Paris Times Eight (26 page)

I wished I had someone to share it all with, to share a giggle. But no one looked in my direction, least of all the legions of women standing in for the best-selling New York and British fashion magazines. They were too busy competing with each other. Each magazine upped the ante by stuffing as many bums in seats as possible. The row allotted to British
Marie Claire
seemed to have twenty people in it, and yet the magazine's masthead didn't boast as many. Who were these people? Everyone and her shar-pei seemed to have been trotted out to give a strong showing at the collections. There was the shoe editor, the handbag editor, the lipstick editor. Each with an assistant assisting an assistant. The ranks of the Americans were equally dense and mysterious. These were girls groomed within an inch of their lives, and they were the cattiest. They sneered and pouted and cavalierly tossed their handbags over their shoulders, not caring who they hit. If they didn't like their seat allotment, they snapped a finger at a clipboard operator and loudly protested. Incredibly, they got what they whined for. In fashion, politeness was for pussies. A gritty attitude earned you respect.

I tried it out. When I called for an invitation, I no longer took no for an answer. For the most part it worked. I soon had a pile of invitations waiting from me at the Hôtel de l'Abbaye, much to the annoyance of the other sad-sack Canadians also staying there, a motley crew of stylists and editors, some of whom had been trying to penetrate the Paris collections for years.

“You have an invitation to Alexander McQueen?” shrieked a freckle-faced frump from
Flare,
Canada's leading fashion magazine. I didn't, but lied. “Don't tell me you've also got one to Viktor & Rolf?”

“Not yet,” I said, as sweetly as possible.

“Fuck!” she said, storming up the spiral staircase, her heels making gunfire sounds on the oak flooring.

I didn't tell her that most of my invitations had been stamped
en standing,
a third-rate category obliging members of the foreign press and other dogs of the trade to stand on tiptoe at the back of tiered rows of seats inside a stuffy, poorly lit tent. It was hard to figure out the hem lengths from that exiled point of view. All I could see were perfectly coiffed heads moving up and moving down the runway, like a brisk game of boules
.
Occasionally I scored a seat, usually at a has-been label like Claude Montana or Thierry Mugler. I sat in the fashion equivalent of the boonies, far away from the real fashion connoisseurs, and far from sight. In this fashion Siberia were other journos from countries with a next-to-zero fashion sensibility, at least in the eyes of the French. At Christian Lacroix, a designer whose pop-art color sense was at odds with the monochromatic looks popular that season, I was squeezed between the lone fashion reporter from Athens and the one from Bucharest. We had little in common save our ink-stained fingers. We were among the few at the shows who took any notes. Later I learned that the shortcut to writing about the shows was to crib the daily reports in the
Journal du Textile,
sold inside the tents for a few euros. It was how the other Canadians sent to Paris to cover the event wrote their summaries without actually getting in to see anything. I thought that if their publications knew, given how much it cost to send them there, they'd be fired. But I wasn't going to be the one to tell—even though I had revenge on my mind.

One morning the woman from
Flare
had organized a breakfast for fellow Canadians at the hotel. She hadn't invited me. When I walked into the dining room, they lowered their voices and cast furtive glances in my direction. I was convinced they had been talking about me. I strode up to their table, round and lined with a crisp white tablecloth. I bid them a frosty good morning. Like my mother, I wouldn't be ignored. Goddamn it. When did I become her? The woman from
Flare
looked sheepishly up at me with croissant on her blushing face. I made certain to tell her so, and then turned away to fume behind my
Herald
Tribune.

I shouldn't have minded the slight, but I did. I called my husband that night and moaned that I must be truly unlike-able. My mother, the French, my so-called colleagues, what gives? I was lying in a bath filled with a scented French oil I had purchased that afternoon. I was softening skin that my husband told me I should learn to thicken.

“I like you,” he said, teasingly. “I think you are the most likeable, loveable, embraceable woman in the universe. I can't wait for you to come home, and feel my arms around you.”

In a nutshell, that was my marriage. Still a sanctuary of love, five years later. I hadn't been to Paris since before we were married. I had returned there without him, and it was the first time we had been apart since our wedding day. I realized how much I missed him, how much I had grown reliant on him for company and understanding. With him I felt comfortable. With everyone else, I seemed not to fit in. “You are the only one I want to be with,” I said, my eyes stinging. “You're the only one I can talk to. Paris feels lonely without you.”

