Chapter 29: GLAMOUR WORLD

And from here, Audrey's journey to stardom began after three years working through many rejections and accomplishments. Though the experiences shared by the team of her agents in the initial years of work always stayed with her.
After one of the strenuous tours, all the models celebrated their success at the round table with celebratory drinks in their hands and toasted for many more to come.
Soon the topic eased to their personal stories which could put any commoner into disbelief.
"Why is it that for everything you gain in life, something is always lost ?" commented an established model.
While some models recounted emotional manipulation and bullying, others claimed to have endured physical and even s*xual abuse at work.
"As models, we're not paid for our talents. We're just renting our bodies and faces ! Our body isn't our own any more !!" Came the voice of a model from one corner of the table.
"Every day that you're working as a model, you're objectified somehow. You know, if it's just a simple term of you being a "mannequin" or a "model," like you're not actually a person and you're just a vehicle for the clothing or the makeup or the hair," complained a model.
"I'm a model. People feel at liberty to comment on my body. But there"s a fine line. Yes, that"s my job. But at the same time I have feelings too," she added .
There was something in particular that shifted Audrey"s focus onto this particular catwalk show of models.
Staring at the girls, Audrey found some of them to be stick-thin, with emaciated limbs, protruding collarbones and a haunted look in their eyes.
And at a time when the fashion industry claims to be turning its back on super-skinny models, several of the models confessed that they had been ordered to lose weight — including a size 6 model weighing just 7½st who was dropped by her agency for being 'too curvaceous'.
"I was drawn on with a permanent marker to indicate which parts of my body were 'fat'," revealed a model of equally appalling behaviour.
"And I did exactly that and lost over ten kilograms and two inches off my hips,' she added.
"When I returned to see this agency, they said I was making progress but they wanted me to "get down to the bone." I couldn't imagine becoming any thinner. I felt physically and emotionally exhausted," the model narrated her trauma about losing weight.
"If I had been younger and more naïve, I might have pushed myself too far and caused more harm to my already anorexic body," revealed the model.
"Even I was prodded and pinched in an effort to point out areas where I should lose weight. There was very little fat anywhere on my body at that time. The area that was being pinched was, in fact, my hip bone !'' shared a distressed model. "Apparently my hips had grown by a couple of centimeters. This happened to me when I was just seventeen years old, it's called puberty !" she exclaimed, clearly distressed by that experience while continuing the horrendous experience she had. "I am a human. I can't miraculously shave my hip bones down just to fit into a sample piece of clothing or to meet "agency standards," she further added.
"I've fought nature for a long time, existing on nothing but energy bars and hot drinks because they had deemed my body shape too "curvaceous," shared another model of her distressing state in the early days of her modelling career.
Other models claimed that they had been: locked in rooms at auditions and castings, on one occasion for three hours; forced to work until they were so exhausted that they fainted; and 'fat-shamed' by agents who refused to call them by name.
"I've been on shoots for up to ten hours where no food was provided. The underlying message was always that you shouldn't eat," said a model sitting just across Audrey. "When one group of models felt weak after several hours without food or water, they ordered a pizza to the studio where we were auditioning. The casting director called them 'pigs' and sent them home. He even threw their portfolio in the bin," continued the model explaining the mentally torturing behaviour they had encountered.
Audrey could easily see her colleagues' scars through and through. Some of the models among them were on the zenith of their career but the scar of the wounds instilled by the fashion industry still pained them bone-deep.
She could comprehend now that in your life, everything you do and everyone you meet rubs off in some way. Some bit of everything you experience stays with everyone you have ever known, and nothing is lost.
That's what is eternal, these little specks of experience in a great, enormous river that has no end.
"When you're young and impressionable as teen models and are just starting out, you know, it's hard to make out the difference between what is real and what isn't real. There are a lot of vultures around you," a model accused the industry that made her, of turning a blind eye to rampant abuse.
"As vulnerable teenage girls we're treated like cattle at a meat market," accused another teenage model.
"No one ever connects with a too-young fashion model with trauma, and even if they do, the sympathy is slight," charged a third teen model.
Forget glitzy parties, jet-set lifestyles and glamorous photoshoots — the reality of this apparently alluring world is, it seems, very different from its glossy exterior.
A model also talked about how she got hooked on dr*gs, saying that it "creeps up on you." She added, "It catches you in a world that's, you know ... none that anyone will ever know except someone who's been there."
As a cautionary tale of the dangers of dr*gs, little did people know that some model's seemingly good fortune would instead mark the beginning of a nightmare that would end in tragedy.
The appalling story of the model who had "permanently lost feeling in her toes after being made to stand all day in shoes that were too small," recounted a model sending shock waves among all the models present there.
Models regularly suffer degrading and humiliating treatment at the hands of casting directors, agencies and photographers.
"Then there was a model who was made to run around a studio in stiletto heels until she collapsed and then the models who had their hair hacked off without their consent. If something like that happens, it's just 'Oh well ! It's part of the scene,'" shared a fellow model.
"Oh ! I too have had chunks of my hair cut off without being asked if it would be OK. I've even been stabbed with needles and pins; my skin has been cut and pulled by clips," a model confirmed her real life experience.
"A famous photographer once exposed himself to me in a "hideous" incident on set when I was a teenager," she admitted to feeling "terribly uncomfortable" on many of her early shoots shared by a senior model.
