Rosie Nixon - The Stylist

As for me, I know that, in Jas’s mind, what I initially lacked in fashion credentials, I gained with my ‘artistic eye’. My art foundation course wasn’t going to turn me into the next Tracey Emin, but it had given me the confidence to believe I knew what looked good when it came to dressing the shop, and the windows had become my specialist area. Our visual merchandising isn’t on the scale of the world-class windows at London department stores—Selfridges, Liberty or Harrods. But, for a bijoux boutique just off Bond Street, right in the heart of London’s designer shopping enclave, our little shop and its two bay windows gets a lot of attention.

On the morning of Mona’s visit, we had all come in early to ensure the store looked more dazzling than ever. I’d even brushed the shag-pile rug—a first, even in our bonkers little world. The candles sent an intoxicating aroma of gardenia into the air, and the room-temperature Evian and best cut-crystal tumblers were set out. Mona didn’t do Buxton or ice cubes, I discovered to my cost the first time I was dispatched for water without having received this important memo. And Kiki had spent the past ten minutes painstakingly assembling a pyramid of dark chocolate truffles on a white porcelain saucer next to the till (not that anyone was likely to eat one). Big Al was watching her with a mixture of awe and amusement.

‘Dare you to take one from the bottom, Amber,’ he whispered as I passed.

When I started at Smith’s, Kiki had given me a crash course in preparation for a visit like this. Kiki was two years older than me, and boy did she let me know it. She’d been working at the boutique for nearly three years, and she was Jas’s senior assistant. For me, the job was a full-time stopgap while I searched for a ‘proper’ career, ideally in visual merchandising, but Kiki adored everything about it. Waif-like, effortlessly hip and permanently looking as though she’d stepped off the pages of i-D magazine after a huge night at The Box, she had bags of attitude and I was intimidated by her from day one—a situation she seemed to relish. At first sight of me, Kiki had taken it upon herself to educate me in the intricacies of the fashion scene, because I so evidently needed it.

‘There’s a major hierarchy in the industry,’ she explained, as I sat on a box of Diane von Furstenbergs once during stocktaking. Though she claimed to hail from the East End, Kiki still had a clipped, public school voice.

‘At the top are the designers—the holy grail of Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Donatella Versace, Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana and so on. Beneath these are the A-list stars who wear the designers’ creations on red carpets everywhere from Hollywood to Cannes, at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Oscars, collecting gongs at all the glitziest bashes. And beneath these are the stylists, who do all the real work, getting them red-carpet ready and securing their appearances on “best dressed” lists around the world. Sod the little gold trophy—it’s making those lists that really counts. A stylist like Mona Armstrong can make or break a celebrity with a sheer gown or a statement accessory. Remember when Angelina’s leg pose at the Oscars went viral?’ I nodded, sagely. ‘But can you remember who won any of the awards that year?’ I shrugged. My lecturer smiled appreciatively. ‘Of course you can’t. It was a moment that went down in red-carpet history.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘But what works for one could be a horrendous fail on the poor cow who can’t pull it off. It’s a cut-throat world out there and styling underpins it all. Make no mistake, Amber, a celebrity without a stylist is like Kylie Jenner without her pout. We shut the entire shop when Mona comes in to choose pieces for her clients—it’s beyond fabulous. But don’t get carried away, it gets really, really stressful in the run-up to awards season. I ate a cheese baguette once.’

It must have been stressful, because it wasn’t hard to guess why Vicky and I had nicknamed Kiki the Stick Insect, or lately just the Stick. I often saw her downing pints of pond-water-looking liquid from recycled water bottles—her famous Super Greens—and the work fridge was always stocked with bags of lettuce and bean sprouts that she snacked on during the day or, more often than not, went off, causing a hideous stench that I would regularly have to clean up. Only once did I see her pick at something vaguely calorific—a lavender macaroon—and that was only because it had been sent in by the fashion editor at Bazaar and she wanted to #Instafood it.

Kiki was hardly coming up for air during this particular lesson.

‘Seriously, Amber, it’s ah-mazing when Mona comes in—she’s been dressing the big names like Jennifer Astley and Beau Belle for years. And if they wear an outfit Mona’s borrowed from Smith’s, when the fash mags come out and we’re credited Jas is on cloud nine. It’s sooo good for business. But it’s not only the red-carpet stuff. I mean, it was Mona who introduced the whole gypsy trend we’re seeing now.’ She fluffed up her billowing sleeves to illustrate the point. ‘The second Beau went shopping on Rodeo Drive wearing a peasant skirt and crochet top—literally all the high-street stores were knocking out rip-offs within weeks. Mona is that powerful.’

I quickly learned that the Stick had a major fashion crush on Mona, and by this particular January day I was well versed in the life of the super-stylist.

As usual, I had spent most of the morning being bossed around by Kiki, before being directed by Jas to finish off the windows. I loved the narrow wooden ‘stage’ between the bay windows and the store—a small space that might have felt claustrophobic, but was a beautiful blank canvas to me; somewhere I could create an image of the woman all our customers wanted to be. Dressing the mannequins, I’d follow Jas’s chosen ‘Look’ from the stack of look books the fashion houses provided with each new collection—usually a ring-bound folder containing photos of a series of models posing in a white studio wearing the label’s latest designs. Really it was window dressing by numbers, but because we held only edited versions of the collections at Smith’s, to my delight, Jas would often let me add personal touches—an edgy accessory or eye-catching shoe—to bring the ensemble to life. We changed the windows on a Monday, once a fortnight, to stop them feeling stale. This week we had refreshed them specifically with Mona in mind—they had to be ‘wow’. Jas had instructed me to put a strictly black and white outfit on each of the two mannequins, a look we then made ‘pop’ with one statement accessory; a bright green leather cuff on one and a stand-out red clutch under the arm of the other.

‘Our girls look stunning today!’ she declared, before suggesting the footwear I should add to each model’s perfectly smooth size seven plastic feet—one was to wear black and the other ivory heels, completing the monochrome vision. As I admired my handiwork from the street outside, I mulled over which pair of shoes should go on which mannequin. Not bad for a morning’s work.

‘Am-ber!’ Kiki trilled from the doorway, breaking the spell. ‘You forgot to steam the Stella!’ Jesus Christ, does she ever let up? Three perfectly pressed Stella McCartney jumpsuits later, Jas conducted a final walk-through to ensure everything was just so. And then, decked out ourselves in on-trend outfits (borrowed from the store for the duration of Mona’s visit; our slim wages could never afford the real thing), we were ready to welcome fashion royalty.

Bang on time the assistant director, Rob, arrived. He skidded on the shag-pile and almost slipped over, making me want to giggle.