I don't know if I felt calmer after I woke up the next day. Maybe I had just grown numb. It was day nine. My brain throbbed with fashion after watching it day in and day out for almost a week and a half straight. I felt like I was in a deprivation tank, seeing, touching, and smelling nothing but clothes. I had tried varying the pace, occasionally worming my way backstage, huddled inside the mass of television crews that pushed past the groupies to ask the designer, what had inspired the magic? On one such adventure I found myself within spitting distance of Claude Montana. The Paris designer had been hot in the
1980
s. Space-age chic, I think he had been known for. I had forgotten about him, but, standing close to him, I could see where he had gotten his ideas. He definitely looked as if he was from another planet. He had dyed blonde hair that looked like a toupee covering one eye. His skin was shockingly red and leprous. He spoke with a lisp. At one point, I thought I saw him drool. To me, he was utterly repellent.

A videographer from Montreal recognized me from the press bus that had taken us from the Louvre to some of the shows staged in various sites across Paris, the Moulin Rouge and Trocadéro among them. “He murdered his model wife, you know, pushed her out the apartment window. This show is his comeback,” he whispered in my ear.

“From prison?” I gasped, perhaps a little too loudly. A press attaché was soon at my elbow, ushering me away.

I had taken the press bus again that day. The afternoon show, to which I had a real sit-down invitation, was being held at the Grand Palais, the ornate glass-roofed exhibition hall located near the Place de la Concorde. There was another interminable wait for the show to begin. None of the shows ever started on time, and this one was no exception. It was a brilliant sun-soaked afternoon. To pass the time, I stood outside under a plane tree, observing the carved figure of Apollo sitting on top of a corner of the belle-époque building. He was holding the reins of a chariot pulled by galloping horses—a figure of arresting beauty. I turned to look at the Seine, sparkling in the distance. The grass was green despite the season. Around me were bushes shaped to resemble full-skirted evening gowns. It was the first time during the entire trip that I had stopped to admire the external loveliness of Paris. And it was lovely. Breathtaking, in fact. Even the buildings seemed to shine. I thought I would weep. Why had I been feeling like a trespasser? The gifts of Paris were for the taking—why had I lost sight of that? I felt a surge of happiness. I wanted to call someone and shout the news. I was in Paris, and Paris was beautiful. But who would I call? Canada was just a dial tone away, I thought, and pressed my wafer-thin cell phone to my ear.

How life had changed since my first trip to Paris twenty-two years earlier. Was it already that long ago? Making a call home used to be so arduous. I had had to line up for hours in a post office for a long-distance line to open up. Paris once seemed far away from home, but now there was so much of North America in it. Even some of the
PR
people who gave me a hard time were from my side of the Atlantic. Paris had joined the global village, and I didn't know if I liked that. I looked at the phone in my hand. I thought to call my mother. It would be easy to do; she didn't know I was in Paris. I had deliberately not told her. That's how much things had changed between us. I punched in the code for Canada and with a start, recalled the tirades. I remembered how dejected she made me feel. I stopped myself—it wasn't worth the risk. One false word and she would ruin the moment. It was no longer enough just to travel far to get away from her. I had to get her out of my heart, out of my mind. Be disciplined. I wished I could stop thinking of her, wished I didn't care. I flipped the phone shut.

I continued to wait for the fashion show to begin, but then a show of sorts erupted around me. The Japanese. They had taken out their cameras and were raucously photographing everything around them. I had spent the week watching them. They were a formidable group of fashion victims and players who moved in packs as they hunted down the latest look for their fellow consumers in Japan. I couldn't comprehend where they got their money. They were the only ones who arrived at the shows conspicuously toting shopping bags from Louis Vuitton and Chanel. They actually bought the big-ticket items. They didn't line up for the freebies. They didn't have to. They were filthy rich.