Some people know they can get away with cruelty, because girls' hopes and dreams rest on their shoulders.
"I felt like a piece of meat. I know it's an old cliché, but that's what I always felt. Just wasn't cut out for this business, being too sensitive for it," added the model who has been modelling for six years and says she's lost count of the times she has faced abuse.
"There were times behind the castings when people just took advantage. I guess you wouldn't really call it a rape because I wasn't screaming, but there were a lot of times when that happened and I didn't want it to happen," confessed a model.
"Models are afraid of speaking out because they worry they will lose work. Speaking out against the industry you work in is dangerous," said another.
"It's a closed system. If you speak out, you're faced with the threat of never working again with those elite so and so of the fashion industry," revealed a model sitting next to Audrey.
"And that is why what Tiana is doing is so brave and should be applauded. We should provide support to her campaign to name and shame brands and individuals who mistreat models," said a model appreciatively.
Sadism on the catwalk: locked in the dark for hours, starved and preyed on ... here, models revealed the ugly truth behind fashion's glittering façade.
"Such grotesque acts fell at the extreme end of a wider culture of "pranks, sexually explicit jokes and suggestive comments which are slid under the radar in a fun" and creative" industry like fashion," Audrey said in disgust. "I've heard it all: inappropriate behaviour from men, horrible comments towards me on the set," continued Audrey about her not so easy journey. "You become almost blasé — as though that behaviour is just 'part of the job'. But humiliation, bullying and degradation are not part of our job," Audrey retorted. "Nothing fazes me any more. I refuse to feel ashamed and upset on a daily basis for not meeting their ridiculous, unattainable beauty standards," she declared.
One model lamented, "it's fellow models sometimes who don"t let each other grow," as she called out models for mocking her walk" on the ramp in her first show.
"Sometimes they say things that are quite nasty and rude. I think it's a terrible part of the human race, a real flaw. I thought we were all supposed to love one another as women and understand the terrible circumstances we face in our personal and professional lives," said another model in despair.
"You"re right ! Now I understand why women in this world have to fight so much for gender equality. That is because women don"t let other women build out of jealousy and not out of healthy competition. They bash at each other. They don't know that it's the women who don"t let each other grow," Audrey said in resentment.
A crowded table after the fashion show was now blanketed in silence, as a handful of models took the initiative to share powerful and emotional personal stories of sexual misconduct, assault and rape and told the silent model colleagues a harrowing tale of how they were assaulted — some in vivid and disturbing detail of heinous behaviour.
At the dinner table, Audrey showed her strength and skill as a motivational speaker in the end declaring: "Don't let someone take your voice like they did to many of us. When you leave tonight, you're going to remember women screaming for your help and support," while some onlookers wiped away tears. "We're not just stories," she said. "We're all humans and we need to support and build each other !"
"It's so effortlessly amazing and tiring at the same time to be in this industry. But anyway, all the best for your career ! Run the world, Girls !!" she concluded by praising fellow models.
Audrey received a roaring outpour of cheers and even a hug from one of the models, overpowered with emotion.
As all models started the night with drinks in hand and cheers of support, they left feeling empowered after the fellow models shared their emotional stories.
Most of the models felt sharing their stories was part of a healing process for them — and all of them wanted to use some platform to keep the movement alive and protect sexual abuse from happening to future generations and Audrey promised to provide that platform soon.
As the models exited, the room remained quiet. Calvin decided to break the silence by directly addressing the uneasiness in the room.
"I like the silence that is in this room, Audrey, because it shows that everyone felt the pain," Calvin said as he saw that models never second-guessed their decision to hold such an intimate talk session among themselves.
"I felt like it was natural to extend support and share experiences," she said. "No one didn't even question what could be the ramifications of today's talk !" Audrey replied in surprise. "Many of the models in the room were 'I just think it's beautifully tragic,'" she added.
"How ?" Calvin questioned.
"It's beautiful that we can all stand together and help to make this issue go away and help to raise awareness, but it's tragic that at the end of the day when the show's over, the fashion show's done, we still are healing ourselves and dealing with what had happened to us," continued Audrey in dismay.
"The revelations will certainly be eye-opening for the tens of thousands of youngsters who are desperate to break into modelling," Calvin remarked.
"I would love for my daughter or my children or our kids in the next generation to not inherit the glass ceilings that were set for us," Audrey revealed.
"I'm one of the lucky models who was able to make a long career out of the fashion industry, but my job shouldn't include abuse. About this one thing I'm quite clear about !" Audrey concluded as she called it a day and went to her room for a good night's rest.
Audrey had grown into a very exotic-looking girl with a magnetic presence as a model.
She could just sit in a chair and smile and she was automatically the center of attention. She had charisma. She wasn't extroverted — in fact she always believed herself to be extremely dull and interacted less with others.
In spite of the fame and the money, Audrey never managed to fully escape the deep unhappiness that was a constant presence in her life.
Audrey usually mentioned, "People look at me and they think I'm this beautiful thing and I must be extremely hot ... and what they don't know is that I'm extremely boring, still burning in the love of Dmitri and loss of my baby."
"Calvin never thought that modeling would be so physically, mentally and emotionally taxing," Audrey stated the next day as she boarded the flight back to her home.