The Evolution of an Haute Couture Collection - Aftermath

The day after the show, the studio was very quiet. It was the last day for three of the interns. Most of the designers were away, probably on vacation. Siria and Natalie were busy working on sketches/designs for the haute couture clients. Marie organized some leather samples for Sophie, and Karin and I cleaned up the studio. It was hard to believe that a couple of days ago the studio had been filled with people -- Steven, John, Francois Toledano, a writer doing a story for the New Yorker, workers from the atelier including the heads, Sophie and Rafael, other assistant designers, models, two women taking polaroids of each model --- and now it was totally empty. There wasn't much to clean; it had already been mostly tidied up.

After our last lunch all together at the cantine (the employee cafeteria), we watched a video of the show, which was already done. Then we watched the version televised on Paris Premier the night before, which had interviews with John, and clips of John and Steven watching the models walk around in the toiles of the dresses.

Afterwards, we just kind of chilled. It was a little sad that it was all over. We exchanged contact info. Rambert gave us each a gift. It was an earring, shaped like a nail, in a pretty white Dior gift box with a matching ribbon. Karin said Steven must have been pleased with the show because she hadn't gotten anything after the last show.

I had two more days left. the next day things picked up because a woman had ordered 65 dresses, so Siria was hard at work, sketching the models. She asked me to photocopy the fabrics at 40% so she could use them for her illustration. I ended up making 6 copies of each fabric sample because reducing them in size made them too small. Then I fit the copies together to try to resemble a miniature version of the fabric. Then Siria took the collaged photocopies and cut out the dresses she'd designed from them. With her markers and watercolors, she deftly worked on the photocopies to make the illustrations look more photorealistic. Since she had so many models to do, we worked this way for the rest of the day, stopping only for lunch.

On my last day of work, Siria showed me how to cut out dresses from the photocopies I had made. Once she showed me, I realized how easy it is. So I helped her cut them out so she could put details on them. I was glad that Tiana had showed me how to use the color photocopy machine, because the tricks she had showedme came in handy. For instance, Siria had this cream colored lace she tried to color red, but when she used the marker on the photocopy, you couldn't see the lace. So I used one of the tricks Tiana showed me to photocopy the lace in red.

At some point, Steven, who was already back, had ordered some Chinese takeout, but he gave it to me and Caroline when John called him out for lunch. Through the course of the day, different groups of people would watch the show on video in the reception area of the studio, including Steven. I tied to watch his reaction, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Before I left for good at 6PM, I got different people's contact info. After I left, I bought myself a pair of shoes I had been eyeing, and went home to pack.