They swarmed unsuspecting pedestrians who were passing alongside the Grand Palais, and then bowed and giggled behind hands held tightly to mouths, as if revealing their fangs would constitute an offense. They had been acting this way all week, and with this ersatz show of modesty appeared to stand apart from the flashy vulgarity of the fashion shows where everything, quite literally, had been hanging out. And yet of all the nationalities at the Paris fashion shows, the Japanese seemed the most besotted by all the flash and trash. They wanted it for themselves, as if it were some kind of forbidden fruit. They squealed the loudest when rock chanteuse Gwen Stefani took her front-row seat at Christian Dior. They chased Hollywood celebrity Renée Zellweger around the runway at Balenciaga, begging her for a portrait. It was shameless idol worship, and they showed no restraint. They seemed single-handedly to feed the incongruous relationship that lately had been developing between high French fashion and middlebrow Western culture. They were so hungry for anything pop culture that a few of them were suddenly swarming me, demanding a photograph. Having been ignored all week, I felt flattered.

“What you wearing?” a young Japanese woman asked of me. She seemed to be a reporter. She had a notebook and a pen in hand. A cameraman stood behind her, clicking away. I was having what in fashionspeak was known as a moment.

“Ka-na-da,” I shouted, looking at the lens from over one shoulder, a wave of nationalism coloring my cheeks. “To-ron-to.” The scribe with the Mickey Mouse knapsack recorded my every word. She bowed. I bowed back. I would be famous in Osaka.

After the show at the Grand Palais, something forgettable by Karl Lagerfeld, the madness continued back at the Louvre, where again I took to watching the Japanese. I had read about a street in Tokyo where the young pay homage to Western pop stars, dressing up like them in full costume. I had marvelled at the photographs of wannabe Madonnas, wannabe Elvises. At the Paris fashion shows I was surprised to find among the Japanese a wannabe Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American
Vogue,
nicknamed Nuclear Wintour for her reportedly devastating management style. The real Anna Wintour routinely sat Nero-like still in the front row of all the important shows, shielded behind large black sunglasses that had everyone guessing as to her reactions. The Tokyo Wintour often sat across from her on the other side of the catwalk, also in the front row, with her idol's look down pat. She had the same inky bob, the same eyebrow-concealing fringe, the same wiry thinness, and the same inscrutable smile. It must have unnerved the real Wintour to see herself parodied so accurately, and by a woman of some prominence. She was said to head a leading fashion magazine in Japan. Was imitation the best flattery? I found it instead rather creepy, and yet she intrigued me. I decided that day to shadow her. I had nothing else to do. I had no more invitations.

I was hot on her trail as soon as the crowd that had come to see the latest offering by the house of Paco Rabanne had disgorged onto the Rue de Rivoli. I hadn't a clue where she was going. But I saw that she was clutching a large black invitation and was walking toward the Carrousel entrance of the Louvre, where a throng had already gathered outside. There was an unmistakable smell of excitement in the air. I could tell that the scent led to a killer collection. But what was it? I pushed in close to my Asian ally. I had in mind an image of the Tokyo subway, where professional people-pushers squeezed people like sardines into cars. I thought she wouldn't mind me sticking to her coat. It was part of her culture. When Tokyo Wintour peered at me from over the upturned collar of her mink, her eyes hard behind her own dark sunglasses, I smiled at her. I pretended nothing was the matter. I towered above her. But she was the fashion behemoth and I the parasite on her back, getting close, closer, closest to something that seemed red hot. Fashion incarnate.

The Paris shows, the exclusive ones anyway, were protected by big burly bodyguards, who made sure that the wrong people didn't get in. This show was no exception. Two commandos formed a muscle barrier at the entrance. They were ruthless about eyeballing people's invitations. There were shouts of anger and outrage. And then I heard the words Viktor & Rolf. I was at Viktor & Rolf? No wonder the crowd was going wild. This was the show no one could get into. And yet my girl had a ticket.

I was now practically on top of Tokyo Wintour. I couldn't squeeze left. I couldn't squeeze right. I felt the crowd tight behind me, pushing forward as if to break down the ancient walls of the palace itself. It moved like a collective breath, in and out. Soon I was within reach of the door. Tokyo Wintour had shown her invitation. I tried to hold onto her sleeve as she breezed in, but she shook me off. One of the bodyguards looked at me, expectantly. I made like I had the invitation somewhere in my Made in Canada purse. I fumbled, stalling for time. I wondered what to do. I was now so close to the entrance. I felt there was no turning back, and besides, I would likely get killed, trampled on by a stampede of Christian Louboutins, no less.