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    Runway: Confessions of a not-so-supermodel
    Runway: Confessions of a not-so-supermodel
    Runway: Confessions of a not-so-supermodel
    Ebook54 pages48 minutes

    Runway: Confessions of a not-so-supermodel

    By Meghan Ward

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    About this ebook

    Fresh out of Catholic high school, Michigan girl Meghan Ward heads for the Paris runways at the tender age of 19. She had never intended to be a model. In fact, she had the typical thinking-person’s qualms about the industry, particularly the unhealthy images of women it promotes. But she had the looks, and when she was approached by a scout, she couldn’t resist the chance to sample the glamour of the modeling scene—and rack up some money for college. Runway, her thoughtful yet dishy memoir, tells the story of what she learned about the world of high-fashion modeling—and herself. Meghan Ward’s book reviews, personal essays, and news stories have appeared in numerous publications, including the anthology It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. She blogs weekly at Writerland.com. This is a short e-book published by Shebooks--high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women. For more information, visit http://shebooks.net.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShebooks
    Release dateFeb 4, 2014
    ISBN9781940838137
    Runway: Confessions of a not-so-supermodel
    Author

    Meghan Ward

    Meghan Ward’s book reviews, personal essays, and news stories have appeared in numerous publications, including the anthology It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style. She blogs weekly at Writerland.com.

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      Book preview

      Runway - Meghan Ward

      www.shebooks.net

      I arrive in Paris on September 12, 1988, armed with two Polaroid pictures and three years of high school French. I am 18, straight out of Catholic school, and about to discover what it’s like to be one of the 99 percent of international fashion models who never make it onto the cover of Vogue. My first week in Paris, I book two photo shoots and a fashion show: French Glamour with Ellen von Unwerth, who shoots all the Guess ads, Biba, a French teen magazine, and the Hermès show.

      The Glamour shoot is set to take place at the Piscine Deligny, a fashionable swim club built on a barge anchored to the bank of the Seine. I’m instructed to meet the crew at the location van parked nearby. I’m both excited and nervous. This is my first modeling job in Paris, and with a famous photographer, no less! My life would be easier if I weren’t so damn shy. Maybe I could take acting classes or join Toastmasters and learn to give speeches. Then again, no one cares what models have to say.

      Inside the van is everything we’ll need for the day: food, a table and sink, a bathroom, all of the clothing and accessories, and dozens of Chanel, Shiseido, and Dior eye shadows, lipsticks, and blushes. Outside, I see Ellen shooting a Marilyn Monroe doppelgänger. The peroxide model leans against a wooden railing, expertly twirling this way and that, batting her eyelashes and pursing her lips. Then she grips the railing behind her, throws her head back, and laughs. She’s fantastic. I haven’t the first clue how to do what she’s doing, so I try to memorize her every move—the way she positions her feet, the way she touches one hand to her chest and tosses her chin to the sky with that carefree grin. I want to be a straight-A model.

      Great! Great! Ellen yells, snapping madly at her shutter release.

      My modeling experience amounts to three test shoots in Detroit, during one of which I stared expressionless at the camera while the photographer kept yelling, "Can’t you do anything!?" They expect you to magically know how to move in front of a camera, and it’s not as easy as it looks. It’s a skill, and, like any skill, it takes practice. But they don’t teach you; you’re just expected to learn on the job. And if you have taken classes at a modeling school like Barbizon, they will heave great sighs of displeasure and insist that you forget everything you know because you have learned it all wrong.

      Meghan! calls Stephane, the skinny makeup artist with Buddy Holly glasses. "On y va?" I follow him back to the van to have my makeup done. As I sit there, my head against the warm velour bucket seat, his feathery makeup brushes lull me to sleep.

      Wake up, sweetheart, he says, finally. "It’s time for your hair. I grab a second pain au chocolat and transfer myself to the hair chair, while Silke, a German hairstylist with spiky blond hair and tattoos, douses my head with a liquid gel that smells like sage. I could swear I’ve met her before.

      You look familiar, I say.

      She shrugs. We’ve probably worked together before, she says, combing the gel into my hair. I’m too embarrassed to tell her that I’ve never worked with anyone before, that this is my first job. Then she looks over at Stephane and announces that she’s found Jesus. It turns out that he, too, has found Jesus and now they’re best friends. Jesus? Are they serious? I abandoned my family and friends, denounced God, and traveled 6,000 miles to see the world for—Jesus? Where are the lines of coke, the all-night parties on yachts in the Mediterranean, the dancing on tables, the casual sex? I’ve been trying to lose Jesus for years, so I duck into the back of the van as soon as Silke is finished with my hair.

      The clothing stylist, an anorexic-looking woman named Inès, garbs me like a rock star in the

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