It's not often that someone is willing to let a complete stranger into their lives; lucky for me, she did.
Simone Shailes' collection of beautifully intricate loopy jumpers, capelets and dresses is stunning--but still only on paper.
Unfortunately, yarn has yet to come in from Italy, leaving her with nothing to knit. I catch in rather dire straits as a designer she's worked with has yet to pay her for work she's done over the summer. It's nearing December.
To top it off, she's unsure if the jewellery maker is going to pull through, and whether or not she'll be able to afford to her services. "Sorry, my brain is just AHHH," she bemoans.
It's a rough start, but it's bound to get better.
****
After Christmas, Simone's back in the studio with two new knits. "I knitted all through the holidays," Simone says. She tells me that apart from "mindless knitting," she's spent most of her time in bed. "I've never been ill at Christmas before, so I suppose it's fair," she says.
She shows me a finished piece completed by someone her tutor had referred her to; a dark blue, fitted loopy jumper, with extra tight stitches. "She cursed at this one while doing it," she tells me.
As the days pass, there's nothing too eventful going on. In my spare time, I spend some time at charity and vintage shops looking for clutch bags that Simone wants to modify for her collection.
She tries to teach me how to sew in the ends of her knits; a task I brutally fail at. I am forced to decline my offer of help, partially due to my pitiable knitting abilities, but mostly because I dare not accidentally ruin the complex jumpers she's invested so much precious time in.
While Simone is busy skillfully knitting away, following patterns only decipherable to those possessing super human knitting prowess, I trace patterns and cut fabric for her trousers. I'm finally getting back to cut and sew days, getting to work with fabrics, scissors and chalk. Though Simone is frequently apologetic in asking for my help, I'm quite happy to get my hands dirty.
Throughout the process, I've noticed that often things don't go too smoothly. One day, Simone is full speed ahead and the next, in a complete panic.
I know that reassurance is the key in moments of terror, so when the jewellery person decides she hasn't got any more time to make more pieces, I assure Simone we'll get someone new. "Easy Peasy," I say, or something of similar nonchalance.
Actually, I use the word 'promise.'
With three weeks left until the show, having no one to make the jewellery--a key part of Simone's collection--is not the news we need.
Despite my panic, I offer reassurance rather than a public display of dismay. We decide that flyers would be our weapon of choice, hitting all the colleges that offer jewellery courses.
I go home, make some up ready for posting, and decide to do some Internet homework. After emailing all London based jewellery makers that Google has so graciously provided me with, I am surprisingly optimistic.
The next day, I plaster those flyers at CSM Holborn, and the London College of Fashion. When I arrive back to my Brixton abode, I'm greeted with two pleasant surprises.
1. An email from Melissa Hunt, a woman who teaches a jewellery making class at CityLit, offering us a chance to see if any of her students would like to tackle the project.
2. A happy text from Simone. "I had a message from a girl who must have seen your flyer! Only just got home now so will give her a call in the morning but fingers crossed. Thank you! You are a star! x"
Things are looking up.
Keeping in tune with the ups and downs of the design process, Simone is once again met by a challenge.
Though TopShop has already sponsored her, Louise, the Course Director, is not pleased with Simone's choice of footwear.
This I discover during my first real (surprise) encounter with Louise.
****
Though I am usually a fan of surprises, there's always room for anomalies. Simone is hurrying as Kirsty tells her that Louise wants to see her. Together, we take bags of giant knit sweaters, one pair of gaudy gold shoes, and jewellery pieces downstairs.
"Get me someone skinny!" Louise yells. Simone rushes to try to find someone to model her clothes as I place a sweater onto Louise's desk. "What is going on with the jewellery?" she asks me, with a voice that could command an army. I'm a bit startled, but tell her that we've found a new jewellery maker that's to meet with Simone on Friday. Rolling her eyes, she begins to question why Simone has (unsuccessfully) ripped a bow off one of the gold shoes. I explain that we were thinking of putting a jewellery piece in the front.
