Moving on

If you're just here for the fashion flashback and grunge-to-gladrags model story, you can skip this post and go straight to Discovered.
If you're also interested in the more emotional background details and the demise of the Bad Boyfriend... read on.
If you're bored, try this!

As the end of my high school career approached, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. Despite wearing a lot of black and being semi-permanently attached to the lips of my Bad Boyfriend, I was still a straight A student. Getting into university wouldn't be a problem, deciding what to study at said university, was. Gripped by indecision and knowing that Bad Boyfriend would never get accepted with his struggling grades, I decided to take a gap year. We would both get menial jobs at the local mall while we figured out what next. Stellar plan.

The year rushed to an end. We attended our Matric Farewell (something like prom, without the booze and sex, in my days at least) and made it through to our final exams. I spent a lot of time coaching Bad Boyfriend, helping him study, sharing my notes. He was a terrible student at the best of times, bright as button and sharp as a knife but too rebelliously obstinate to realize that by messing up at school he was only punishing himself.

MM at the Matric Farewell. I'm almost starting to like my outfit again. The corset straps were shortened so that absolutely not even a hint of cleavage would be visible, at all, ever... Kind of defies the object of a corset, no? I've never, ever taken style advice from a boy again!

Because we had different subjects, my exams would end a couple of days before his. On the day I finished my last test after twelve years at school, a switch flicked in my mind.
I was tired. Dead tired of the emotional drama and intensity of our relationship. Bored of being told what to wear and who to speak to and completely over having no social life and no fun. I made up my mind to break up with the Bad Boyfriend, just like that.

But I had to wait. I couldn’t possibly break his heart while he still had an exam to pass; that would be too cruel. Besides, I had no doubt that he would sabotage himself in some way when I left, and I didn’t want his not finishing high school on my conscience. So I patiently waited and deceived my way through three days of pretense. Because I didn’t have Business Economics, Boyfriend had to study on his own and his mom wouldn’t let him see me until he was done, so luckily it was only over the phone that I had to continue the charade.

When he came to visit me straight after his final exam, I was ready. I’d been going over our relationship and all the things that I’d given up, and there was no way I was backing down. I knew he didn’t know how to be any less controlling and possessive and I knew that I had to be free. I was eighteen; with all the options and opportunities in the world before me, and it was time to do what was right for me.

Bad Boyfriend was understandably shocked and upset and it took many hours of talking, crying, arguing, some destructive threats and actions but eventually he understood: I was moving on and he couldn’t follow where I was going.

At the same time my Dad’s company announced that he’d have to relocate to a different province, permanently. My Dad gave me two choices: move with my family, to a small town in the middle of nowhere where I wouldn’t know anyone, to ‘enjoy’ my gap year there, or enroll at university and live in student housing. I started ferociously studying course brochures, trying to pick a degree. I tried to imagine myself as a marine biologist, a nature conservationist, a librarian, a lawyer or an entrepreneur, but I just couldn’t see it. Finally my Dad said: “Cookie, it’s simple, what have you always wanted to do?” In a heartbeat I answered, “I want to be a movie star”.

So it was settled. Thanks to my good grades I was allowed late enrollment at the University of Stellenbosch and I would start studying towards my Drama degree just two months later. Till then, I had a summer of single fun in the sunshine before me. I was ecstatic.

Top Billing

I can’t say that I enjoyed walking the ramp (the plank?) for the Fair Lady Young Designer Show. Mostly I just prayed my way through my six minutes in the spotlight.

‘Please don’t let me fall off the ramp, don’t let my basket slip off my shoulders, don’t let me trip, oops remember to feel the music, chin up, shoulders back, peaceful expression, nice and easy and oh dear, everyone in the three front rows can see right up my skirt! Please let this end?’

I survived the show in one piece, I didn’t trip up or slip or fall over. The changes in between each designer’s scene happened in a fast forward blur of ripping off the previous outfit and hopping into the next while running across the back stage area to the spot where you needed to be in time for the start of the next song like, FIVE MINUTES ago.

Sure, there are dressers to help you out of the micro mini and into the sheath, not forgetting the buckhorn bangle! These poor dresser creatures are usually first year fashion design students and I’ve never envied them. They don’t even get paid. All they get is a lot of shoving, shouting and models running around in nothing but flesh coloured G-strings… Oh, the glamour.

After the show I could hardly wait to get back into my own clothes. Nice normal pants and tops and socks and shoes, covering all that needs to be covered, I felt cocooned in safety after the shock of over-exposure. I heard some girls talking about after-parties and hanging with the designers but I made a beeline for the exit and jumped gratefully into my Dad’s car. It was done.

Except, of course, for the nation’s favourite magazine show. They just wouldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let me make my break from the crazy world of modeling without getting me in trouble first.

A day or two after the show my family, the Bad Boyfriend and I were innocently watching TV when a preview came up.

“The fashion event of the year, the Fair Lady Young Designer extravaganza will be covered in-depth on the next edition of Top Billing.” Along with a nice long flash of me in my micro-mini strolling nonchalantly past the camera. The camera nicely positioned to look straight up my skirt. I froze.

My family shouted out excitedly, it’s you! Was that you? It looked like you, oh wow you’re on TV! I remained frozen. I could feel Bad Boyfriend next to me, crunching his jaw, keeping dead quiet; I didn’t dare look at him. When the preview was over and they hadn’t shown me again, I breathed out.

