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I studied fashion at St Martin’s, but not just to please my mother – I genuinely had ambitions of becoming a fashion designer. Like her, because of her, I’ve always loved clothes. I’ve been buying vintage clothing since my early teens. I enjoyed studying the construction of the pieces as much as wearing them.
But in my final year, compared with my fellow students, I knew that I didn’t have the imagination or the vision to design clothes that were often avant-garde and unwearable for the average person. I lacked the sheer sense of performance that it takes to bring a collection to the catwalk. To be honest, I’d been winging it anyway, because my passion is for clothes that make a person look good. Otherwise, what’s the point? Me, I always choose style over innovation.
After graduating, I spent a few years in fashion sales and I was thrilled when I landed the job as personal stylist in a large department store in Oxford Street.
One of the first things we needed to know about a client was their budget and then we were encouraged to stretch it – although, not all our clients were rich.
There are many reasons why people need help shopping for clothes. These days, people are less confident about their appearance than ever. Sometimes they don’t have the confidence to try something new. Sure, they can choose the labels that also have a line of accessories like beaded bags and matching hats, but although it makes shopping easier, it’s self-defeating in a way. There’s always the risk that someone else is going to show up wearing exactly the same thing and that they’ll both have to spend the whole occasion keeping as far away from each other as possible to avoid looking like middle-aged twins.
Fashions change. Partners aren’t always helpful enough – or patient enough – to give an honest second opinion. After two outfits, a man will say that anything looks great, just so that he can be done with the whole boring business and go home. Friends aren’t always tactful and those who follow trends are the worst. There’s nothing more demoralising than shopping with a fashionista who pushes into the dressing room, tries on the stuff that her friend has just turned down and looks fabulous in everything.
As a personal stylist, my job was to make my clients look in the mirror and see themselves differently. I was supportive, admiring and knowledgeable. For a period of two hours, I was the perfect friend; bringing coffee or prosecco, zipping and unzipping, encouraging them to own the clothes – can you sit in it? Eat in it? Dance in it? And then I’d get them thinking about accessories: bags, shoes, scarves, pendants, fur cuffs, sunglasses – the beautiful final touches that make a look. It was a brilliant feeling to see a woman admiring herself in the mirror with happy disbelief – and keep on looking. For me, that was the ultimate job satisfaction. I discovered I, too, had the ability to see women through their own eyes and boost their confidence by transforming them into someone new.
The client who got me fired was an elderly man shopping for his wife. His name was Kim Aston. He arrived for the two-hour appointment, a neat, slightly built man about my own height, wearing a suit and a bright, multicoloured silk tie. His greying hair was short and swept back from his forehead.
He looked nervously at the glittering chandeliers and the ornate chairs and faced me with a frown. ‘I was just about to leave,’ he said as soon as I introduced myself.
‘Are you in a hurry?’ I asked.
‘No. It’s just that—’ He looked up at the enormous chandelier again as if its blatant, lavish extravagance was putting him off. ‘I didn’t think it was going to be so—’ He shrugged and tailed off.
I smiled understandingly, because I knew what he meant. Our department was ostentatiously luxurious. Cream carpets, mirrors, drapes. We were selling the experience: this is what it’s like to be rich and have a personal shopper, a valet, an attendant, someone to admire you and to make you look the best you can be while you sit back and enjoy it then hand over a credit card at the end. We were selling the promise that all this could be theirs. And for two hours it was theirs to enjoy. But Kim Aston found it intimidating and I could understand that, too.
I said, ‘Would you prefer coffee or tea with your glass of champagne?’
That’s how we did it. We took it for granted that the client would have coffee or tea and a glass of champagne, to relax.
‘Tea, please.’
I tapped in the order on my iPad and led him through to the dressing room where the clothes I’d chosen for his sick wife were hanging.
On the telephone he’d been quite sure of what he wanted. Loose-fitting dresses, elasticated waists, silky fabrics and bright colours – size 14, he thought, or maybe a little bigger. I’d chosen six for his wife that I thought she might like, based on the image I’d built of her, but in the dressing room I realised I’d got it wrong because he looked at my selection anxiously, as if he’d already bought them all on impulse and realised he’d made a terrible mistake.
