Morag, however, was momentarily speechless and had the look of a woman wondering why her bosses must insist on dispatching her to remote spots like Cairn Dhu to cover barmy local traditions and interview even barmier local people.
Steely of eye, she stared down the lens. ‘Right. Well. This is Morag Füssli, and the Walpurgisnacht beacons. I’ll be sure to keep an eye open for any witches and creepy critters tonight.’ She cast a withering glance in Finlay’s direction. ‘From me, it’s goodnight and back to the studio.’
15
All of the preparation and build-up to the showcase, all the pricked fingers and late nights unpicking and resewing, her life on hold waiting for this moment, and it was over in a blink.
It was a terrible thing to admit, but Peaches walked that runway better than she would have done had her mother made it to the show. Without Carenza in the audience, she felt like someone else entirely, someone self-assured and expansive, somehow more at home in her body, confidently comfortable even.
Normally a staid, Sleeping Beauty behind her spinning wheel, Peaches had tonight been playful and lively. She’d twirled on the first catwalk corner, right in front of the faculty staff, and she’d been photographed not once but twice by some of the special industry guests who raised their phones and taken quick snapshots, not giving anything else away, not that she recognised any of them for sure. Some of them had been gorgeously dressed, so they might well have been the fashion house scouts. Somehow it didn’t feel like it mattered all that much.
Wasn’t this all just supposed to be fun? Did tonight have to make or break her, sending her on the road to career superstardom or dooming her to obscurity forever? What if she just celebrated with her classmates having completed a really hard year at uni?
Everyone’s collections, now that she’d seen them modelled under the lighting rigs, were deeply individual, each one saying so much about her classmates.
Gem Lovell showed her dramatic drag-inspired eveningwear, a high-glamour collection constructed entirely from reclaimed inflatable pool toys, complete with full-length polyurethane evening gloves. The whole collection was slick, structural and wonderfully camp.
Fergus Grunewald from Shetland showcased his exaggerated, floor-length handknit jumpers, drawing heavily on the patterning of traditional Fair Isle, deploying his signature silhouette of padded, boxy shoulders tapering down across the body to ribbed woollen hems tight around the models’ ankles so they had to trot along, taking tiny steps in their sky-high heels.
Zandy Choi’s collection was inspired by timeless toga-esque drapery, each garment constructed from the same sized swathe of jersey fabric, each in a single striking jewel colour, stunning in their simplicity and elevated with vast black leather belts, brutal and stark against the flowing colour-burst gowns.
Mosam was making a statement about the overlap between endangered big cats and the fashion industry’s love of animal prints, having enlarged leopard spots and zebra stripes until they were only recognisable as blotchy abstract patterns in their casual capsule wardrobe fit for spring/summer. Their models prowled around the catwalk in barely-there leather thong sandals and completed their looks with long, curved fake fingernails and toenails like cat claws. As Mosam’s models walked the runway, they threw paper airplane flyers into the audience about the shrinking of big cat habitats and the dangers of big game hunting.
Peaches might have wished she’d thought of doing something like that to help explain the thinking behind her collection, but she was enjoying herself too much to compare herself to her friends from her course.
There’d been a few hairy moments when she’d returned backstage from walking one look, immediately bursting into a run as soon as she was concealed behind the curtain again, intent on a quick change into her next look, only to find Euan fighting for his life with a zipper or boned corset, but her friends and professor knew how the clothes should be styled and had helped dress him as best they could.
When this happened shortly before they walked their final looks, Peaches had padded across the floor to him, both of them adrenalin-fuelled and grinning madly, and she’d taken him by the waist and turned him, lacing up the stays that pulled his flowy neon yellow high-waisted palazzo pants tight over his stomach and he’d gasped, ‘Where’s the top to go with these?’ and she’d had to tell him there was none.
They’d exchanged a brief look, his thunderstruck, hers pleading, and she’d been about to relent and tell him it was all right, he could just throw on the old grey Aerosmith t-shirt he’d been wearing under his hoodie if he wanted (it was cut in a nineties’ way that hugged his sides, she’d noticed earlier), but he didn’t hang around.
Following the professor’s cue to get back out there and walk, he’d marched out between the curtains with a fierce determination to do this thing exactly right, just the way Peaches had conceived it.
His commitment to her showcase from start to finish was doing nothing at all for the burning little crush she was starting to harbour for him.
When it was over, every model and designer was drawn out for a curtain call, walking very fast around the hall one last time to throbbing French techno while the audience applauded; even the chic, hard-to-read industry people put their hands together.
Peaches applauded as she walked too, just like she’d seen designers do on the real catwalks, celebrating their models. All she wanted to do right now was celebrate Euan and the way he’d saved her showcase (and looked sensational while doing it).
16
After the applause died away and the entire cast had hugged and screamed and greeted their weepy families, and a million selfies were posted immediately to social media accounts, Euan had expected there might be some kind of comedown, but Peaches was ecstatic in a way he’d never seen.
She was a woman transformed. Seeing her with her fellow students, all so creative and exotically dressed, was a revelation too. She was young and free like she’d never been back in Cairn Dhu with her mother stalking around.
Once he was back in his leathers and t-shirt, his hoodie tied around his waist, the glitter shimmer still on his eyes, he’d taken one of the many bottles of cheap bubbly from the ice bucket that were a gift from the faculty.
‘Shall we open this somewhere?’ he asked Peaches.
She was layering up her final catwalk outfit, her black boots, the white floaty angel dress and tight white leather bodice, with his black leather biking jacket on top. The effect was like a circuit breaker going off in his brain, all thoughts stopping, beyond circulating around how sensational this woman was.
‘OK, but back home, so you can have some too. We should get going.’
He’d only nodded. He’d agree to anything she told him to do.
She grabbed her bag, leaving the rest of her collection hanging on its rail to collect another day.
Soon she was kissing everyone goodbye – they were all sticking around to hit the after-show party in the student bar.