Flushed, Simone enters the room again, with someone to model her trousers. "You're too fat!," Louise says abruptly. The girl weighs no more than eight stone.
Shrugging her shoulders, she removes the trousers, and suddenly, it's a panic to see who can find an appropriate model. "You mean in this whole college, you can't find one skinny person?" Louise demands.
I run into the corridor, and pull someone out of a classroom. I plea, she agrees, and we're running back into Louise's office. Only this time, Simone's already got the trousers on herself, and Louise gives the volunteer a once over before shooing her away.
"Put them on," she says, motioning to a box filled with Simone's TopShop boot choice. Simone puts the black boot on one foot, and leaves the gold shoe on the other.
"Look. What do you think?" Louise asks Simone, though she already has the answer. "The gold looks better," Simone agrees. The TopShop shoes are now scrapped, and Simone's mission now involves finding seven pairs of gold and silver court shoes.
"Assistant!" she yells. I'm assuming she means me. "Get the jewellery!" I am terrified. What would've been a short trip downstairs turns into active participation in a full-fledged Louise session.
I grab the brass buckle from Simone's Tupperware, but obviously I am too slow. "What is it?" she asks Simone. 'It' being another variation of 'assistant.' "Does it even speak English?"
Perhaps she's forgotten the conversation we had in perfect English mere moments ago.
I tell her yes, and that I'm a first year journalism student. She rolls her eyes, "I can tell."
It goes on for about twenty more minutes: yelling, scrambling, heart palpitations. When it's all over and done, Simone pats my back and smiles at my sympathetically. "Sorry," she says.
****
The next task is finding shoes. While we're both on the hunt, poor Simone is also on a knitting binge; eating, sleeping, drinking and drowning in metres and metres of blue and grey yarn.
I check out all the shops in Brixton, but apparently my area is freakishly populated with a neighbourhood of women with model-sized feet, leaving court shoes in only sizes 3 and 4 on the shelves.
Success begins with Primark, and after Simone texts me to try the Mecca of Primarks at Marble Arch, I hit the jackpot of metallic shoes.
I round up what I can for lineup. Hopefully, she likes the shape of the shoe I've chosen, but at six quid a pop, we've got nothing much to lose.
I bring them round to college and Simone loves them. We later go back and attack the Primark shelves for all the 6s, 7s, and 8s, prying them out of the hands of disgruntled shoppers.
We've still got to gold and silver leaf the shoes, a task we're quite excited to undertake.
After the art supply lady gives us a thorough lesson on the process of gold leafing, we assume we are practically experts.
We are, however, wrong. The leaf won't stick properly, leaving little cracks all over the shoe. Unable to find a remedy, we decide the cracks are deliberate, adding a purposeful edginess to the overall tone of the collection.
As lineup approaches, Simone is a bit tense. She hasn't knitted as much as she's wanted to and is doubtful she'll be able to finish on time.
I tell her not to worry and promise her I'm certain her lineup will go absolutely smoothly.
So much for keeping promises.
****
Louise begins the friendly family affair by crticising Simone's lack of speed, glaring at me while doing so. This time, I am now called "Helper" but she has taken it a step further. She tells me it's not even worth her time to learn my name.
"Why would she bring a fucking journalist?" Louise screams, "She knows fuck all about fashion! What the fuck is she even doing here?"
I'll give her that; I really don't know what I'm doing here.
"You're wasting fucking time! She was wearing the same fucking trousers!"
She shouts at me for apparently removing a model's trousers and then changing her into the exact same pair. I'm not sure how this is possible, since first pair was blue, and I've now dressed her in silver, but her yelling puts me in some sort of paralytic trance. All I manage to mutter are apologies.
She continues to yell at everything I do; my attempts to help, pitiful. She is quite vocal about telling the panel of tutors alongside her that I am "utterly useless."
"Next time bring me someone who speaks bloody English!"
A part of me wishes I really didn't, so I couldn't smile my way through this without saying a word.
"We're all English speakers here," Simone interjects.