My colleague Mario carried the tray of drinks in and put it on a gilt, glass-topped table next to the cream velvet and gilt chair.
I handed Mr Aston his glass. There was nothing like a glass of fizz to boost the confidence of a wary shopper.
He held it at eye level and stared through the bubbles as if he were in a dream.
‘You said your wife likes bright colours,’ I said, ‘but if you’d prefer a more muted palette, I do have some things in mind that fulfil your criteria. What do you think of this? It’s silk jersey, very comfortable to wear and not restrictive,’ I said, showing him a red-and-blue Diane von Furstenberg wrap-around dress.
He smiled faintly as if amused. ‘We’ve been married forty-five years,’ he said. ‘It goes by very quickly.’ He looked at me closely. ‘You’re too young to know that yet. It’s all ahead of you, all that potential. For my wife, she’s reached the finish line and she’s having her bottle of water and her banana.’
I laughed, because it was a nice way of putting it.
‘She’s still interested in fashion,’ I said, ‘which is lovely.’
He sighed. ‘I’m not sure that she is interested in fashion. She’s not fashionable,’ he said thoughtfully, sipping his champagne, ‘she wouldn’t enjoy being called that at all. She’s a very practical woman. She’s always had short hair.’ He looked at me as if expecting me to comment favourably on this example of her practicality.
‘It’s often best to stick with a hairstyle that you know suits you,’ I pointed out. ‘Some women have the face for it.’
‘And it dries quickly,’ he said. ‘She has it trimmed every six weeks.’
‘Good! So it keeps its shape.’
He put his drink down and took the dress from me. His face softened. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I like this one,’ he said, worried he’d offended me, holding it up high as if his wife were a tall woman, a woman he was used to looking up to. ‘But no. This isn’t it. It’s rather plain, you see.’
I smiled. I wasn’t done yet. ‘I’ll put it over here,’ I said and then I showed him a shocking-pink shift dress with fluted sleeves that was very pretty.
He studied it for a long time, his face expressionless, and finally he gazed at me doubtfully. ‘Do you try these on yourself?’
‘No. I mean, not unless I’m looking for something personally.’ I let the dress hang. ‘This fabric is very flattering.’
‘You have to wear black, I suppose. All the staff seem to be wearing black. That’s the uniform, is it? Black?’
‘It is, yes.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve noticed that. The trouble with this is the sleeves. See? These sleeves, they don’t seem very practical. They dangle.’ Again, he looked at me quickly. ‘I was thinking in terms of housework, loading the dishwasher, cooking.’
Once again, I adjusted my image of his wife. She obviously wasn’t too ill to do housework. ‘This is more of a going-out dress,’ I said. ‘Does she get to go out much, your wife?’
‘She does when she can. She’s got two friends about the same age as herself, Mercia and Betty, and they like their classes. University of the Third Age, have you heard of that? No? A lifetime of knowledge and a wealth of experience. Tai chi, watercolours. They had an exhibition in the library.’
‘This floral dress is by Chloé. It’s a bit looser in style; it’s a relaxed fit. It’s great that she gets out. Do you paint, too?’
Mr Aston laughed appreciatively. ‘No, I don’t. I haven’t got an artist’s eye. The women don’t want us hanging around with them; although Betty plays golf sometimes when the weather’s fine. Golf is my hobby; although I haven’t much of a golfer’s eye, either. They’ve been good friends to Enid. What other frocks have you got there?’
‘This is a beautiful silk jersey by DKNY.’
‘Animal print,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I don’t know how Enid would feel about animal print. She might find it a little common.’ He sat on the cream velvet chair, looked at the dresses and took a deep breath. ‘Have you got something a bit more special, with some kind of embellishment? Feathers, ostrich feathers?’ he asked hopefully.
He’d taken me by surprise. ‘You mean a cocktail dress?’ He hadn’t mentioned it in his brief, but this is how it was sometimes, clients had to find out first of all what they didn’t want before they decided what they did want. ‘You don’t think that any of these are suitable for your wife?’
He shook his head. ‘I keep thinking of a frock that feels special,’ he said, his face creased with the difficulty of trying to explain. ‘The kind of frock that’ll give a person a lift. A dress to make the eyes sparkle.’
I liked him. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I’ll put these away for now and bring something more suitable for evening. More champagne?’
