Low Expectations (2 page)

Elizabeth Aaron is a fashion design graduate who has worked for Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders and Givenchy. She moved to Paris in 2012 to write
Low Expectations
while working as a nanny. She is currently writing her second novel and first screenplay. She lives in Paris.

For my darling sisters

October, Kingsland Road

People think that fashion types are a bunch of semi-articulate, cuttingly judgemental, oddly frocked, stiletto-wielding bitches that haven't eaten a potato since 2003 and think the Gaza Strip is a form of pubic topiary. Which is only half true. Loath though I am to admit I conform to stereotype, there is an element of perfectionism in my character. It is a necessary personality trait for anyone trying to make it in an industry where you must seriously weigh the relative merit of nearly identical buttons.

It is also the reason why I get on so well with Julian, quite possibly the poofiest poof ever to poof. He would take umbrage
at this assessment. He has been known to turn down certain cocktails and clothing as ‘too gay'. This, from a man who has the restraining order sent from Britney's people framed in his living room.

He waltzes into The Diana, a dingy pub on Kingsland Road whose walls are covered with an enormous collection of royal tat, looking like an Austrian prince – all slicked back auburn hair, thick moustache and waxed trench coat. Scanning the surroundings with an expression somewhere between bemusement and disdain, he catches sight of Rose and me squeezed into a corner table underneath a portrait of Prince Charles.

The crowd at The Diana usually consists of art students, a few confused foreigners and the taxi drivers whose depot is situated around the corner. Depressingly, from some of the conversations I've overheard at the bar, it seems a fair number of the taxi drivers started out as art students. There are times I distinctly regret not pursuing a more academic degree, as per my parents' wishes. Though I'm not certain how feasible a glittering career in science or law would be considering I never mastered long division and my spelling becomes more creative every year.

Julian has a low tolerance for people who don't conform to certain aesthetic standards. When he is not ‘nesting' (his words) with his boyfriend Theo, he prefers to stay in the more reliably trendy enclave of Shoreditch House, which he never
invites me to. When you reach the age where friends start to join members' bars, you quickly learn where you fall in their social structure. Luckily my taste runs to cheap, cheerful, dimly lit dive bars. Places where you can humiliate yourself safe in the knowledge that no one else will notice.

‘Hey babe!' Air-kisses all around. As a teenager I used to mock people who did this; now it is second nature. If someone proffers me a hand I am momentarily destabilized, staring at it like a foreign currency. What to do with the hand? Lick it?

‘Sweet Skinny Jesus, has the straight scene always been so … rotund?' Julian stage-whispers in horror, his eyes fixed on a man whose swollen belly struggles to break free of its nylon Manchester United prison.

‘Julian, when was the last time you left the house? Rationing ended in 1954. This is the price we pay for an abundance of delicious transfats. Be grateful!' says Rose.

Rose is reading Bioengineering at Imperial, has logical and informed opinions on most topics and is able to support them with bafflingly accurate historical dates. In contrast, I have been known to second-guess myself about the current year on application forms. I also misspelt my middle name on my provisional licence.

‘This is why I never go out! The shock gets worse every time. I have Permanent Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think it's the underlying cause of my eczema.'

He pushes up the sleeve of his coat and his eyes dart from his skinny arm, its bony elegance marred by a few reddish patches, to a man who could charitably be described as hideous, back to his arm again. Giving a little mock-shriek he cries, ‘Look! I swear that one just appeared!'

‘Julian, that's awful! Stop!' Rose laughs, throwing back her mane of untamed carroty hair.

Rose is a primary school friend I reconnected with during A-levels when begging for help (if plagiarism can be called that) on a Design Technology project. It was a subject I had chosen with design, not technology, in mind. She unexpectedly accepted my offer to pay her for her troubles with a box of my old shoes, which at the time I thought a sign of fashion desperation. I later found out they were accepted out of pity and donated to Oxfam.

I am less embarrassed about this reunion story than I should be and sometimes tell it to strangers at parties. Putting my best foot forward is something I can be counted on almost never to do, usually because said foot is rammed into my mouth. I figure if you present yourself as lazy and mildly sociopathic from the beginning, you can only improve with time. It's like being impressed by a film you thought would be awful but is unexpectedly amusing, versus the disappointment that can follow a critically acclaimed masterpiece of cinema. I call this ‘stealth charming'.

Julian's lack of filter is mitigated by his jovial tone and self-
mocking demeanour. He still gets told off for misbehaving a lot. As a fellow sufferer of taking the joke too far, I sympathize. The thing is, he doesn't mean it. Well, he does, but his intention is not malicious. Luckily, for the most part the people who chide him are laughing. He is a little bit too proud of having been slapped twice, though.

‘But I think it might be true! My skin is very sensitive, darling, very discerning. At this rate if I ever want a beautiful complexion I'll have to move someplace Scandinavian. It's that or become a hermit. It will take an hour-long wank over Andrej Pejić to get over this exposure.'

‘You say that as if it's not already part of your daily routine,' Rose says.

‘An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away!' I add cheerfully.

I suspect this to be true, having not suffered a cold in some time. The late, great Mae West is a surprisingly good source of advice on health and love. It boils down to speaking your mind, wearing seven-inch platforms at all times, slathering yourself in baby oil and having as much hot sex as you can. How can you not admire a woman who inspired Dalí to design a soft furnishing in honour of her lips? I would personally hope for my legs to be immortalized in a giant coat hanger by Sarah Lucas. But I digress.

‘Darling, as if I have the time! My life is work, work, work. The halcyon days of university when I could wank, let alone have sex, with impunity are but a distant memory. I barely
see Theo these days. He thinks he's in love with a vampire. I only see him in the twilight hours looking like some sort of undead creature. I'm so pale and gaunt. Look at these shadows! It's lucky purple brings out the green in my eyes.'