Sure Bad Boyfriend looked a bit green around the gills and yes, I was probably going to get a speech at the least but he hadn’t seen the half of it and I would find some way to make sure that he never saw the rest. My family would forget, I certainly wouldn’t remind them and if they remembered, I’d smash the TV with a baseball bat. Yes, that’s what I’d do.

I purposely surrounded myself with family members for the rest of the Boyfriend’s visit, so he couldn’t confront me about the show. Top Billing would air on Thursday, just a couple of days later, and I was sure that if I could just avoid anyone watching that, the whole thing would blow over and be forgotten.

Before I knew it, D-Day rolled around. Bad Boyfriend and I had been studiously avoiding the topic of the fashion show. I was dreading his reaction and he was probably waiting to see the whole show so he’d have more ammunition. I still had a small hope that we’d miss the program, that everyone would forget and afterwards I could say “Oh darn, we missed it. Oh well…”

But apparently this was big. Little old me, on TV. By 7.15 pm the entire family was gathered in the living room, the VCR was poised and ready to record. Bad Boyfriend arrived uninvited and I was marched to a prime position in front of the TV. I smiled weakly and felt the knot in my stomach tighten. How much would they show? Maybe even my family would be shocked and disappointed? What if they all turned on me and branded me a hussy? Gulp. I mumbled an excuse that I needed some water and fled the room, just as the show’s theme song came up. Everyone was babbling noisily as they showed the same shot of me during the intro. I cowered at the door, fearing the worst yet somehow also getting a tiny thrill out of it all.

The segment covering the show was about ten minutes long and during that time I was visible on about eight different occasions. To my immense relief and secret delight, I was in the same micro-mini-crop-knit outfit every time. I guess the more revealing outfits were too risqué for family time TV and thus never featured.

I could hardly believe my luck. I’d attended a show casting, booked the job, been trained on the catwalk, survived a whole show only half dressed, appeared on TV without totally embarrassing myself and kept the Bad Boyfriend relatively placated. And there was still the small matter of R800 owed to me by the agency.

While my heartbeat steadied and my Grandma phoned to congratulate me on how pretty I looked, I reminded myself of the terror I’d felt when I first saw my outfits.

I was done.

It’d been a wild ride, but I couldn’t survive another adventure like this. I reaffirmed my decision to phone the agency the next day and gracefully announce my retirement.

Poll review:

17 readers said my Boyfriend made my quit and 17 said I was too shy to continue. You're all correct and it was about a 50/50 contribution so very accurate. The 1 vote for 'Grandma made me end it' is not too far off either, her stern voice in the back of my mind certainly had an effect.

Thanks for the 2 votes for Vegas and 14 babies, you made me giggle.

Bad Boys and Beauty Queens

The really funny thing about the Fancy Bra Flyer is that I was still excited to find it in the mailbox one morning. I obviously have no pride? I don’t know if any of the kids in my school ever saw it, no-one ever said anything, so apart from this blog of course, I guess I got away with it.

And the money? I earned a whopping $40 for my twenty minutes of smiling in an ugly bra. Maybe the true worth of the paycheck is more understandable when you know that at the time I was also working as a check-out girl at our local supermarket, where I earned R3 (30 US cents) per hour. Hey, three hours of work and I could afford one Fancy Bra! With my Pep pay I could buy fifty. 

That first taste of fortune and fame was not repeated anytime soon though. Before I knew it, I was in my final year of high school and thoughts of modeling were far from my mind as I had a new boyfriend.

A Bad Boyfriend.

A jealous, possessive, manipulative, criminally insecure boy who'd estranged me from my friends and kept us couped up at home when we should've been out and about having the time of our young lives. Apart from the fact that we weren’t allowed to go out and socialize, this bad boyfriend also prescribed what I wore.

This will become increasingly absurd when I tell you that I clearly wasn’t an overconfident, alluring seventeen-year-old running around in revealing outfits. If anything, I was a bit of a mousy do-gooder heavily under the influence of grunge. So when I say he prescribed my wardrobe, it means he criticized the provocative fit of my faded baggy jeans and moaned that my oversized Nirvana t-shirts were too revealing. Seriously!

To further illustrate my truly unfeminine, unflattering personal style at the time, this anecdote. In SA we wear uniforms to school. On the odd Spring- or Sportsday we are allowed to wear our own clothes. While most girls would use this opportunity to dress up in pretty, flirty little sundresses, I would uhm, not.

One particular Spring day, each senior class had to choose a representative for the school beauty pageant. On this occasion, I wore beige knee-length baggy shorts with an oversized black t-shirt, several old-silver necklaces and my 8hole black Doc Maartens. They were my prized possession and the only shoes I wore, ever. Obviously my class was a bunch of subversive indie kids as they voted me and my Docs into the pageant!

Not your average beauty pageant attire:

I went to the interview round, feeling mighty uncomfortable amongst the pretty, sweet girls in their sundresses, but what could I do? Besides, I was immensely flattered by my class’ vote of confidence. Despite the courage to do the modeling course and strut my stuff in the Fancy Bra, I didn’t actually feel like a pretty girl. I just figured I’m tall and skinny and that’s enough.

Unbelievably I made it to the finals of the Miss High School Pageant and I WISH I had pictures. I wore a floor length, chocolate brown crushed velvet sheath with long fluted sleeves, my Vixen lips and straightened hair parted severely down the middle. I must’ve looked like a vampire next to the pretty ones in their pastel ball gowns!