Underdressed, Overdressed

Once upon a time, I only had one evening dress. It was black satin and ankle length, and I bought it from TK Maxx during my first week as a professional model. Truth be known, I think it was actually a nightdress, but 23 years later I still have it, and I still love it. It’s been my companion at countless photo-shoots, and from time to time, I’ve even worn it out in the real world, for actual events that require formality (or secret nightwear. IDK).

The problem is, that I’m not a very nightlife type of person. I like to have dinner out in good company, but the idea of going on afterwards to a club, or a party, or even a pub for an extra drink, is quite intolerable. After dinner, I feel it is time for hot drinks, and comfortable sofas with wool blankets on them, and nice quiet reading, and bed. None of these things necessitate evening wear.

Annoyingly, as a model, I have collected enough formal dresses to clothe the entire cast of a murder mystery party. Probably. I’ve never actually been to one of them, obviously — they sound ghastly. I have frothy floor length gowns, and sleek satin sheath dresses in many colours. I have three (three!) gold sequinned mini-dresses, and five black cocktail frocks, and two asymmetric draped affairs that make me feel like a classical Greek statue. I even have a couple of wedding dresses. And none of them ever get to trip the light fantastic, poor things. They get squashed into my suitcase and transported around the world, where they’re brought out to be worn while I stand on paper backdrops in dark studios, then screwed back up into my luggage. If they have souls (which I assume they do) they must long to fulfill their destiny, and I repeatedly deny them, through my nasty reluctance to be anywhere other than at home after 9pm.

In consequence, days like this are a rare treat. I’m staying at a grand members’ club on Pall Mall, and its the sort of place where gentlemen are required to wear collared shirts and jackets. All the men here are gentlemen, of course. Which is a blessing, since the bedrooms don’t have locks on the doors. And if the gentlemen have to wear jackets, I feel as though it’s probably safe to allow one of my modelling dresses to fulfill its ambition to enter society, even if only for one night.

My day began on the Isle of Wight, where I’d been modelling for several days of work for my husband’s bondage website. We’d crossed to the mainland on the ferry together, and I’d rushed to my car, kissed him goodbye, and set off for Kent, where my afternoon’s spanking shoot was located. I’d arrived with only ten minutes to spare, and I’d panicked back into my car again at 5pm, driven to Canary Wharf, abandoned it in an expensive car park and taken the Underground to the West End of London. I’d hurriedly reapplied makeup during the journey, and arrived at the club on Pall Mall with my face immaculate again, but my hair a sweaty nest of failure. I’d been given my room number, and had raced upstairs, to discover the room was occupied. At least, my forever anonymous political friend who I call The Famous had already left his overnight bag on the single bed, so I guessed he’d claimed this room and that there was another one for me. I didn’t dare risk trying the room next door — the problem with bedrooms that don’t lock is that the potential for embarrassment is more or less limitless. I headed back to the lift, and back to the reception desk.

Eventually in the correct room, I dove straight for the shower. I only had fifteen minutes before I was due to meet The Famous in the club’s beautiful library bar, and I couldn’t bear to be late for him. There was so much to talk about, and he was always on time, patiently waiting for me. I wanted to repay his patience with punctuality. Wrapped in a towel, I gulped down glass after glass of cold water, and rescued my screwed-up evening dress from my suitcase. It is gold satin, and miraculously does not crease. I slid into it and it fell perfectly, hem to my ankles. I slipped tan suede high heels onto my feet, and surveyed my hair. It was still a mess, and I suspected it would be beyond my skill to make it behave, in the eight minutes that remained to me if I chose to keep it down. Instead, I rummaged in my suitcase, and was delighted to discover I’d packed my sequinned Alice band. I rammed it onto my head, tipped hairpins out of their tin and onto the bed’s counterpane, and started twisting sections of my hair around the sides of the band, until all my frizzy, humidity-created curls were curated into a smooth chignon. I spritzed it with the remains of my hairspray, and felt rather proud. Now, I no longer looked like someone who’d only just completed a journey spanning five counties, with a spanking shoot right in the middle of it.

I made my way back to the lift, and the doors were just closing when a man called out to me, asking me to hold the lift for him. Naturally, I did. Members clubs exist in order to facilitate socialising, I assume, so this man, who I guessed was a member, had earned the right be socialised at. I, as a non-member, surely had a responsibility to provide this for him, even if only for the duration of the lift’s journey to the ground floor.

