Confessions Part 6: I’ve Been Replaced

Everybody knows what a big punch to the ego is. I think everybody has been through some really nasty experience, when they feel they lost dignity, pride and respect and they just want to disappear into a mouse hole.

That’s what happened this month.

I’d been selected to be the next model to pose for Her* Magazine. It’s just a one page editorial look but it’s Her*! I couldn’t be happier! When I get to the studio, I am so excited I take a print off my book to make the room for my future new pic. During makeup and hair, I cannot hide my happiness and excitement. I chat and laugh while they are grooming me and it’s such a good feeling that I decide to put my “Airport Playlist” on. I have different playlists in my phone and I always choose the right one for every single situation.

Each playlist corresponds to a feeling I have in the moment and I want to increase. I have a “Powerful” playlist, a “Calm” playlist, a “Focus” playlist, an “Ecstatic” playlist and my favorite of all: the “Airport” playlist. When I listen to this carefully chosen music, I feel like nothing can limit me. I imagine I am in an airport, about to sit in a very fancy business class seat. I am a successful, happy, healthy and excited woman and I am about to take a very important trip to do a very important thing. I don’t really imagine what I am doing in this imaginary airport but I know it’s exciting and I am in power of my life.

So today, as I am feeling like this, I want to emphasize the sensation with limitless music. It’s going to be one-brand photography and this one is about laundry. I cannot believe it. I never do laundry because I don’t have the rack! But they booked me so maybe they want a more androgynous body for this one? The photographer is really nice but the team is a little distant. I think they have many projects and things on so I don’t focus my attention on them too much and try to give them the space they need. I try to be the perfect model, nice, proactive, and don’t complain about how frozen I am, sitting or laying, half naked on the cold concrete floor. My nose is running and it’s very uncomfortable to ask for a Kleenex at the middle of a take.

We do a hell of a lot of pictures and then finally they change my hair for a neater look. I ask the stylist and the makeup artist to take pictures of me onset and they play the whole backstage game with me. After six hours on the same thing, I am almost digesting myself of hunger. I had only breakfast, and I am more of a Hobbit kind; I like to divide my breakfast in two or three parts. After six hours, my oatmeal is down to my feet and my blood pressure starts to reel. They have no catering, so they go to the shop and buy an awful white-bread sandwich for me. I say “thank you”, keep my perfect-diet-complains for myself and eat.

Finally, the shooting is over. I share a taxi with the makeup artist and we start to joke around, share our numbers and take exhausted selfies. The suspense is huge. I regularly supervise the magazine section of the mall and one day, I hold my breath; the new issue is on the stand! I run to it and grab a whole bunch. In the cashier line, I decide to open the clear plastic bag that holds the Her* Beauty and the main issue together.

I feverishly scan the summary and find the “Her Look” page. On page 47, the picture is there. The laundry ensemble, the fluffy socks, the pose, everything… BUT IT’S NOT ME! I’ve been replaced for a curvy blond girl. I let the magazines fall on the side and go back home like a wounded doe escapes the hunter after he half shot her. I don’t even cry. It’s way beyond that. I take it so personally. I can’t help it. I talk to Damian and he pretends he doesn’t know the reason. I actually bet he does. I don’t trust him anymore. I am so hurt.