her body warmth and to imprint the memory for when I was all alone over there and missing her terribly. I already knew that I would miss her dreadfully. Unbearably, even. I had no idea how I was going to get by without her and without the rest of them. Even in the middle of the Marseille summer, tucked up in Mum’s bed, I was starting to feel cold all the time. Y?ki (#ulink_ec2dad3f-5b2d-51fe-a013-1d12f4b1bc0e) I missed Sophie, but I didn’t dare ring her – I’d cancelled all the plans we’d had for July and we hadn’t seen each other for ages. And what would I have said to her if I did ring her? That I was stressing out about the idea of going to work in New York, the city that I had been dreaming of for ever? That I wasn’t sure if I wanted to become a supermodel, something that all the girls of my age dreamed about? That I was afraid of not being able to put one foot in front of the other on the catwalk and that I would have to make do with eating fruit while I was living out the dream? She had her own dreams of studying and becoming a journalist – what would she make of my little existential crises? Fortunately, L?o was on hand to listen to me. Even though he was much younger than me, I’d always shared a lot with him. Whereas Alexis put me on edge with all his emotional stuff and intimate questions, L?opold listened to me very attentively and responded with tenderness and common sense. He would often say: ‘You tell me about so many things that I’ll be able to become a psychiatrist and I won’t even have to study for it!’ He was so cute when he explained to me that I was beautiful now and so there was just no way that, suddenly overnight, I wouldn’t be beautiful any more. That I was too clever not to make a success of my new life. That I looked perfectly slim to him and he couldn’t see what the problem was. That he was convinced that I would be taken on for all the fashion shows. And above all else, that I shouldn’t worry, because what with Skype and texting and emails, we’d be able to speak to each other every day and they would always be with me. Nothing could separate us from each other, not even the 3,500 miles and the big time difference. ‘And you know what, Vic? We really are all so proud of you. Not everybody has a supermodel for a sister. And at Elite, to boot!’ Dad eventually joined us. I did my best not to spoil the atmosphere, but I just couldn’t shake off my anxiety. Happily, the scales finally deigned to drop again: I was slowly closing in on 51 kilos. So much so that Dad asked me if I was contemplating starting to eat a bit of meat and vegetables again. I think he just didn’t get it. He’d always loved Mum and thought she was the most beautiful woman ever, but it had never occurred to him to wonder how she managed to stay so slim. The fact was that she had the appetite of a sparrow. I’d only ever seen her picking at food, never really eating. There was just no chance of her ever putting on weight. And in fact when Dad looked like he was going to insist on the meat and vegetables, she told him not to worry. As the thing that scared me the most was the idea of being away from my family, I asked my parents to buy me a cuddly toy that I could take everywhere with me and would make me feel like I had them with me everywhere too. While they went off to look for one, L?o and I gave some thought to the name we could give it. As a lover of Asian culture, he explained to me that Japanese first names had actual meanings and so we went on the internet to have a look. That was a lot of fun. We ruled out Suki, which means ‘love’, Fuku, which means ‘luck’ but which didn’t sound very appealing, and Kasoku, which means ‘family’. In the end, we opted for Y?ki, with an accent on the u. That means ‘courage’. L?o said, ‘That way, your courage will never fail you.’ Leo really was so sweet and he was right, too: courage was exactly what I needed. My parents returned with a cute little white rabbit, all soft and gentle, and I immediately adopted him. I sprayed Y?ki with Mum’s perfume and from that point on he never left my side. We headed home from Marseille, Alex rejoined us, we packed our bags and we set off to the States. The American Dream (#ulink_5fe2f2fd-552d-577a-b5a5-6103be0ca2ef) I left on my own a few hours before the rest of them on a different plane, because Silent had taken care of my return ticket. At the end of our family trip, I’d fly to New York from Los Angeles to get straight down to work and they would return to Paris. All of which meant that I was travelling with Air France and had been upgraded to business class like a star! I wondered if this was a foretaste of the new life that awaited me. The armchair that became a bed was a delight, as were the billion options available on my personal in-flight computer and the little complimentary beauty set. True