Obviously, talking in lifts is agony. For a start, you’re forced to stand far closer together than is comfortable, so the logical thing to do is to ignore everyone, just as you would on the Underground, to compensate for being in each other’s personal space. But I was determined to socialise in order to earn my right to be in the lift he helped pay for.

“Goodness you must be hot; isn’t it awful having to wear a jacket in weather like this?” I began. The gentleman’s jacket was really lovely, well cut tweed, but the temperature was verging on tropical. “At least I don’t have to wear high heels” he rejoined, with courtesy, “I noticed you had to duck to avoid the ceiling lights in the corridor”. “To be honest, I always have to do that” I replied, “so I might as well wear the shoes I like”. Things were going splendidly, I thought.

“Are you off to a state function?” continued Jacket Man, surprisingly. I wasn’t sure what he meant and merely gaped at him. “The tiara, I mean” he clarified. The tiara? Momentarily, I had not the least idea what he meant. Then I remembered my Alice band. I’d found it in Accessorize at Waterloo station, and I’d bought it as an early birthday present to myself the month before while stranded there by a series of delayed trains. I hadn’t expected anyone to mistake it for anything so elevated as a tiara. But when combined with the gold silk gown and my height, (6ft 5 in heels), I supposed the overall effect might be rather…majestic. I rushed to reassure him.

“Goodness no, only dinner downstairs!” I gabbled, “this is just from Accessorize. It was only £25”. Then I worried that I might have disappointed him. What if he’d joined this club in the hope of meeting members of the royal family in the lift? So, “though I am a princess,” I continued, “ and I’m on my way to Buckingham Palace actually. Would you like to come?”

Fortunately, Jacket Man appeared to recognise that I was only teasing, and laughed, then stood back chivalrously as the lift doors opened, and I swept out in front of him, feeling ridiculous. I was clearly overdressed, and was about to enter the well-populated club room, where there would very likely be a large number of other people who might also think I was wearing a tiara, like a fool. Well, it was too late to get changed. Maybe The Famous wouldn’t mind having dinner with someone in fancy dress.

Jacket Man and I parted in the doorway to the bar (I resisted the temptation to curtsy), and The Famous rose to greet me, as he always does, and immediately ordered me a White Lady cocktail — his delightful tradition. I reminded myself to drink it very slowly, in order to avoid shortly sliding, inebriated and useless, under the table. They are infernally strong, and it was already 7.30pm — only two hours before my normal bedtime. Staying upright throughout dinner would already be challenging, without the addition of alcohol.I leaned forward, attentive to The Famous’ story. As I’d hoped, he’d been having political adventures. Suddenly, I sensed that things were not quite as I’d expected with my dress. I glanced down, hoping to reassure myself that I wasn’t as naked as I felt, and was disappointed. I’d never properly sat down in this garment before, and hadn’t previously appreciated the fact that the low neckline gaped open when I did so, delivering an unhindered view of my breasts not only to The Famous, but to anyone passing our table. I wondered if I could stop people from noticing, if I kept one hand on my chest at all times as we talked. It seemed unlikely — I’m a very arm-wavy conversationalist.

Eventually, the best course of action seemed to be to own up. “I didn’t know my dress would do this” I confessed. The problem with my modelling clothes is that I usually wear them in an environment where nudity is welcomed, which makes me insensitive to how well they actually cover me. Shoulder straps that slide down, miniskirts that ride up, and see-through blouses or visible panty-lines are generally perfectly acceptable — perhaps even desirable. Often, it’s not until I wear these items in real life that I suddenly find myself clear-sighted as to their failures as clothing. And here I was, in real life, at once both over-dressed and under-dressed. It seemed quite an achievement. But The Famous is elderly and rather fragile. I hadn’t planned to deliver quite such a startling view over dinner — I wasn’t sure it’d be healthy for him.

But The Famous is nothing if not resourceful. “Don’t give it another thought” he assured me. “I wanted to tell you about the ways in which your writing reminds me of PG Wodehouse’s”. And this is what he did, while we ate warm potato salads, and roast beef, and gorgeous little jeweled trifles. Friends who will ignore your bosom while praising your abilities, as opposed to ignoring your abilities while praising your bosom, are quite, quite invaluable.