The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines (5 page)

Vogue

I
was sixteen years old when my mother’s hairdresser asked her to allow me to model in his hair fashion show at his salon. My hair was long and thick, and he loved experimenting with it by creating fancy updo hairstyles.

Knowing that it was just a small and private affair for his clientele helped my mother in her decision to accept the offer.

I was so exited the night before, going through my mother’s fashion magazines, including Germany’s
Burda
style magazine (with enclosed sewing patterns) and
Elle
. I studied the models and tried to imitate how they posed: standing tall with their right foot slightly ahead of their left, hands on their waist, or gently resting on their lapels. Then I cut out my favorite pictures and stacked and flicked through them. The images started moving, just like the animation in a flip book. Browsing through the pages fast brought the pictures to life.

I wore a nice white silk-chiffon minidress that my mother had bought for me in London, where she would go once a year to visit relatives and to shop. My hair was styled up, and the hairdresser added a chiffon headband to it. His makeup artist did his best to make me look like Jean Shrimpton because she believed I was too overweight to resemble Twiggy. The two models were wildly popular in Iran for their exceptional beauty and were featured prominently in Iranian magazines and
Elle
.

Jean was well known for her look, her feminine curvy body, and for being one of the world’s supermodels. Twiggy was acknowledged as the most beautiful skinny girl in the world and had the longest eyelashes. Little did we know, her eyelashes were fake. But the secret came out soon, and Iranian ladies demanded that little extra beauty for themselves, too.

The salon was transformed into a hair-fashion studio. Rows of twenty-four chairs were neatly placed along a short runway in the middle of the salon.

I walked the red carpet like I owned it, my mother said. She was amazed at my self-confidence and surprised to see my showmanship. She asked me, “Shohreh, how did you manage to walk and pose in front of the people and not get intimidated?”

“I loved it,” I said. “I was playing the role of a model.”

A YEAR LATER
my schoolmate Pari-Sima, the niece of the regal couturier Parvin, encouraged me to hit the catwalk, along with a couple of European models, at a private reception held at Parvin’s prestigious boutique.

I was afraid to ask my parents’ permission, knowing they would most likely not let me model there. They were very private people and did not like their children to show off. My father had made it clear that he did not want me to act or to see me on a stage, period. I was to be a doctor.

So I went behind their backs and went to see Mrs. Parvin at her couture house, known as Mari-Martin. She was tall, slim, and elegant. She spoke softly and walked quietly.

There were flowers everywhere, planted in large crystal vases, tall white lilies and white tuberoses, known as Gole Maryam (or the Saint Mary flower) in Iran. The whole boutique was designed in white and eggshell colors, except for its early-twentieth-century French chandeliers with twelve citron shades, and two small antique Persian rugs.

Parvin invited me to join her models and walk the runway at her upcoming couture show at the boutique. I was thrilled, but I had to quickly learn the basics of the so-called catwalk.

A German ex-model catwalk expert and modeling instructor named Ralph was hired to work with the models. I told my parents I was studying at my friend Pari-Sima’s but went to the boutique instead. I worked with Ralph while Pari-Sima helped her aunt with the guest list and invitations for the upcoming fashion show.

I worked hard to walk straight on the line Ralph had marked for me on the floor. I was in awe of all the French silks, beads, rayon, stones, chiffons, and colored laces in royal blue, green, and dark red, ready to be sewn into gowns for the show.

Ralph was pretty tough; he constantly made me practice walking a straight line. Then he asked me to put my hands on my hips and walk the line again. He was merciless.

I could not understand a word he was saying. He did not speak Farsi and I did not speak German or English. Pari-Sima translated his words as he acted them out for me.

Ralph turned blue with frustration as he tried to teach me not to think of anything while walking the runway. I was to be a blank slate, and I am a woman with many thoughts!

As I practiced, he noticed that I was landing on my heels first and not my toes. I told him my father said I walked like an army of soldiers. He laughed then bent my foot, pushing my toes down. Then he held my heel. Eventually and miraculously, Ralph taught me how to gracefully walk the floor. He did his best to teach me as much as he could in a couple of sessions, and I did my best to hold my own alongside the European models at the show.

I finally decided to tell my mother the secret. She said she did not like the idea, but she understood my situation, having promised Parvin I would do it. I asked her to go with me, and she said she would rather not. I guess this was her way of making me feel responsible for my choices rather than sharing them with me.

The success of the show convinced a well-known Iranian designer, Pouran Daroodi, to offer me the sum of a hundred toman (fifteen dollars) to walk the runway in her upcoming private show.

She said I was the same size as the Queen of Iran. Pouran had designed a few evening dresses with the queen in mind, and she wanted me to introduce them on the runway. She was very excited about her new collection and arranged for me to start my fittings immediately.

The fittings took place twice a week for a month. To spend that much time at the salon was more than I was allowed to spend outside my home. I begged my mother to let me go to the fittings, which lasted several hours each time. She was not very keen on the idea, but I could tell she was secretly as excited as I was. She too liked participating in social activities. By now she was thirty-eight years old and an active member of our community. She was a member of the Women’s Club of Knowledge; she studied English and played bridge with other women her age. She even participated in the club’s yearly poetry competition and once won a beautiful white summer umbrella with large prints of peonies in pink and light green for reciting one of Rumi’s poems.

