Right here’s an extract from my e-book, How To not be a Supermodel. It’s taken from a chapter about mannequin castings and the bodily/sporting expertise I lied about having with a view to attempt to bag some work. Might I play the drums, for instance? Positive:
Was I a pro-level ice-skater? Er, sure:
They had been mandatory little white lies, by the best way, as a result of I used to be in possession of nearly 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 unusually zen – positions and utterly lose any shred of dignity I believed 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 glad 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 stated, ‘no.’
‘By no means?’
‘No.’
‘Babe, anybody can ski. Simply inform them you used to ski as a child, you’ll be nice.’
‘OK however after I get the job, absolutely I’ll then have to truly ski?’
‘We’ll take care of 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 girls’s sportswear model and their vary of yoga clothes. And the fault, this time, was totally with me.
‘Babe, do you do yoga?’ Texana requested after I phoned to examine 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 must undergo a sequence of poses so that you sort of must know the lingo.’
‘Yeah, I can do the positions,’ I stated, ‘the stretching up and the crossed legs. I can in all probability nonetheless do a headstand.’
‘Proper . . .’ stated Texana. ‘I simply . . . I’m cautious of getting a repeat of the beer business scenario.’
‘The place I did the Karate Child strikes?’
‘Oh my God, babe, what the hell. They stated it was like watching somebody drop acid after which attempt to combat themselves in a corridor of mirrors.’
‘Huh,’ I stated. ‘I’ll ensure that I practise some yoga positions then.’
‘Poses, my babe,’ stated Texana. ‘They’re known as poses.’
‘Concern not,’ I stated. ‘I’m limbering up as we communicate. Stepping into for the warrior canine and the downward spiral.’
The yoga casting befell in a dance studio, superbly brilliant with sunshine streaming in by two full-length home windows, mirrored from a wall of mirrors onto the wood flooring. The shoppers, three pleasant girls of their thirties or maybe forties had been seated behind a desk that was piled with mannequin portfolios. They appeared very serene, hair loosely pulled into ballerina buns or flowing onto shoulders, all of them clothed within the type of gentle materials and delicate colors that make your personal garments look as if they’ve been stolen from an eighteenth-century vampire.
‘Pretty to satisfy you, Ruth,’ the primary shopper stated. ‘We’ve been determined to e-book you for a marketing campaign so it’s good that this yoga vary may very well be a very good match. You’ve obtained precisely the look that we would like.’
‘We’ll begin with the warrior pose,’ stated shopper quantity two, placing on some spa music.
Warrior pose? What an earth was this? Couldn’t they simply see me within the leggings and crop high and be glad with that? Certainly on the shoot day somebody may simply prepare my legs and arms?
‘It’s vital for us,’ stated shopper quantity three, ‘that whoever we use genuinely practises yoga.’
Oh.
‘We actually need the marketing campaign to really feel genuine and for the photographs 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,’ stated shopper two. ‘I can’t wait to strive 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 right pose: I’d put my legs in a powerful, wide-apart stance that appeared comparatively convincing, really. Bending ahead pose was fairly self-explanatory and, miraculously, I really 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 suppose that they need to flip themselves into a giant ball, hugging their knees and tucking their head between their legs . . .
‘OK,’ stated 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, because of the truth that it walks on 4 legs?
‘That’s extra the cow pose,’ stated 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.’
Properly. 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 every 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, by which the presenter known as out a random phrase and I needed to work out which motion may presumably – as in, a one in a thousand likelihood – be the right match.
By no means had my thoughts and physique needed to work so arduous 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 my nostril and out by my mouth. Shopping for time.
‘No,’ I stated, eyes nonetheless closed, fingers over my ears, as a result of it simply felt proper, ‘I’m nice thanks, I’m performing some breathwork earlier than I do the subsequent place.’
What poses did youngsters do? There was the foetal sleeping place, which didn’t appear stretchy sufficient to be a yoga pose and so was my least favoured choice, 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 to be an entire fruitcake, in order that one wasn’t probably both. Kids favored to climb timber, however I’d accomplished 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 alternative and I used to be fairly assured about it as a result of up to now, they hadn’t requested me for both of my stable, 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 each one under-tens should undertake for hours within the education week, in a corridor stinking of boiled greens: sitting cross-legged.
‘Er,’ stated shopper one.
‘Uhm,’ stated quantity two.
‘I’m undecided that’s fairly the one we’re after,’ stated shopper three, as I clumsily rose to standing place, or ‘regular pose’.
‘It’s alright,’ I stated, ‘I do know that my sort of yoga’s not for everybody.’
How To not be a Supermodel is offered in hardback, e-book and audiobook right here. In the event you’re not within the UK, please be aware that Waterstones ship worldwide. At time of writing there are a restricted variety of signed first editions accessible at Toppings right here.
