Modeling in Vienna

About four years ago (2006) from the time this blog is written, my lovely gay friend Elliot had called from America to propose a meeting place in Vienna. We would be starting a train journey from Vienna to Lviv in Ukraine, then onto Odesa by the Black Sea. In Lviv, he kept pointing at the girls' long legs with surprise and I would inform him:
"Darling Elliot, we're neither into girls, so please stop giving me a complex! Kindly refrain from noticing those long girls, walking on high heels on cobbled stones as comfortably as though they were born in them!"

As we got back from our journey to spend a few glorious days in the magical city of Vienna, Elliot's fashion designer friend Alex, who lived with his partner Jan, invited us over for dinner in his trendy basement flat. It featured arches and a catwalk all painted in a light grey colour; floor to ceiling. After dinner and some red wine, Alex encouraged me to try some of his designs and asked if I would pose in them while he took photos. So, we played the fashion game of a photo shoot, for fun.

"Darling," Alex said with a tone of excitement looking at me. "Would you be a model in my next fashion show in about three months, here?"

I laughed high and said: "Are you kidding?"

"No, really I mean it." Alex went on: "Would you do it?"

"Of course, I will," I answered without hesitation. Imagine, at my age and with my voluptuous body. It will be something I can write in my diary to read when I am 80!  Haha." It goes without saying that I was delighted.

The months flew by while I continued my travels and was always too busy to respond to Alex's concern regarding whether I would show up. The friend to join me on that trip was Shiba - a dear old friend whom I'd met so many years before on a sunny beach in Mahé, in Seychelles. We'd both been just married at the time. We checked into the hotel and I left Shiba to visit the charming city while I attended the rehearsal for the fashion show.

Upon arrival, I saw Alex's face light up. Four others had turned up to the rehearsal. The Austrian lady Alga was about my age, only slightly more weathered - if you get my drift - and a Young Yemenis girl, Samira, who seemed rather troubled with her personal life as a refugee. We were introduced.  

"And here are the two male models, they're from Turkey and work in the kebab shop close to my flat," were Alex's introduction to the other two.

Well, so they were my fellow models! 

We went through the rehearsal, trying on the clothes and walking along to Austrian March music. All rather serious. As we were trying to calm our nerves behind a curtain partition while the audience was arriving. I noticed the bag of weed I was given before the show. I turned to my new model friends and asked: "Would you girls care for a spliff?"

"Yes. Sure."  They answered in unison.

So, I got rolling and we smoked just before the beginning of the show while the smoke must have carried through to where the audience was seated.

The music began and the girls left what looked like our tent, separated by curtains all around, to go on the catwalk. For my part, all I could hear from behind the partition as I changed was the sound of Ah! Oh! I peeped through the opening of the curtain to see Alga almost fall off the stage, while Samira caught her heel on the decorated fabric covering the wall behind them.  

Ooopsy! My turn had come. As they walked in giggling nervously, I waited for my 'tune' to arrive, walked on stage with a green hunting coat to my knees, a bag hanging from across one shoulder to the hip on the opposite and... wait for it... A green hunting hat with two long feathers attached to the side.  

I stopped at the beginning of the catwalk, seeing for the first time the audience of about sixty to seventy people crammed into the now smoky basement room.

"Here we go ... This is the only chance I may ever get to be a model, so...  go for it girl! were my only thoughts. I put one hand on my waist and I used the thumb of the other to lift the edge of the hat whilst lowering my head towards the audience who by now, was not sure what to expect!

I moved my hips as Marilyn Monroe would have done and went up and down the step across. I winked at a lady I had met at Alex's on my last visit and blew kisses at another all watching from their seats below. Shiba was roaring with laughter in the front row, in total bemusement at what I would do next! I almost danced my way through the show to some supposedly serious Austrian March music which could have well been a good tune of house music to me! I was a model, for a night. How amazing!

Poor Alex was sweating buckets at my amusing role which turned his rather serious fashion show into a theatre of laughter and clapping every time I came on the catwalk. His individual style gave me the chance to put on a different show with each outfit I turned up in; from the hunting look to the Moroccan-style dress with a scarf which I swiftly turned around my head to be carried like a burkha to show my eyes only. The few times I glanced at Alex sitting on the stair, he had his hand under his chin, with a look of 'what next?!?' across his face.

The fashion show was finally over and we changed into the clothes we'd arrived in before joining the supportive audience. Helen, whom I had winked at during the show, greeted me with a hug and said: "I loved your performance and if I had a theatre production going, I would employ you immediately!"

Performance? I thought. Well, I guess she had a point. Haha. Others joined in to say how much they enjoyed it all. Thank goodness there was no room for Alex to complain.  However, this was my only attempt at modelling, not to be repeated.  

Shiba and I carried on to attend a clinic in the countryside for losing weight and the usual eating of a stale piece of hard bread and boiled potatoes while turning up at 7 every morning to a stretch class followed by various exercises during the day... After the modelling! This health spa thing of everyone being exhausted from starvation, going to bed at 9pm and being rather moody was a new experience and one that I can't see myself repeating.

Waiting on the platform for the train back to Vienna, Shiba rushed to the small supermarket at the station only to come back twelve minutes later, empty-handed.  

"What happened?" Was my hungry remark at seeing her disappointed face.

"I almost got arrested, didn't I?" She explained. "I'd picked all this healthy food for our journey, but when I saw the long queue I decided the only way I would make it to the train would be to jump the queue. This man approached me with a card in my face saying he was a policeman and if I didn't go to the back of the queue, I'd be arrested. So, I dumped everything and had to come back. Empty-handed!"

We settled into a first-class compartment, as the economy was full and were entertained by a funny yet mad Austrian artist who promised to send me one of his paintings if I wrote my address on a piece of paper he'd torn from a notebook and sprayed it with my perfume! Peter also told us his life story with Shiba's persistence. 

Still waiting for that painting!  haha ...

Go with the flow of life and let it unravel new pastures beyond your wildest imagination. What have you got to lose?