The Evolution of an Haute Couture Collection - Part 3

The show was scheduled for July 7, 2003, which was a Monday. We worked straight through the last few days, through the weekend, in preparation. It was thrilling to see the collection coming together -- the fabrics whose designs we'd collaged together, the toiles we'd helped cut out and carry transformed into real garments, little things like the fabric tape we'd helped iron and color in with marker.

The day before was a Sunday, and as is typical the day before a show, all hands were on deck until the last moments. The Galliano interns came during the day but it was slow at first and they were told to go (but returned later).

At 3PM the models came in for fittings. The design studio was filled with all 50 of them (I noted 50 exits, although on style.com there are only 49). They sipped on the Evian and Diet Coke laid out for them, watching a movie that played in the reception area while they waited their turn, but as one of the interns noted, none at the cookies (which we ate). I'm not going to lie, I felt a little starstruck when I saw Karolina Kurkova belting Beyonce from the top of her lungs.


A couple hours after the fittings began, one of the Galliano designers who fairly recently started his own line, Queen, (aka Kyuin Chae) started to make padding for the balconnet bras that all the models would wear under their garments in the show. The back of the design studio was transformed into an atelier and we all started helping with sewing the bras.

At 9PM we ate dinner, Lebanese food. Around 11, some of the models with later fittings went out for drinks with Sam and Alex, the pret-a-porter designers.

Below is a gratuitous photo from the evening with Sam, and Ikuko, two of the designers, and Marie, a fellow intern who I think now works at Dior.
Meanwhile the bra factory was going strong. We put on peppy music to keep us going. The fittings went on til about 4AM. When that was finished we relaxed for a bit until a Galliano intern, Brian, asked us to come help at the Grand Salon. The Grand Salon is a huge room where I am guessing they held the original Dior fashion shows, when the women used to walk around with numbers. It had been transformed to a work station, with contract workers flown in from Germany to assist in finishing the garments in time. We helped with sewing sequins onto the dresses. It took us forever but it was incredible to watch the women, whose fingers flew. Eventually, at around 6AM, Florence, one of the women in the Atelier Flou, took the skirts from us, and we went back to the studio to help Rambert, the studio director. Finally Rambert called us cabs and we left at 7AM, to return at 9AM.