Читать книгу Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model - Victoire Dauxerre - Страница 14

I returned to Avenue Montaigne accompanied by Seb to drop off my contract and pick up my book and my comp cards. It was Vladimir who greeted me with a wink and pointed to the wall of photos behind him: in the midst of all those other faces, I spotted mine. It took me a moment to realise that this girl, who looked every inch a model like all those girls in the magazines, was actually me. What a strange feeling it was! It was as if I could recognise my outer shell, while knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t me inside. I sensed it was going to take me a while to get used to my new image: of me the model …

The book made an even bigger impression, when I saw Sergei’s photos for the first time. The sexy girl in the oversized shirt was me! The one whose breast was peeping out a bit (I wouldn’t be showing that one to my father), the gentle dreamy one in front of the mirror, the one with the killer look … All of them were me. On the comp card, slipped into the back of the book, it said: ‘Victoire Maçon Dauxerre, 5'10", 33–23–34, brown hair, blue eyes’, complete with the smart Elite logo.

I left feeling a bit dazed, with my comp cards and contract in my bag. A month previously, I was a totally stressed-out girl about to take the entrance exam for Sciences Po, and a month later, I was a totally stressed-out girl who everyone thought was a super-sexy woman and who was on her way to New York fashion week.

The night before we left for Marseille, I went to the cinema with my parents to see Picture Me, a documentary by Sara Ziff, an American model who had filmed her life over the course of a year. She recounts the happy times – the fashion shows, the adorable designers, the incredible hotels – but also the harsh side of this profession: the endless waiting at the castings, the occasional cruelty of the people who dress you, style your hair and do your make-up, the rivalry between the girls, the disjointed lifestyle, the jet-lag, the pressure and the feeling of being treated like an object, or sometimes worse than an object.

As I came out of the cinema, a man came up to me: ‘Excuse me, Mademoiselle. Have you ever thought of becoming a model?’ I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say! He introduced himself, said that he worked for a major agency and that, if I was interested, he would be happy to … I laughed as I told him that I had just signed with Elite. ‘I’m out of luck, they were quicker off the mark than me! I wish you a wonderful career.’

In the car on the way home, my parents spoke very frankly: the film clearly showed that it was a profession that could be very brutal. They stressed that I should never forget that I had a free choice and that I could decide what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. That I should never put up with people treating me badly. That they would always be there for me, and that I could call them at any time of the day or night. ‘Well, preferably in the daytime, actually.’

Dad was trying to make light of it, but deep down inside I could feel something electric rousing itself in the pit of my stomach. The same thing that had stopped me sleeping before the Sciences Po exams. In fact, it was something I’d been familiar with for virtually my whole life. It was a stabbing anxiety that implanted itself in my guts and then wouldn’t let go. The same anxiety that had made me ill at primary school, that had stopped me returning to secondary school and that demanded that I be the best at everything all the time, so that people would choose me, love me and stick with me.

It was that bastard fear. That evening, I felt it stirring within me. And I realised that it would be my sole companion when I set off for New York.