GLAMOUR, GLAMOUR, GLAMOUR

This post is all about Glamour magazine, something I'm really excited about because I consider it a personal achievement that I was able to fight my way into the fashion cupboard there, without knowing anyone and through sheer hard work alone. I slogged for a month at Red magazine with Glamour magazine as a goal in my mind's eye. Finally, I truly feel as if working for 9 hours a day for free packing clothes into a bag like a child in a Vietnamese sweatshop was worth it because I was personally recommended to the girls at Glamour by the girls at Red for all my efforts! I'm more than capable of taking on the demands of the fashion cupboard but was never afforded the chance, until now..

Yesterday Koulla and Catlyn were out of the office and although I should have spent this week with Easy Living I was asked to come back to help them out and run things while the girls were away. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when they came in to ask me- not because Easy Living isn't great, but because it means that I'd made a good impression. Not to mention the fact that the two cupboards are just next door to each other, and I was jealous of all the laughs coming from the Glamour cupboard without me! But mostly it was the fact that they'd asked me to get them out of a tricky situation. So, I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed- ready to tackle the PRs and the returns, but of course things didn't go quite to plan..

9.30AM: Leave to get the fashion director's extremely specific breakfast order of 2 slices of lightly toasted granary bread with butter, NOT margarine, and the thinnest layer of marmite.
9.45AM: Spend 15 minutes walking around in the rain trying to find the cafe, only to have ask a builder for directions who then tells me that it closed down years ago so he's no idea which place I'm talking about.
9.55AM: Finally find the cafe by asking every place along Albemarle Street if they used to be called Nana's at some point in the last 5 years.. Luckily, awaitress is familiar with the order and knows exactly how to make it right.
10.00AM: Arrive panting at the director's desk to find she has gone for a meeting in the boardroom and I am to deliver it to her in there. Dither outside the room peering through the window desperately trying to pluck up the courage to enter and give her the, by this point soggy, toast.
10.05AM: Nina, the receptionist, takes pity on me and offers to do it for me. I gratefully accept and slink back to the cupboard to recover from my ordeal.

 *Fill my time tackling returns and dealing with PRs*

1.00PM: The dreaded call arrives, can I get the fashion director's lunch? Again, a very specific order from Itsu of: an omega 3 salmon supreme sushi box, extra ginger, chopsticks, NOT a fork, and a bottle of water- NOT from Itsu, but from Pret and NOT a screw cap but a sports bottle cap. Ok, I can handle this. At the very least I have a head start on this morning's fiasco because I definitely know where Itsu is.
1.10PM: Arrive at Pret with Itsu food safely in a waterproof bag [I'm learning!], and realise this fuss free lunch is too good to be true. I'm presented with 5 different types of water.. Ha, I can triumphantly rule out 2 that are sparkling! So that leaves me with 3, all different sizes.
1.15PM: After staring blankly at the water for 5 minutes I realise time is running out and interrupt Catlyn's photoshoot to find out which bottle of water is right. Frantic response from Catlyn- "Ok, get the 750ml, it should be £1.50. And did you remember the extra sushi? Chopsticks, not a fork?"
1.20PM: Pay for the water and catch the cashier laughing silently at me, I decide this is a low point in life when I've had to spend more than 30 seconds choosing a bottle size in case I'm blacklisted from Condé Nast forever.
1.22PM: I take a couple of minutes to consider that I am now the real life equivalent of Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada.. Not sure of the cafe's name or location, or the correct size bottle? You NEVER ask, you just say yes and figure it out later.
1.30PM: Deliver the food and scuttle away before she can reproach me for getting anything wrong.
1.45PM: The beauty assistant comes in to check on me, I explain the breakfast/lunch fiasco and receive a less than reassuring reply- "I had to do that for months. If you get it wrong you're never allowed to get her lunch again. One intern brought her the wrong yoghurt once.. She left soon after." Shit!

*Frantically try and get all the returns done before Friday, when there are another 6 suitcases coming back*

5.30PM: Home time! Or not. Look behind me at the rail and see a mountain of bags yet to be returned. I am determined to finish and have a clear cupboard for the girls to come back to so I plough on- surely this will only take an extra 30 minutes?
7.45PM: Finally finish the last bag, more than 2 hours after working hours finished and everyone else went home.. Catlyn comes back unexpectedly to drop suitcases off after the shoot and is so pleased that we have a clean slate to work from tomorrow that I feel as if staying late was worth it!

So, this is an account of my first time running an entire fashion cupboard single handedly and I can't lie- it was tough. I think it was made tougher by the fact that there was absolutely no one there to help out in the slightest and I was doing the job of three interns- juggling helping with packing for a cover shoot, collecting meals and returning more than 40 bags of clothes and accessories. I'm not being paid so the pain of the extra hours was more acute but even if I was, minimum wage wouldn't cover this! It might only be clothes but it's also a hell of a lot more than that! I hope this has given a little more insight into an average day at an international magazine and you have more sympathy for me now that you know I don't spend all my time dressing up in excessively large bras. To prove it, I'm going all Blue Peter and have included a before and after snap of the cupboard below..

BEFORE..

AFTER!