Model diary: Irina Nikolaeva about her first experience at London Fashion Week

Model Irina Nikolaeva has already told us that her current season has begun exclusively for Proenza Schouler in New York. In her new diary, she talks about what lay ahead for her - shows of London Fashion Week.

European Fashion Weeks fascinated me so much that there was no time left for a description of my travels: I finish everything in recent days in Paris and already in Moscow. But I want to talk in order, so now about London, which comes right after New York, although it seems that it was a hundred years ago!

Having visited London Fashion Week for the first time, I understood why models are not dragged here: everything is somehow strangely organized, agencies stand on their ears, trying to coordinate dozens of their models, everyone has to sleep for four hours, because the fittings end long after midnight. This happens in all cities, but in London I especially felt it for myself. So, sitting on the fitting at eleven in the evening, one model told me that she had, besides this, three more fittings. You can imagine that she will finish the hours at two or three nights, because you have to wait everywhere, because there are about a dozen other models in front of you, eager to measure themselves. Well, the gathering on the show the next day, most likely, at six in the morning, so that it remains three or four hours to sleep. And so for four days.

After New York, where I always have to sleep on someone's sheets and coexist with mice happily jumping around the kitchen, London seems like a paradise: I live in a good hotel, there is air conditioning in the room, shampoos, towels and other amenities. Breakfast in hotels is my weakness, in general, as well as lunches and dinners: in the morning I eat yogurt with cereals, drink tea or orange juice, the driver comes in after me, drives me to the agency, there I pick up my schedule and beech, and then all day we go to the casting. All the girls who flew in from New York drive with a driver, because there is no other way to make a million castings and fittings. So, on the first day I was given twenty-five castings, but I am quite calm about this: it is clear that in a city like London, where long distances and traffic jams, you cannot manage to do everything. Therefore, you just need to relax, concentrate on important castings, do not bother yourself and do not be nervous. You feel like some kind of Bohemian representative, fluttering on the heels of the car to the designer’s office and back, but the joy passes when you know how much it all costs: the amount resembles the monthly average salary of an office worker.

All the day long at the agency is bustling: bookers are talking on headsets, endlessly typing something, someone is worn with sheets of castings, composites and books for models. In the morning at the agency put a tray with sandwiches, sushi, some kind of salads and rice, water. You can take it with you and eat during the day in the car. Probably, you can drop in at a cafe like a normal person, and not eat on your knees on the road, but somehow I did not succeed. You can still eat during shows, but everywhere they are fed the same fast food. So after three days of endless sandwiches and cookies, I want soup and potatoes with meatballs!

During the turmoil of Fashion Week, it is difficult to appreciate the London flavor, except that British English sounds everywhere, and cars and red double-decker buses drive on the left side.

A real extravaganza takes place before the shows: fashion bloggers take pictures of fashion bloggers, street photographers shoot models, colorful iPhones are full of colorful iPhones, hats, caps, crazy hairstyles, and there isn’t just one dressed person. I wonder if it is convenient to stand on heels on a pavement, in glasses, to hold an invitation and a phone in your hand, at the same time to photograph and at the same time have time to show your bag / shoes / cuffs / manicure to those who photograph you? The brutal world of fashion and not such a force to do!

London shows fly very fast, and the next stop is Milan. Many models this season again flew to Gucci Milan casting in advance. That is, the pattern of movement was as follows: Fashion Week in New York ends, then New York – London flight, Casting Day in London, London – Milan flight in the morning, Milan Gucci casting in Milan, and the return flight Milan – London in the evening of the same day. the days of London Fashion Week, and then again the flight London - Milan. I do not know how girls stand it, it's crazy! I didn’t fly to Gucci, but my travel pattern is still quite unusual: in the morning I have breakfast and go to a show in England, and in the evening I already have a couple of castings in Italy!