Fatshionista (11 page)

“I’m sorry; I
didn’t mean to be rude. I was just in the middle of trying to answer an
important email. No, I am not working on any project right now, just trying to
catch up on all the emails that piled up last week while we were doing shows.
What brings you to the office this late? You working on something I should know
about?” Sometimes a great offense was the best defense.

“Oh, no project;
I was just hoping to run into you and get an update on how things were going
with Daniel. I can’t ever seem to catch you at the office during the day, and I
know Ryan said that a lot of nights you work late, so I was on my way home from
dinner and thought I would see if you were here, and it’s my lucky night
because you are.” And on that note, she gingerly lowered herself into my spare
chair, almost as if she was concerned that it might somehow leave a mark on her
dress.

Great, it looked
like she was settling in for a cozy little chat. “Things are going well. Ryan
got the proof shots of the samples that came in from Delhi, and we’re going to
look over those in the morning and see how we can create a production around
the colors and themes Daniel has asked for.” That should be vague enough,
detailed but not too detailed. For some reason I just didn’t want to give her
anything more than she was asking for. I had a feeling this was something of a
fishing expedition, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“As you know,
Daniel’s sister McKenzie is a dear friend of mine, and I assured her when I
brought Daniel to this company that I would personally insure his every need
was being met.”

McKenzie? Who
named their child that? It was a dog’s name. Focus, Millie. Daniel? His needs?
Yes, I was completely on board for meeting his every need. I just wasn’t born
with the right equipment. But the closer we got, I might be persuaded to go buy
whatever it was he needed and attempt to negotiate some type of mutually
pleasurable agreement. Dear God, I had to go home and rest; I was talking crazy
in my head. At least it was still in my head, but as tired as I was, there was
no telling which gems of ridiculousness might fall out.

“I was having
dinner with Daniel tonight, and he seemed pleased with how things are going so
far, but you know he’s still relatively new to this environment, so he may not
realize if there are problems brewing.”

With only two
weeks in this “environment” herself, I doubted Scarlett would even know where
the
coffee
was brewing in this office.

“Well, I’m glad
to hear that Daniel feels like things are off to a good start. We’re still in
the early stages of designing his production, but I feel confident he’ll walk
away pleased, as do all of the designers I work with.”

Scarlett leaned
back in her chair, apparently getting a little more comfortable with the feel
of the Naugahyde. “Funny you should mention that. We actually ran into one of
your other designers at dinner tonight. She didn’t have many pleasant things to
say about the company, or you for that matter. That was one of the reasons I
wanted to chat with you; I had not been informed that we had a client who was
severely dissatisfied with her show and one who, I might add, is being very
vocal about that dissatisfaction.”

Ahhh, well that
explained the late-night visit and the cat who ate the canary grin she had been
wearing since she first showed up at my door. It sounded like Tori Thomas
Taylor was at it again.

Tori Thomas
Taylor was the daughter of one of the richest men in New York. She was
completely without talent and completely without anyone in her life to inform
her that she had none. I had the great misfortune to be asked to produce her
first (and last) charity runway show for a private party hosted by her father.
At the time I agreed to produce the show, Marta had only said it was for
charity and it was being held on October 31
^st
at the Four Seasons
ballroom.

When I arrived at
the first rehearsal and saw the looks parading down the runway, I drew the only
conclusion any sane person could have drawn: This was a Halloween fashion show
with the highlight being these designs, which were a cross between Bride of
Frankenstein and the Mummy. All gauzy wrapped dresses and gothic-looking
nightgownish outfits. So I ran with it. Went full-out camp H-A-double L-O-W-double
E-N spells Halloween.

TT (as she preferred
to be called) had been in Hong Kong that week at an opening for her actor
boyfriend’s new restaurant and had communicated with me via text. She said she
trusted us and felt assured we would be able to glean from the clothing itself
what her message was for “her” public. Her first glimpse of what I had designed
happened at the same time everyone else’s did: Halloween night.

Later that
evening, when in the middle of the show TT got up and screamed bloody murder
and had to be removed from the ballroom was my first indication that maybe the
fashion was not intentionally Halloween-themed—that maybe it was just a
coincidence that her ridiculously horrible designs were debuting on the same
night zombies, ghosts, and vampires came out to play. Either way, this was not
my best professional moment, but I was vindicated by the sheer number of people
who came up to congratulate us after the show. Many even thought that TT’s
outburst and removal had all been part of the entertainment.

Her publicist later
confirmed that, and publicly they went along with the Halloween theme and said
that had been TT’s intention all along. It was only in the four walls of this
very office when TT, her publicist, her manager, her father, and Marta had all
handed me my ass on a platter that anyone admitted any different.

Ever since then,
TT had been vocal about how unhappy she was with our firm, going so far as to
claim that we held her back from all the crazy, ridiculous, campy Halloween
stuff she really wanted to do and delivered what she considered to be a
mediocre show to the New York fashion community.

“Scarlett, as I’m
sure you know, I have a sterling reputation at both this company and the
community at large. Although to most people what we do behind the scenes is
never seen, my peers in the industry know I do good work. TT is one example of
an unhappy client. As she has never shown another piece of clothing in public since,
I can only assume she has no idea what it is to work with another company. My
feeling is that she would be unhappy with any company she worked with because
she has no talent as a designer and we are production companies, not
magicians.”

Scarlett smiled
as she stood up. “I’m sure everyone in New York is completely aware of your
abilities. My concern is not you, Millicent, but this company. I am here to
bring in business, business which consists of talented designers like TT, whom
I also consider a friend. If you are not able to please the type of customers I
will be bringing in, then maybe you need to think about whether or not this is
the company for you.”

