Right here’s an extract from my guide, How Not to be a Supermodel. It’s taken from a chapter about mannequin castings and the bodily/sporting expertise I lied about having with the intention to attempt to bag some work. Might I play the drums, for instance? Certain:
Was I a pro-level ice-skater? Er, sure:
They had been essential little white lies, by the best way, as a result of I used to be in possession of just about no bodily expertise in any respect – I couldn’t jet-ski or surf, trip horses and even swim underwater – and had I not gone down the “pretend it till you make it” route I’d have dominated out half of my job prospects.
On this chapter I find yourself in some compromising – but surprisingly zen – positions and utterly lose any shred of dignity I assumed I had.
And so, with out additional ado: an extract (abridged) from How To not be a Supermodel.
When it got here to mannequin castings, I used to be blissful to offer nearly something a go within the identify of a hefty paycheque. There have been loads of expertise that had been in excessive demand, normally ones I didn’t possess. Not that it mattered, apparently.
‘Babe,’ my agent, Texana, would say, ‘are you able to ski? It’s for Breitling watches and also you want to have the ability to slalom down into shot.’
‘I’ve by no means skied,’ I mentioned, ‘no.’
‘By no means?’
‘No.’
‘Babe, anybody can ski. Simply inform them you used to ski as a child, you’ll be advantageous.’
‘OK however after I get the job, absolutely I’ll then have to really ski?’
‘We’ll cope with that if it involves it.’
Or,
‘Hello darling,’ my different agent would say, ‘are you able to drive a scooter? . . .OK, but when push got here to shove?’
The worst ‘sporting pretender’ casting I did was one for a newly launched ladies’s sportswear model and their vary of yoga clothes. And the fault, this time, was fully with me.
‘Babe, do you do yoga?’ Texana requested after I phoned to test in for the subsequent day’s appointments.
‘Nope, however my mum teaches it.’
There was a pause.
‘OK babe, however . . . do you do yoga? It’s simply that for this casting, you’ll should undergo a sequence of poses so that you form of have to know the lingo.’
‘Yeah, I can do the positions,’ I mentioned, ‘the stretching up and the crossed legs. I can most likely nonetheless do a headstand.’
‘Proper . . .’ mentioned Texana. ‘I simply . . . I’m cautious of getting a repeat of the beer business state of affairs.’
‘The place I did the Karate Child strikes?’
‘Oh my God, babe, what the hell. They mentioned it was like watching somebody drop acid after which attempt to combat themselves in a corridor of mirrors.’
‘Huh,’ I mentioned. ‘I’ll make sure that I practise some yoga positions then.’
‘Poses, my babe,’ mentioned Texana. ‘They’re referred to as poses.’
‘Worry not,’ I mentioned. ‘I’m limbering up as we communicate. Getting into for the warrior canine and the downward spiral.’
The yoga casting befell in a dance studio, superbly vivid with sunshine streaming in by means of two full-length home windows, mirrored from a wall of mirrors onto the picket ground. The purchasers, three pleasant ladies of their thirties or maybe forties had been seated behind a desk that was piled with mannequin portfolios. They seemed very serene, hair loosely pulled into ballerina buns or flowing onto shoulders, all of them clothed within the kind of delicate materials and delicate colors that make your individual garments look as if they’ve been stolen from an eighteenth-century vampire.
‘Pretty to satisfy you, Ruth,’ the primary shopper mentioned. ‘We’ve been determined to guide you for a marketing campaign so it’s good that this yoga vary might be a great match. You’ve received precisely the look that we would like.’
‘We’ll begin with the warrior pose,’ mentioned shopper quantity two, placing on some spa music.
Warrior pose? What an earth was this? Couldn’t they only see me within the leggings and crop prime and be happy with that? Absolutely on the shoot day somebody may simply prepare my legs and arms?
‘It’s necessary for us,’ mentioned shopper quantity three, ‘that whoever we use genuinely practises yoga.’
Oh.