My mother was and still is an avid reader, mostly of novels, and a movie lover as well. She truly enjoys talking about each book or film for days and weeks at a time. She loves the Brontë sisters, and
Wuthering Heights
,
Rebecca
, and
Anna Karenina
are her favorite films. She loved Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. She also adored Elizabeth Taylor.

Knowing the show was private and for women only, she gave me her blessing. I was allowed to keep my first earnings. Still, she preferred that we keep the secret between the two of us. She said I should know that this would be my last walk on the runway and reminded me that I was sixteen years old, no longer a child, and had to respect my parents’ wish for me, which was of course to be a doctor.

I had no intention of undertaking modeling as a profession. I wanted to be an actor and loved just walking on the stage. So I agreed. I didn’t tell my mother my dreams of acting, even as my parents were actively planning to send me to Germany for medical school.

Pouran’s atelier was adjacent to her house on a shady street in an old but prominent area of Tehran. During our sessions, she had me stand on a pedestal for hours and talked to me about the fashion industry in Paris and Iran. It was her belief that Iran was nothing less than Paris in the fashion world. Pouran stood there, watching the look of her preliminary designs on me. Her assistants pinned the lining patterns, used as a guide for every single dress or gown, on my body. She was meticulous with her designs. She oversaw every detail in the light of the sun, which poured into the room through the garden windows.

The fashion show was eventually held in a rich family’s opulent backyard in northern Tehran. A runway was installed right under the cypress trees, planted neatly in a row.

Princess Maingeh, the wife of Prince Gholam-reza, the Shah’s brother, was coming to the show as well. I met Farzaneh Malek, a famous Iranian couturier, who was becoming a celebrity in the Iranian fashion world. She asked if I would be able to work with her, too, and I told her I would have to ask my parents first.

POURAN’S EVENING GOWNS
were elaborately made out of fine imported French fabrics and were mostly beaded with semiprecious stones, creating a rainbow of pastel colors. She also loved appliquéd gowns. She mixed and matched fabrics, with black lace on white satin, or pieces of antique Iranian fabrics sewn to the royal-looking gowns.

I became worried when I saw a couple of photographers at the arrival area. I was told that they were the house photographers, even though this was supposed to be a private event. But since Princess Maingeh was attending, they had to have at least one media outlet. A journalist from
Etelaat
, Iran’s favorite daily newspaper, had also come with a photographer.

All the other models were wondering why I was so upset by the presence of the cameras. They had no idea I was doing this behind my father’s back. But by midafternoon the show had started and I was on the runway, being photographed!

I got home early, still worried about the pictures, but did not say anything to my mother. My father was a subscriber to
Etelaat
. He looked forward to reading it every evening. I told my brothers to watch for the newspaper.

When I returned home after school the following day, I was mortified to see a head-to-toe photograph of me in Pouran’s evening gown on the cover. It took up almost a quarter of the page. I was speechless.

My brothers were concerned. Shahriar suggested that we hide the paper and tell Dad it had never come that day. Shahram thought it was a stupid idea. Dad could still go to the newsstand around the corner and buy one.

“What if the newsstand ran out of it?” asked Shahriar. We asked him what he meant, and he said, “Why not buy all the papers on the stand?”

“But there are two of them,” said Shahram.

He was right. There were two newsstands on the corner. But we could still do it. We put our savings together, and Shahriar and I went to both corner stands and bought up all the papers. Thanks to the popularity of the newspaper, there were not a lot left. We stacked them all in the attic and retreated to our rooms, anticipating our father’s return.

When he came home, he asked for the newspaper as soon as he’d brewed his dark tea.

We lied and said we had no idea where it was. He did not say anything but was obviously not convinced.

A half hour later, he summoned all of us to join him and my mother in the living room. He stood in the middle of the room with the paper in his hand. He had picked it up at the barbershop next to the newsstand, after he could not find his. We had thought about the newsstands but had forgotten the barbershop. Shahriar and I exchanged a quick look. Shahram was mortified. My youngest brother, Shahrokh, was too young to understand what was going on.

My father then said that he had known about the fashion shows I had participated in from the very beginning. I should have known better, as my parents never hid anything from each other. They were not just an ordinary husband and wife; they were true lovers and treated each other as such. All this time he knew it but had not said anything. He did not mind my harmless adventures, but he didn’t want me to get hooked on modeling, either.

He said I looked stunning in the picture. “Very ladylike,” he said. He also liked what the reporter had said about me: “Iranian models are breaking through.” He then told me that having fun is necessary but that higher education is a necessity, especially in the twentieth century.

He looked at me, taking a long, deliberate pause, and said, “Do you think Queen Elizabeth would ever do such a thing? I mean modeling?”

My father was obsessed with Queen Elizabeth II of England and tried to bring her into every conversation that concerned dignity and class.

After my picture was published, I was bombarded with offers from well-known designers to follow up with my modeling. But I had to put them all on hold until was eighteen and I could figure things out for myself.

8

The Era of Sweet Dreams

T
ehran was called the Paris of the Middle East. This was in the late sixties. My friends and I hung out at the bowling alley; the Ice Palace, a vast two-story modern-looking skating club with a large indoor skating rink; the Iran-America Society, which included film retrospectives; and a German cultural institute that often hosted small European New Age concerts. Additionally there were a handful of sidewalk cafés on Tehran’s most popular boulevard strip, called Pahlavi, after the Shah, whom I would meet around this time.