My initial
reaction was to hurl the letter opener on my desk at her back Indiana Jones
style and cut her down mid-swagger. Thankfully I was an evolved, professional
woman who did not allow silly claims from uninformed coworkers to get to her,
so I settled for sticking out my tongue at her back while she walked away.

With the hundreds
of talented designers in New York, I couldn’t figure out why Marta had hired
Scarlett to bring in talentless rich kids. If this was the way things were
heading, bandage girl just might have a point. Maybe this wasn’t the company
for me anymore. But if I didn’t work here, where would I go?

I received offers
from other companies after every fashion week. I had just deleted four emails
tonight asking me to come in and discuss the opportunities that awaited me at
other production houses. As much as I loathed Marta at times and as much as I
was getting tired of feeling like I was running this company without getting
any recognition or increase in salary, I did feel beholden to her.

She was the only
person who was able to look past my size and give me a job. Even in our small
corner of the fashion world, where we operated behind the scenes and were
rarely noticed by anyone except people in the industry, it was still assumed
that if you wanted to work in fashion—any aspect of fashion—you
needed to look the part.

At 5’5” and 185
pounds, I had never looked the part. That was actually the first comment Marta made
when I walked into the interview. She said, “I hope you realize that this job
does not include a stipend for meals; you look like you are used to being well
fed.”

Yes, imagine
bouncing back from that opening line in an interview. Thankfully, though, I had
always battled weight bigotry with a sense of humor. I fired back that I had
planned on just eating the models; I heard they were tasty and that they were
so hungry they wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

I think it was
both the first and the last time I had ever seen Marta smile. It wasn’t my
quick wit that she said got me the job, oh no, she couldn’t admit to anything
that might sound like a compliment. She said the reason she hired me was I was
big enough that no one would notice me or be threatened by me, but not so big
that people would notice me and stare at my freakishly large size. And she was
right. Yes, this was the Mother Teresa for whom I had slaved away for the last
five years.

But she was
right. I thought of my weight as my super power; it rendered me invisible to
people in my industry, which was something that had certainly come in handy
over the last year.

TT or no TT,
maybe Scarlett was on to something. Maybe it was time I looked at making a
change in my employment. My only hope was that the change would be not just
from one production company to another, but from one industry to another.

Well, bitches,
it was a quiet weekend on the fashion front. Your mama did spot the newest
import from exotic India, Daniel Singh, on the dance floor at Club Ritz. He
looked like he stepped right out of a Bollywood movie. The only thing missing
was the kohl-eyed heroine by his side, something he would be hard-pressed to
find in this club full of hot gay men. Oh well, I’m sure one of the drag queens
would happily step in to play his love interest. Let’s hope his rumored resort
wear collection is as fabulous as his dance moves.

--March 16th “It’s
just fashion, bitches” blog--

Ugh, I shouldn’t
have stayed up and watched
Dhoom 2
for the billionth time. There was
something about the sparks between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai that called
to me last night. Maybe it was my own lack of late-night fantasies. Ever since
the sample day, Daniel had yet to make another appearance in my dreams. At
first I was relieved because I wasn’t waking up drenched in sweat trying to rip
my underwear off, but I had kind of started looking forward to our nighttime
adventures, even if they were only in my head.

I had only traded
emails with Daniel since our last meeting. They were always business-related,
but he never failed to slide a little something personal in to it, something to
make me laugh or an anecdote about something that happened back home. His
family was planning to come out here for the show, and this was the biggest
thing to happen to them since his sister’s wedding last year, so he was keeping
me up to date on all that drama.

I couldn’t wrap
my head around what was actually happening with us. The working part of my
brain clearly identified that this was a gay man and he would not be interested
in having a romantic or purely hot sexual relationship with me. But getting
that message from my brain to my body was proving impossible. I almost asked my
cab driver to let me sit up front this morning because he wore the same cologne
as Daniel and had the same café au lait skin tone.

Thankfully I kept
my mouth shut and listened to him tell me about his four kids that were back in
India. I closed my eyes and listened to him speak. It was only halfway there
that he realized he was speaking in Hindi and apologized and switched to
English. I said back to him in Hindi, “No problem, Uncle, I understood every
word.”

He turned full
around and stared at me and almost caused us to rear-end the stopped traffic at
the light. It never ceased to amaze me how shocked Indians were when a white
person spoke Hindi. One of my friends in India described it by saying that a
white person speaking Hindi was like a horse talking to you. Ever since then I
had always felt a strange affinity with Mr. Ed when I amazed an Indian with my
language skills. I wondered what Daniel would do if I started speaking Hindi to
him? I wondered if he spoke Hindi. It was surprising how many Indians didn’t.
Many of them could understand it, but they couldn’t speak it, which I always
thought was bizarre.

Thankfully the
office was fairly quiet when I got there. Scarlett was in California drumming
up new business and had gone as far as pitching the creation of a satellite
office in LA. My hunch was she wanted to move there and was looking to create a
job to move into, not for the money, but to be able to say she was a fashion
producer. LA was all about the name dropping and the elbow rubbing, and our
company’s name at the top of her business card would go a long way toward establishing
street cred.

I stopped in the
break room and poured myself a cup of ambition (I normally had the theme song
from
9 to 5
in my head at least one morning a week). Unfortunately my
ambition leaked out of my plastic to-go cup and dribbled down the front of my
camel-colored sweater set. I had been dabbling in some vintage clothing of late—no
undergarments, just a few sweater sets and shifts. I even had a vintage sweater
clip holding it together. Now it would be tossed in a drawer since I had to
button the sweater to hide the coffee spillage.