How Bright the Lights{Alice in Wonderland ModernDay Alice/Hatter}

Chapter 1: Vetvier Printemps Featuring Bembury

Alice Kingsleigh, for all her beauty, was terribly ill suited to fashion modeling.

If Alice didn't have the perfect blue-blood-British with a dash of Eastern European flavor of beauty so desired at the moment, her agent, Yelena Kingsleigh, (who was also her mother) would have given up and tried to figure some other way out of their family's insolvency. Yelena took her seat in the back row of chairs in the dimly lit room, holding the program passed out at the door by two excited girls who were trying desperately to seem nonchalant--no doubt aspiring design apprentices. The walls were covered in black fabric screen-printed with images of exotic birds. This was Alice's first show with a major house in over a year, and Yelena took several deep breaths and tried to assure herself that Alice would do nothing tonight to jeopardize her future career.

Alice wasn't so bad at photo shoots, but live events were a gamble. She seemed quite as likely to step off the runway and ask a question of a photographer in the front row as complete her walk without incident. Not that she had exactly done such an unheard-of thing, but rather than spending her time backstage dutifully primping and mentally preparing herself before her mirror, Alice managed to get in everyone's way. And whenever she wasn't dreamily staring off into space in the path of a rack of clothes and a harried dresser, she was asking questions. Alice wanted to know how the makeup artists got just the right shade and coverage, and how the hairstylists managed to defy gravity, especially with her thick unruly locks. She hounded the stage manager about the reasoning behind the timing of runs, and bothered designers about everything from placement of zippers to the reasons for the order of presentation.

Yelena did her best to control the damage, steering Alice away from those most likely to lose patience with her. At photo shoots this was rarely a problem, but there was no place for mothers or agents backstage at fashion shows, so Yelena was forced to trust her daughter to stay out of trouble. It shouldn't have been too much to ask from a young woman soon to turn twenty, but Alice remained stubbornly childish even in the face of the ruthless world of fashion. Her naïveté was not really that unusual amongst very young models. Many of them, especially those still in their teens, were similarly sheltered by parents and agents who were all too aware that growing up meant growing old, and that the sex, drugs, and eating disorders that were so popular in their profession were most often the beginning of the end of a modelling career.

Of course there were always mature and clever girls who managed to apply these vices judiciously, partying with just the right crowd or sleeping with the right journalist or designer to launch themselves into international stardom. For every one who managed this feat, however, there were dozens of hopefuls who crashed and burned, their fire quickly doused by a stifling blanket of obscurity. It was much better to stay a safe distance from the glitz and glamour and remain one of the ranks of the young, dependable, hard-working girls who did not stand out too much to make them unsuitable for catalog work, but had just enough edge to their innocence to sell as sexy.

Yelena had no hopes of superstardom for her dreamy daughter. All she needed was to keep her in the game for a couple more years, keeping a roof over their heads and supporting the elder Kingsleigh sister, Margaret, through medical school and into a residency. Once Margaret was safely ensconced in a job and bringing home enough to meet their expenses, then Alice could have her turn. She could go to Uni full-time and decide what to do with herself in the long run, though Yelena did of course have some further plans for her younger daughter. She was a mother, after all.

The show started. The lights dimmed all the way and the designer took the stage to introduce the new summer line. Thankfully this was a well-established individual, so the remarks were relatively brief and there was no unsightly sniffling as was so common with those just starting out. Alice's first walk was toward the beginning. She came out on the runway, tall and sophisticated in heels, a minimal ruffled brown top and a patterned full-length skirt. Atop her head was the most exciting feature of the show, a hat by the scion of the Bembury haberdashery house. Though Bembury was synonymous with quality and had been known for years as the exclusive hatters to Queen Elizabeth II, it had also been years since anything particularly interesting had come out of their studios. Apparently, however, they had been hiding a new designer away in the wings, a nephew of the late August Bembury. No one could accuse these hats of being made for octogenarians. The diversity of designs included in the headwear was amazing, yet they held together through the use of common elements such as prints and the feathers of exotic birds. Alice was wearing a small pillbox affair with a single long brown feather which bobbed after her as she walked. Yelena had worried this would only draw attention to the flaws in Alice's walk, but the effect of the bobbing was to bring out a playfulness that was strangely appropriate to the show. Even Alice's carefully controlled runway expression was augmented by a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.