A quick apology to begin with for taking so long to touch base/for the amalgamation of French and English going to appear in this blog - which I've become accustomed to talking in as I know too little French to string together a full few sentences and get spat upon if I impose the English language upon the locals without a bonjour. So franglais it is.
I'll try and start at the beginning...organising my experiences out of chronological order usually ends up a blurry catastrophe as I'm not as effortlessly cool and indie as 500 Days of Summer.
31st Avril.
The agency driver, Christina, turns to look over her shoulder and whilst swerving into perilous French traffic, grins in my direction, completely unperturbed. "You seem smile so much for being model! Zeese Aussie girls - are zey always happy?". I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was just delighted to still be alive. Or the reason that I was smiling vacantly was because I had no idea how to react to what I was seeing out of the car window. Being able to converse with someone in broken English, however, is a welcomed luxury after trying to navigate three large suitcases around the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. I smiled back at her and told her that Australians are just naturally friendly and laid-back; nothing seems to faze them and I wasn't the exception.
…I have never been so terror-stricken in my entire life. Epic fail.
The beauty here is so profuse that it's almost as if there is too many exquisite things to take in…each and every intricate detail on the street has something eerily beautiful about it. We pull into a magnificently ornate street named the Avenue Montaigne and, as I watch the Champs-Élysées slowly become a dot in the background, the car suddenly slams to a halt and Christina jumps out. "I will be back shortly from agency whiz zee key for your apartment!" she exclaims to me in her offbeat mixture of French and American English. Left to my own devices for the first time since the plane, I check to see if I have the hundred and one things I'm meant to have remembered to bring. Unable to sift through the hand luggage with my hands shaking uncontrollably, I try to get my head around how I'm going to survive in such an alien place.
After what seems like a small millennia, Christina hops back into the left-sided driver's seat and announces cheerily that she is taking me to the model house where I will promptly drop my belongings and drive all the way back to the agency to meet the board of bookers. I realise ten minutes later when we arrive at the apartment that this is easier said than done. I've never really stared death in the face before so being greeted with three prodigious flights of stairs (and suitcases weighing approximately five times my weight) I attempted to ascend with said offending luggage what the girls and I now affectionately refer to as the espaliers de fuckoff. The satisfaction upon reaching the top - a feat some might say as heroic as Hercules ascent of the mountain of the Gods (…no one says this) - instead of being greeted by the gates of Olympus, I am confronted with a pitch-black passage way/vortex into another dimension. It takes me an embarrassing amount of time to realise that the switch entitled 'Lumière', does in fact, mean 'light' and isn't a gratuitous reference to the candle off Beauty and the Beast. Lame.
Another ten minutes of fumbling with the idiot-proof door lock (Sam's Epic Fail count = 3) and the door finally swings open.
This is when I first meet Simona.
This is when I first meet Simona.
She looks like something straight out of a Grimm Brother's fairytale; all sylphlike limbs and slanting eyes…I honestly don't think I've seen such a beautiful creature in my entire life. She kisses me heartily on the cheek and welcomes me to the house in a thick Serbian accent. I've known her ten seconds and I automatically fall in love with her - it's amazing to find girls so friendly in this job. Anyway, before I turn this blog into a love story about Simona, I'll continue… I dump my ridiculous amount of luggage and take in the vastness of the apartment. There is a tree in the living room. Not a pot-plant or bonsai, a fuck-off, fully-grown tree in my lounge. Still in shock from this small miracle, I realise Christina is downstairs waiting in the model car and flee.
Descending the brother of Jacob's ladder, I find Christina waiting downstairs, cheerfully munching away on a freshly-baked baguette from the local Boulangerie. Profusely thanking her for her patience, I head back to the Avenue Montaigne. I should have already guessed by the neighbouring Valentino/Prada/absurdly priced designer shops that this area was not even a little short of spectacular. Elite is really no exception. I try to figure out a way to open the colossal arched doors before Christina kindly shows me the button on the adjoining wall (I'm really starting to hate doors). I climb another few soaring flight of stairs…I think I may have discovered the secret to how the French stay thin. I reach the final floor and attempt to mentally prepare myself to enter the agency for the first time. Sam's epic fail count = 4.
"Bonnnnnjour! Samanszha!" Jeremy, one of the main bookers typing furiously away at the line of keyboards, welcomes me with a congenial grin. Towering over me at almost seven-foot (although a fairly easy accomplishment), he is dressed exquisitely from head-to-toe in a navy blazer and Hermès scarf. While I'm still the die-hard advocate of the rugged/unwashed, Viggo Mortensen-esque man, there is something to be said for the way French men dress. No turtleneck is too tight nor scarf too pink…yet, somehow, it works. It works so well that I find myself dreaming about a cardigan-garbed, salmon scarf-wearing Aragorn (this, however, does not work so well). A new booker with strikingly blue-eyes looks up at me and smiles warmly. "Is this your first time in Paris?" he asks kindly. I nod, unable to string an intelligible sentence together. He grins and almost vaults out of his chair. "Come…I have something to show you".
I don't know if I can describe how it feels to step out onto the agency balcony and become almost knocked out with the view. Carrie Bradshaw discovery gasps aside, I just stood there gawking. "So, what do you think?" Jeremy asks as he strolls outside and lights a cigarette. Suppressing the overwhelming urge to cheekily say "Oh, you know, I've seen better", I settle with telling him that it's the most incredible thing I've seen in my whole life. He simply grins and takes a long drag before leaning down to compensate for the amusing height difference and laughs with a faint murmur, "You've seen nothing yet".
It's an hour or so later and it's starting to grow seriously cold but I've managed, without phone, map or knowledge of the French language, to purchase a French SIM Card and find my way back to the apartment. Simona offers me a cup of steaming-hot Thé au Caramel that she has fished from the cluttered kitchen cupboard and reveals to me that this is her fourth time in Paris since the beginning of the frenzied Fashion Week lineup's in the previous few months. Flying to every major fashion capital, walking for Calvin Klein, Lanvin & Gucci, she has consequentially been rising at 6AM and passing out in bed at 3 the next morning for little over a month…and she's only 15. In between castings, shoots and learning French, you'll find her upstairs pouring over books on Ancient Greek and Roman history in preparation for her Serbian high-school exams. Suddenly, my schedule doesn't seem so hectic.
Simona walking for Vanesa-Bruno in Paris
With my newly-purchased French credit, I call up the only person besides Simona I know in France… Tom. Unable to distinguish between whether I've called him or accidentally called Oliver, he informs me that while he does sound a stupid amount like his brother, his voice is far superior. I like this and invite him over to come chill/stop me continually freaking out about being in such a foreign place. After a bottle of house-warming wine, we decide to celebrate like it's Doomsday and brave the subzero night air to locate more vin and an open Tabac. Frolicking drunkly through the streets of Paris, we locate the nearest Supermachè and, for six euros, acquire two more bottles of French vin. Having associated cheap wine/goon with vomit-tainted nights for so long, I was shocked at how awesome even cheap French wine is. Because of this, I assume that better wine = less drunk Sam. This is, unsurprisingly, not the case. Following a good three hours of bad French jokes, the jet-lag sets in and I excuse myself gracefully and head to bed.
By graceful I mean tanked and bed I mean floor.
