Under This Roof

Chapter 34

12 September 2014.

I finish dressing up and stand in front of the mirror to put on my accessories. I put on one of the pair of earrings that I had chosen previously on one of my ears, and one of the pair that Harry chose on my second one. And I keep looking left and right. Until I decide to keep them like that. A bold move, but seems right.

I take my time fixing my hair, I take the boots out to the doorstep so that my heels will not wake Harry up, grab my coffee mug and go out. I leave the car keys for Harry to use to come to the show.

Steph and Marcus are waiting for me in Marcus' car. We decided to go there all together like the good team that we are. All the way we keep talking about our expectations and keep joking nervously about potential mistakes.

When we arrive, Marcus gives the car to the valet parking man next to the sign of 'designers participating in La Diversa'. It sounds so fancy. We go in and start discovering the place. We've seen pictures, Steph has been here once before, but it still feels extremely nice to be here. To watch people go left and right fixing the lights, hanging the curtains, moving the chairs. A bus parking in front of the building and models starting to come in. Everything is so overwhelmingly beautiful. And I cannot wait for tonight.

Marcus, Steph and I go to our big room where we will be dressing the models and spending the day managing our work. We sit down and finish our coffees before we start. Half an hour later, our truck from NARAH arrives. The employees start unloading the truck and we are watching. 

"Please do it smoothly." Steph follows them around.

I take the clothing racks one by one and organize them in the room. Our models are taking their seats in the make-up section according to the order we practiced on Wednesday.

Afterwards, I start unpacking the boxes of heels and accessories. Steph helps me and Marcus is meeting with the makeup team and giving them instructions before they start.

One thing leading to another, there is suddenly just so much to do. Steph, Marcus, the makeup artists, the models, everyone is completely focused on the steps they need to follow to successfully finish their tasks.

Looking at everyone around me, I don't see but the full total of mess and traffic that exist in this room. I don't hear but the joint sound of makeup brushes, heels walking, someone running, clothes swishing, someone yelling. That would probably be Steph. I could not distinguish any of them alone. This total joint sound should make me feel nervous. But it does not. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I made it. I love it.

When the show starts at 8:00pm, we leave the models in the room and go to the stage. They have prepared us a bit earlier to stand in the appropriate place in order of our time slots. The welcoming host starts.

"Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining the eleventh La Diversa fashion show tonight."

People start applauding. I look at the crowd and recognize a few popular faces. Robinson being the most exciting to me, she is sitting in the front row and right in the middle, obviously. But I also recognize other designers and people from the fashion industry and magazines. I look for my friends in the crowd but find it hard to see them without staying put as I should, so I give up at some point during the welcoming speech.

"The teams that have been chosen to participate for this year are all here." she says, moving her hand delicately from the first to the last person of us.

"And will now be showing you their newly created fabulous collections."

She stops for a moment, very professionally, then continues. "I will now leave you with the creator of this event, the founder of the only event in the history of fashion that includes all kind of diversity, from every part of the world and every corner. Please welcome, Joan Jimenez."

She steps back smoothly and leaves the floor for Jimenez.

"Thank you everyone. Thank you. As you all know, I am not a fashion designer. In fact, designing might be the only thing I truly suck at."

The audience laugh.

"However, I have had a special love for fashion since I was a kid. And even though I chose not to pursue this career, I always wanted to do something, one thing, in my life, related to fashion. And I did."

Jimenez goes on about how he became a successful entrepreneur, and started traveling around the world. He talks about how fascinated he was with the different clothing styles and cultures that he could not have even imagined existed. And that pushed him to come up with this idea and to invest in it.

"I would like to personally thank all of you for putting the time to come and watch this show as it unravels the strangest and newest ideas in fashion. I would like to thank the teams participating for giving us the chance to see this variety of collections and creativity that we long for, and for putting the effort to make it manifest in this great manner."

Sweet.

We leave to our rooms. The visual and auditory mess did not leave the room. It is still there. And it is time we deal with it. Because soon, our models will be going out to the catwalk and we will follow.

"The collection we will be seeing first is called Delight." the host says and the models of the first team start making their way to the runway. I take a look at the screen we have in the room every now and then, to see the different designs passing by. I feel very impressed by few and hope even more now that ours really stand out. When the last model of the first team leaves the catwalk, the team goes up as trained, the host identifies the team members by their names only, they salute the audience and leave.

I cannot check the screen anymore when it is the second team's turn, because now we are next. The models are standing in line. They all look so nice and classy. Just before they call them in, I close my eyes for a second, say a small prayer, and feel completely proud of where I am.