luxury! And just as miraculous was the adorable air hostess who seemed to find it perfectly normal that I turned down my three-star meal in favour of fresh fruit. I was in a bizarre state: both worried and excited, detached and nervous, grown-up and childlike. It was the beginning of adulthood for me, but I don’t know what I would have done without Y?ki there to comfort me. I got a yellow cab to the hotel. Wow! New York! It was like being in a film, and not in the audience but on the screen: the taxi and all the smells, the car horns, the swarms of people all sweating profusely, Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan skyline … I was in New York, New York! I was sure I was going to love it here. As soon as my parents and brothers caught up with me, we began to explore every corner of the city. It was all set to be a dream holiday: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the five of us together and staying in incredible hotels. We’d been talking about it all year long and were so looking forward to it. And yet, though I didn’t want to admit it, I was having trouble keeping up. I was absolutely knackered, almost certainly because of the jet-lag, which I just couldn’t get over. And also because of that crazy month of July spent running around every which way, fretting over what choices I should make and what I was going to become, worrying about Granddaddy and trying to come to terms with my failure to get into Sciences Po. And because of the fear, this constant nagging fear. Traipsing around New York with the boys and Mum and Dad, I couldn’t help thinking that in a fortnight’s time I’d be here again, but all on my own. Central Park, the Guggenheim, the MoMA, Tribeca, Ground Zero, Broadway, the Rockefeller Center and the Statue of Liberty: everything that I’d always dreamed of was there within my reach, at my feet. Initially, it astounded me and then, all of a sudden, it overwhelmed me: I felt like I was losing my grip on the cliff face and that I was going to fall, and go on falling for ever. I didn’t say anything to them about it so as not to ruin their trip. One great thing here, though, was that the calories were marked on every item of food you bought. That way, I knew more or less what I was doing and it made up for the fact that I couldn’t weigh myself, because there weren’t any scales in the hotel rooms. I tried not to think about it too much. On the day I left Paris, my hip size was 35 inches and I weighed a teeny bit over 51 kilos. I absolutely had to lose at least one more kilo, but two or three would really set my mind at rest … Just a stone’s throw from our hotel, there was an enormous store: Victoria’s Secret. Mum knew that it was my dream to work for them. Who knew, perhaps in the not too distant future I would be one of their brand ‘angels’? In the meantime, she took me there to treat me to some lingerie. I chose a very pretty black lace ensemble featuring a discreet little pink bow. A ‘size 0’ pair of knickers, which presumably corresponded to a size 34, and a 32A bra. It might have been bad news for me that I’d gone down two cup sizes, because personally I was fond of my breasts, but it certainly wasn’t bad news for fashion week (I had of course noticed that many of the girls on the catwalks were flat-chested). I hadn’t had my period either that month, no doubt on account of all the stress, but I wouldn’t have minded it continuing that way – at least I wouldn’t have that to worry about at work. On the food front, Dad was starting to get annoyed. He was getting more and more insistent that I should eat some meat or fish and some vegetables. It drove me mad – that was my problem, not his. And if I’d started eating just like that, without being able to weigh myself, I’d have ballooned before I knew it. It was out of the question and so, as a compromise, we agreed that I’d eat out with them every other meal rather than all the time. So half the time I let them go off and have lunch or dinner while I found a nice piece of fruit or a low-calorie salad to eat on my own in peace and quiet, without having to endure my father scrutinising the contents of my plate all the time. You had to know what you wanted in life. He had been the first to encourage me to sign that contract and it was too late now to back away from the consequences. When we turned in for the night, I cuddled up to Alex. All three of us slept in the same room – Alex and me in the double bed and L?o in the single bed. My brother didn’t say anything, but I knew he could tell that things weren’t OK. And I’d fall asleep clutching Y?ki tightly and trying to convince myself that it would pass. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/victoire-dauxerre/size-zero-my-life-as-a-disappearing-model/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.