Soon, tension in the room mounts to volcanic proportions, and Louise demands for a designer, as opposed to dim-wit (me), to assist Simone.
As Simone runs upstairs to fetch one, I'm alone in the room most likely looking like a petrified puppy dog. The halfwit journalist with no comprehension of the English language does not belong here, and Louise makes sure I know it.
Simone returns and is bombarded with more explosive criticism. But you can tell Louise is also pushing her to go further, to reach her full potential. In the end, she tells Simone that despite being ill-prepared, she should give herself a pat on the back for a collection well done.
Louise does like her, I can tell.
On the other side of the likeness spectrum, I am called every name in the book from dumb to stupid to slow. I suppose those I can agree with; my performance as assistant does not excel under verbal thrashings, but repeatedly being branded as not being able to speak English because of my Asian appearance is probably what bothers me most.
I suppose it's harder to shake off criticism regarding something you cannot change.
I can sympathize with Yang (the other designer I've been shadowing), and see why it can be frustrating for her: being Chinese always coming up as an issue, a reason for her shortcomings.
I'm Asian, therefore I can't speak English, and therefore I am incompetent.
I leave the room in a slight trance.
Simone, brimming with apologies, tells me not to take it personally, and treats me to a Pizza Express.
"At least she liked the shoes," I say.
But I am not out of the clear yet. Fate has decided to schedule Yang's lineup on the same day of Simone's. At 4pm, as one of Yang's helpers, I would have to face another hour in the line of fire.
Problem is, my Louise threshold tolerance has not yet developed itself; I did not have a designer's thick skin. Another session within the same 24 hours could result in a spontaneous nervous meltdown.
What they call a test of character, I call slight torture.
As Simone and I walk back into college, and I'm prepping myself for another round in the ring, she sympathetically tells me not to go.
As soon as we step through CSM's doors, a miracle occurs.
"Your girl's in there right now," my course mate Zandile tells me.
I'm confused. I glance at the time and it's an hour ahead of Yang's schedule, but apparently, she has already gone in to see Louise--without me.
Turns out, Yang had been forced to show her collection earlier than originally planned.
The day I took a bullet is the same day I dodged one.
****
It's two days before the show and the "Easy Gild" leafing method is disproving its namesake. The aluminum leaf is not sticking on any of the shoes, leaving Simone in a state of semi-panic.
It feels as though we have been silver leafing these things forever, and they refuse to cooperate with the blazing fury of a thousand suns.
After switching to another glue, all is well in shoe-land. Simone is pretty much prepared; some final knitting to work on, one last bag to sew. "I can't wait until this is all finished," she says in exasperation. Though appearing frazzled, she's got her act together; she just doesn't know it yet.
****
After quite a struggle to get through the doors of the Natural History Museum's BFC tent, I'm finally in.
Like a herd of cattle, the crowd pushes their way towards the entrance. As luck would have it, the music starts, and heavy doors slam right in our faces.
This could've been the end. I would go home dejected and read the review on Style.com the next morning; the anticlimactic ending only masochists dream of.
Instead, we blag our way to the Executive Lounge, and through the kindness of one extremely generous security guard (and some barricade hopping), we're finally in.
As Simone's models strut themselves across the catwalk, and in between my stalker zoom lens photos of Christian Slater (who's bagged himself a lush spot in the front row), I'm snap-happy giddy fool, taking blurry photos of her gorgeous, loopy, mad sweaters.
I feel like that embarrassing proud mother, the one that wants to tell the world that her daughter's at the top of the class, the bee's knees, the very best. Only I show more restraint.
I cross my fingers as the judges announce the winner of the L'oreal Professionnel prize: Simone Louise Shailes.
Her talent, dedication, and long nights of knitting powered by Red Bull have paid off at last, and it couldn't have happened to a sweeter person.
Adorably flushed and certainly relieved that it's finally over, Simone walks down the catwalk to collect her prize.
And while I smile to myself, I can't help but think that for her, this is only the beginning.