Julian may speak with the air of an extreme narcissist, but he is actually very kind. An incurable romantic, hopelessly in love with his first and last boyfriend, he thinks Rose and I are terrible sluts. If I were a young gay man, I would be haunting the latrines of G-A-Y in a tiny mesh vest right now.

Have I mentioned that I'm single? The initial liberation of being footloose and fancy-free begins to pale after a while. Six months on from my break up and I still haven't met a single man who fits my criteria. Some women have endless lists of the qualities they are searching for in a man. He must be intelligent and funny, a bit cocky but not too arrogant. He will be tall and handsome, but not generically handsome. (Generically tall is allowed.) He should be available and loyal, but never clingy. He must like dogs and scorn fish. He will be employed but not a workaholic; sexual dynamite but not a player; he will read the same Sunday paper and be geographically convenient.

My list is as follows: he must be bearded and love giving head.

Only two requirements and I still haven't ticked them off! Even the beard is negotiable if he gives good stubble. Granted, I have been working crazy hours interning over the past
nine months. Fashion spinsterhood is a common complaint amongst my peer group. Over the summer, I met exactly two new heterosexual men, one-hundred percent of whom I slept with. Hopefully now that I am studying again the situation will improve. The final year of university is not an ideal time for a manhunt, but you need to live life holistically. Regular sex is a vital component of spiritual nourishment.

‘Sometimes I think about getting out of fashion entirely. I could become an actor or painter or something. I love my job but it's just so tiring,' Julian says dramatically.

Julian is the Assistant Womenswear Designer at Schrödinger's Cat. It's a relatively new brand built by Trigger Hunt, a Trustafarian of undeniable talent and fearsome pretentions. Trigger once had a thing with a hot young physicist and now feels that he holds deep insight into the mysteries of the universe. He uses this knowledge to great effect by running up expensive frocks and giving enlightened quotes on ‘How Much Knitwear Is Too Much Knitwear?' to
Vogue
. No one working there, including ‘Call-Me-Trigger-But-Don't-Look-Me-In-The-Eye Hunt', really understands the principles behind the name. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientific inspiration is drafted into the press release of each collection with increasingly tenuous connections.

An example: Spring/Summer 2013, which I assisted Julian and Trigger with, grew from a mood board of outer space into images of what Trigger imagined String Theory might
look like. This process was achieved by an intern pinning and taping a ball of twine in different formations. These were then photographed and edited so thoroughly on Photoshop that they emerged as something else entirely. This synthetic web became the basis of some of the best prints in the collection as well as a silhouette story involving Samurai Warrior Shoulders and Crinolines (made modern by a clever use of Neoprene). This all sounds like the deformed lovechild of Kurosawa's subconscious and a wetsuit but was actually quite beautiful. It was heralded as a ‘postmodern triumph of historical revisionism' by Style.com.

One of the benefits of working for a boss who is brilliant enough to put up with, but is also a crazed, entitled psycho-maniac is that you form extremely firm friendships with your comrades. In fact, I have found the belief that everyone is at one another's throats to be an unjust prejudice against the fashion industry. Certainly, a degree of hatred is inevitable during twelve to fourteen hour days, often including the weekends, in a hothouse environment of gay men, single women and the unpaid slave-children known as interns. But a mixture of hard work, team spirit, humour, hysteria and despair bonds people together effectively, for better or for worse, till burn-out or a better job does them part.

Our social dynamic has shifted when discussing work-related issues now that I've left to finish my degree. Julian is still there, toiling away, and I have defected back to the
lifestyle of the carefree, petit-bourgeois student degenerate. I sense he now views me with a mixture of jealousy and suspicion.

‘How is the new collection going then? I can't believe you made it out so early!'

It is 10 p.m. on a Thursday, early indeed.

‘Oh you know babe, the usual. My day goes from boring to joyful to hellish and back again, sometimes all within the hour. Trigger went ballistic over a missing measuring tape in the fitting room today; I thought I might lose my job over it. The interns always fuck up the most menial tasks! I spend half my time looking after the daily grind of administrative and organizational shit, which I should be able to delegate. But I know from experience it will end up being so cock-eyed I'll have to redo it myself.'

Julian takes a pause in his rant to mutter, ‘Not that you were like that,' before continuing.

‘I can't wrap my head around some of the mistakes they make. Maybe they pretend not to understand because they feel it's beneath them. They all think they're the second coming of Gaultier and that they should be immediately promoted to doing design work. It's like, I've paid my dues to get where I am and so shall you! If I ask you to sweep the floor, sweep the floor!'

Rose gives me a look as if to say, ‘They have to sweep the
floor?' I nod in a way that will dissuade her from voicing the question.

‘At this rate my nerves will be shot by the time I'm twenty-six years old!' Julian continues. ‘I'm probably going to join that list of famous people who die at twenty-seven.'

‘Julian, the Twenty-Seven Club is for rock stars. You're not even famous.'

‘I'm twenty-five, babe, give me time. Anyway, enough about work – let's talk about something else. Any men on the go?'

Rose launches into the post-mortem of a date with the unfortunately monikered Phil. It is a name that should be reserved for middle-aged accountants in Surrey, though he is a twenty-eight-year-old sound engineer squatting in Peckham. They met last Saturday in Camden. Rose was dancing on tables, which gives you an indication of how pissed she was; usually her moves are limited to swaying in a darkened corner. I lost her halfway through the night but she reappeared at closing time – that terrible moment when the lights come on and the filmy veil of hopeful delusion lifts to reveal a sea of heavily perspiring cretins.