Mr Aston held up his glass. He was beginning to relax at last, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether the practical, short-haired Mrs Aston would appreciate a feathery cocktail dress as much as he seemed to think. It was difficult to judge without meeting her personally. I’d never had anyone shop by proxy before.
I carried the dresses out and asked Mario to refresh Mr Aston’s drink while I searched our stock for cocktail dresses and feathers. We had a black feather cape and an ivory ostrich feather bolero and I chose a couple of little chiffon dresses to go with them then headed back to the dressing room.
Mr Aston looked up hopefully, but his face immediately fell.
‘They’re not quite what I had in mind,’ he said, stroking the ostrich feathers wistfully. ‘But they are beautiful, there’s no denying it.’ He sighed deeply.
I felt I’d let him down. ‘From all the things you’ve seen, Mr Aston, is there anything you’d like to look at again?’
‘No … I don’t think so,’ he said wistfully, ‘but I’m very pleased that I came.’
‘Your wife will be disappointed,’ I said. She wasn’t the only one. I was disappointed myself.
‘I’ll relate the experience to her in detail,’ he said, finishing his wine and cold tea and looking around him as though he was memorising it for her.
I didn’t want him to leave yet. I wasn’t used to failing with a client. I always had a sense of what they wanted but, more importantly, under normal circumstances I usually knew fairly quickly what would suit them. And, suddenly, it came to me. And after one hundred minutes together, I suddenly felt in tune with Mr Aston’s wife’s taste.
Don’t get me wrong; I was scrupulously fair about it. It was only when I’d absolutely exhausted all other in-store possibilities that I’d suggested the under-the-counter deal.
I’d recently bought a satin sky-blue dress with a feather trim and a scalloped hem from a charity shop and it was his wife’s size, a 14. It was a playful dress and as I’d passed the window, the beautiful blue had made me smile. I guessed it was from the Sixties and I wondered if Mr Aston was nostalgic for the days of his youth, and whether the dress was a message, a compliment to his wife, Enid. The dress was to say to her: this is how I see you.
I showed him a photograph of it on my phone.
‘Oh, that’s more like it.’ He brightened immediately. ‘I’d like to see that,’ he said.
‘The thing is, it’s from my personal collection,’ I explained, ‘but we could meet up somewhere for you to have a look at it if you’re interested.’
‘When?’
‘This evening, if you’re free?’
‘Here?’
‘Not here but – where would suit you?’
‘St John’s Wood.’
‘Carluccio’s, then?’
And that’s what we did. We met in Carluccio’s.
He did love the dress, as I knew he would. He loved the frothy abundance of delicate feathers, the innocent blue, the rich gleam of the satin. He thought it was perfect. We did an under-the-counter deal.
He was so pleased that he wrote a lovely letter to the store to commend me on my kindness, thoughtfulness and total dedication to my work. And as a result, I was dismissed for gross misconduct. It was ironic that after that moment of triumph, I lost my job.
Anyway – where that memory came from is the fact the sky, from the sofabed where I’m lying, perfectly matches the colour of that feathery cocktail dress.
I get up reluctantly and put the kettle on, swaddling it with tea cloths to muffle the sound of boiling because the longer my parents sleep in, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
I start thinking about the woman in Chanel and that look in her eye that said, aren’t we wonderful!
I’ve seen her twice, so I think she’s local. It’s possible I’ll see her again. She’s hard to miss.
Consoled by the idea, I quietly make myself a mug of instant coffee, black, and retreat to the sofa.
I can hear whispering and the creak of the bedroom floor, and slippered feet padding to the bathroom. I hear the bathroom door closing. After a few moments, the lavatory flushes.
I stare warily at the slowly opening door.
It’s my father.
‘Morning,’ he says, rubbing the bags under his eyes. ‘Your mother would like to know whether you’ve got Alka-Seltzer.’
‘Ah. I have.’ I’ve got a whole kitchen drawer dedicated to ailments of all descriptions. I’m very susceptible to the power of the placebo effect. Once I’ve bought something from the pharmacist, I miraculously find I’m cured of whatever it was that was bothering me. As a result, the Alka-Seltzer has passed its sell-by date, but I drop the tablets into a glass and add water.