‘We actually need the marketing campaign to really feel genuine and for the pictures to name out to our prospects – we’re not only a model utilizing fashions who look good in our garments, we’re a model utilizing fashions who will put on our clothes in actual life. Precise sportswomen, athletes, mountaineers, and also you, hopefully, as our skilled yogi.’
Wait. What?
‘Yogi?’
‘Let’s get began and see how the samples look,’ mentioned shopper two. ‘I can’t wait to attempt the taupe harem pants on you.’
For warrior, I pretended to carry a spear in a single hand and put the opposite on my hip. In equity, it wasn’t 1,000,000 miles away from the proper pose: I’d put my legs in a powerful, wide-apart stance that seemed comparatively convincing, truly. Bending ahead pose was fairly self-explanatory and, miraculously, I truly knew the bridge. It was when the opposite poses, the extra summary names, got here alongside that the shit actually hit the proverbial fan. Who would ever have thought that ‘mountain pose’ could be ‘standing up straight’? What mountain is tall and skinny and never giant and spherical, like a boulder? Which might clearly make extra sense, explaining utterly why an individual would assume that they need to flip themselves into an enormous ball, hugging their knees and tucking their head between their legs . . .
‘OK,’ mentioned shopper two, with simply the slightest tremor of confusion in her voice, ‘let’s transfer on to the downward- going through canine.’
I imply, how would a canine face downwards? Isn’t it already largely down-facing, as a result of the truth that it walks on 4 legs?
‘That’s extra the cow pose,’ mentioned shopper one, ‘however with 4 straight legs. I’m undecided I’ve ever seen it like that however OK. Let’s now transfer into the kid’s pose.’
Effectively. Even underneath such intense stress my thoughts was spraying out concepts left proper and centre, God bless it. It had sensed excessive profession hazard and had risen to the event, offering pose options to each immediate with solely ever a second or two’s hesitation. It was as if I used to be on a bizarre model of Charades Mastermind, wherein the presenter referred to as out a random phrase and I needed to work out which motion may presumably – as in, a one in a thousand probability – be the proper match.
By no means had my thoughts and physique needed to work so onerous as one. And now, after the cow and the downward canine and a mountain pose and a ship pose (which I had been fairly happy with, seeing as if I’d managed to make use of my arms as oars and one leg as a mast) I had one final problem. The kid’s pose.
‘Do . . . you want any assist?’ requested shopper three, as I stood quietly upon the mat, eyes closed, inhaling by means of my nostril and out by means of my mouth. Shopping for time.
‘No,’ I mentioned, eyes nonetheless closed, palms over my ears, as a result of it simply felt proper, ‘I’m advantageous thanks, I’m performing some breathwork earlier than I do the subsequent place.’
What poses did kids do? There was the foetal sleeping place, which didn’t appear stretchy sufficient to be a yoga pose and so was my least favoured possibility, after which I had thought of skipping. However you couldn’t maintain a skipping pose, or skip in gradual movement, until you needed to appear like an entire fruitcake, in order that one wasn’t doubtless both. Kids appreciated to climb timber, however I’d executed the tree pose with my branches stretched out and my toes wriggling into the ground like roots (good contact!) and so what had been the possibilities they’d get me to repeat myself? No, it must be my fourth selection and I used to be fairly assured about it as a result of to date, they hadn’t requested me for both of my strong, tried-and-tested yoga strikes. And I wasn’t mad eager on doing a headstand in entrance of them, and so I dropped down into probably the most infantile pose of all, the place that every one under-tens should undertake for hours within the education week, in a corridor stinking of boiled greens: sitting cross-legged.
‘Er,’ mentioned shopper one.
‘Uhm,’ mentioned quantity two.
‘I’m undecided that’s fairly the one we’re after,’ mentioned shopper three, as I clumsily rose to standing place, or ‘regular pose’.
‘It’s alright,’ I mentioned, ‘I do know that my kind of yoga’s not for everybody.’
How To not be a Supermodel is on the market in hardback, e book and audiobook here. In case you’re not within the UK, please word that Waterstones ship worldwide. At time of writing there are a restricted variety of signed first editions out there at Toppings here.