‘Aren’t you working today?’
‘I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. They’re the quietest days.’ The tablets fizz and tumble merrily up and down in the glass, and my father takes them back to the bedroom.
I get dressed, put the duvet and pillows away, and rearrange the fruit bowl on the table, ready for breakfast.
I’ve taken the croissants out of the freezer, so I heat up the oven and make real coffee in the KRUPS coffee machine, because they both detest instant.
I can hear Lucy walking around in the flat above me. I’ve always liked the sound of neighbours – it’s friendly.
Next thing I hear is my shower switching on, and twenty minutes later my mother emerges and sits by the table. She stares out at the garden without looking at me to make it clear she hasn’t forgiven me for working on a market stall.
I feel the old sense of dread at her disapproval coming over me. But I can make it work, I know I can. I’ll prove it to her that I’ve made the right choices in life.
I make her a coffee and put the croissants on a baking tray while she continues to pretend I’m invisible. It’s quite nice, actually, not having to talk. Like breakfast in a silent order at a monastery.
My father comes in and drinks his coffee in silence, smiling at me a couple of times to show who’s side he’s secretly on while publicly showing his alliance to her. Not that I blame him; he has to live with her, after all.
They leave about ten and I hug my father and kiss my mother on her plumped-up, wrinkle-free cheek, then I wave them off feeling suddenly light-hearted at being free.
Once they’ve gone, I turn on my laptop and see that I’ve had some new orders in. A couple of the clients are names I recognise from my database and one is new. I wheel my clothing rails out of the utility room and into the lounge because the utility room is too small to stand up straight in.
I’m looping a price tag from a wooden hanger, when my contact lenses start to bother me. I blink. Everything seems hazy and my eyes begin to itch. I squeeze them shut and wonder if I’ve caught Lucy’s cold already. Is that possible? I go to the bathroom and drip Thealoz eye drops into my reddened eyes and feel much better. Back in the lounge, though, they get worse again. I look around. The room is strangely misty.
There’s a loud thudding overhead from Lucy’s flat. I hear her front door open and slam, and down the outside steps she comes, boom-boom-boom! And she’s thumping on my door with her fists. ‘Fern!’ she cries dramatically. ‘Fern, are you in there?’
I open it, standing well back in case she sneezes on me again. ‘What’s up?’
‘My flat’s on fire,’ she says breathlessly, eyes wide, damp hair clinging to her forehead. She’s wearing a black towel. That’s it. Just the towel.
‘Really?’
To confirm it, my smoke alarm goes off, so I grab my phone, trench coat and my red lipstick. After shutting the door to muffle the noise, we dash outside and up the steps into the street. We stand together on the pavement, hanging onto the black railings and staring at the house nervously, looking for flames.
A middle-aged man comes towards us with a black Labrador on a blue retractable lead. His eyes settle on Lucy, barefoot and clad in the black towel. Then his gaze rests on me for a moment and swiftly returns to Lucy before he politely passes us without a word.
‘Lucy, here, take my coat.’
‘No, thanks, Fern. It’s a better look to be standing outside a burning house wearing a black towel, dramatically speaking.’ She looks up at her window again and nudges me with her elbow. ‘Have you called the fire service yet?’
I put my hand in my coat pocket, feeling for my phone, and hesitate. Out here in the fresh air, the house looks perfectly normal and I happen to know that Lucy just loves a drama. Well, she would, being an actor. I can’t see any smoke or flames and I wonder if it’s burnt itself out already.
‘Lucy, how big is the fire, exactly?’ I ask her sceptically.
She stares at me through the damp blonde strands of her fringe. ‘What do you mean, how big is it? Fires spread, you know! They spread like wildfire. Hence the saying.’
‘Mmm. Mmm. What’s the difference between a fire and wildfire?’
‘Give me that.’ She grabs my phone from me and phones the emergency services.
Staring up at her sash window, I can now see grey smoke opaquing the glass and leaking out around the edges, fraying the sky above our heads. Down in the basement beneath it, I can see clearly into my lounge and my heart jumps a beat. ‘Hey! My clothes are in there!’
‘Don’t do it, Fern!’ she said, holding me back ineffectually with her free hand. ‘It’s not worth it!’
‘My stock! It’s all I’ve got,’ I say as I dash back down the stairs and let myself back into the smoke-alarm-screaming din of the house.
I’m just going in for the clothing rails, but once inside the flat, the noise sends my adrenaline up a notch. The atmosphere has turned from a haze into a smog. I look at the ceiling and see smoke rings coming out of the spotlights. I struggle to push the clothing rail through the door. The wheels brace themselves against the doorframe, reluctant to leave.
Above the scream of the smoke alarm I hear the duetting wail of the fire engine and the squeal of an ambulance, and above them both, I hear Lucy frantically calling my name with varying emphasis and increasing volume as if this is her last chance for a BAFTA.
Still grappling frantically with the clothing rail, which not long ago had come through that same gap without any problem, I start to cough. In the end I give up and unhook my most expensive pieces then hurry into the hall just as an axe splinters a panel of my front door.
‘Oi!’ I open it, coughing, full of indignation because I’m going to have to pay for that. ‘What did you do that for? I was just about to open it!’
‘You could get yourself killed,’ he says. ‘Get out, now!’
So I do.
I find Lucy sitting in the back of an ambulance having her oxygen levels tested. I look at her bitterly. She’s clutching her black towel around her and sobbing beautifully; it’s heartfelt but not overdone. The paramedic tests my oxygen levels too, and we’re both declared fine with the slight disapproval that the medical profession reserves for malingerers. We get out of the ambulance again and I nurse and juggle my dresses like heavy babies.
It’s weird – when you’re wearing them the clothes are so light you never notice the weight. But carry a few of them in your arms or in a suitcase and they take on a surprising mass density.
A car pulls up and a Camden New Journal photographer gets out with a reporter. And of course when they see Lucy, their jaded expressions totally disappear, because this is a story that writes itself: Lucy in her towel and me in my Lauren Bacall trench coat, scarlet lipstick freshly applied, trying to save my livelihood.
Lucy tells them breathlessly how I dashed into the burning building to save my frocks and in return, appalled by my own recklessness, I tell them how grateful I am that Lucy came to alert me. Then we pose against the backdrop of the fire engine and then against the railings. The photographer vapes so as to get the full smoke effect in the shot and then they reluctantly drive away again in a hurry as a traffic warden approaches.
The paramedics leave and after a while the fire officers take Lucy to one side to talk to her. I can’t hear the conversation, but the end result is that Lucy and I can go back into our flats, so I head back down the steps, breathing in the damp and smoky air.
Lucy comes after me and taps my shoulder. ‘Fern, it’s all my fault, you know,’ she says in a small voice.
I look up at her over my armful of clothes. ‘Is it? What do you mean?’
She says miserably, ‘You know I’ve got this cold?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘I was just trying to ease my nasal congestion,’ she says as if that explains everything.
I mull it over. ‘And?’
‘And – the thing is, when I poured eucalyptus oil on the coals of the sauna it ignited in a ball of flame. Apparently, that’s what happens.’ She shrugs in amazement. ‘Who knew?’
‘Who knew?’ I stare up at her in disbelief. ‘Oil’s a fuel, isn’t it?’ I fleetingly marvel at the fact she has a sauna in her flat.
Back inside, my lounge is ruined, dark with soot, the floor is wet, and it smells of damp and wood smoke.
I rush my rescued clothes through to my bedroom, because that room is still mercifully fresh, then I go back into the lounge, open the windows. With my heart breaking, I inspect the clothing rails for damage. It’s not good.
Tears fill my eyes.
The gorgeous clothes that I’ve so carefully collected are ruined.
The gelatine sequins on my 1920s flapper dresses have dissolved. The colours on my tea dresses have run; my silk dresses are watermarked. Hundreds of pounds worth of stock, ruined. Even worse, I haven’t got around to renewing the contents insurance. I come to the sickening realisation that my parents are right. I can’t be trusted.
Ironically, my rejects on the rails under the pavement are untouched by smoke and water; these are the clothes with perspiration stains under the arms, torn hems, missing beadwork. The wear and tear that makes the difference between vintage and jumble.
I go back into the lounge and stare around me, devastated.
Wood smoke is a smell you can’t get enough of in the autumn. It’s the smell of freedom. It’s so romantic that you feel you should bottle it.