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Summer Intern SNY Chapter One
It was totally surreal: There I was in the midst of a dizzying, glittering collage of designer duds being pushed around on racks by leggy black-clad editors, with a soundtrack of whirring modems, ringing phones, and French accents playing in the background. There were models on go-sees with the bookings department, who were having Polaroids snapped of their gaunt, shiny faces. There were crocodile handbags from Hermès, Valentino, Chanel, and Marc Jacobs being gathered up for a shoot of "Scaley Chic" reptilian accessories. There was an armed guard from Van Cleef & Arpels with a briefcase cuffed to his arm as he transported gems for the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" story, and a beret-wearing photographer having a loud fight with the sittings editor about renting out the Central Park Zoo's entire polar bear sanctuary for a ten-page layout of winter's best fur coats.
I was in the frenzied offices of Skirt magazine—the top of the top in fashion, pop culture, and beauty; the bible for any aesthete; the cool girl's forecast for what's hot and what to wear, listen to, even eat (i.e., carbs = the devil). It was a kaleidoscopic mix of hipsters, hotties, and badasses, all yapping a mile a minute on teeny cell phones with a stress level you'd more likely expect to see at the Pentagon rather than at Hughes Publications, the mag's parent company. But in the Gehry-architected glass-and-steel offices, the buzz of calamities at deadline was deafening. Like a trunk arriving in St. Bart's with the wrong bikinis. A beauty associate screaming at a makeup artist that the tweezing for the brow story was too arched. A beeperinforming a fashion director of a snag in a Missoni dress on location. Drama was all around. And I had just reported for my introductory summer intern meeting in the gleaming glass conference room. I took my place at one of the empty seats, heart pounding. A platter of baked goods and buttered bagels sat untouched as people streamed into the room.
Beside me were my two roommates for the next two months, whom I'd only briefly met earlier that morning: Gabe, a gorgeous androgynous rocker-type with cheekbones one could slash a wrist on, and Teagan, a multiple-pierced Goth gal who was still striking and beautiful despite the sharp objects protruding from her face.
Gabe and Teagan had both arrived a couple of days before me and had already paid a visit to the Skirt office. The accessories director had immediately taken them under his wing, filling them in on all the need-to-know gossip.
When the meeting commenced, we were each asked to introduce ourselves. For example: "Gabe Tennant. Sagittarius. Mid-westerner. Hung over." My new roomie got some chuckles.
My turn was so yawnsville: Kira Parker from Philly. I'd won the internship through a fashion sketch submission contest sponsored by Cotton, one of Skirt's big advertisers. I was headed to Columbia in the fall. I also blurted out that I was "psyched" to get to know the city, and the second the words came out of my mouth like in a cartoon bubble, I realized I sounded hot off the Greyhound. Oh well. When we were all done, each editor explained which department they headed up, and then Alida Jenkins, the executive editor, took the floor to describe how the intern program worked.
She was ten minutes into her speech, explaining the guidelines of what working at Skirt would entail, when the door to the conference room burst open. Standing on the threshold were three extremely well dressed girls, all with different shades of stick-straight long hair (the hair of the one on the left was dark brown with caramel highlights, while the one in the middle possessed the whitest hair outside of a Scandinavian country and the one on the right had the same honey color as Heidi Klum.) They were all clutching Venti-size cups from Starbucks and appeared to have been laughing at some hilarious joke that was so amusing they couldn't stop giggling even when they noticed that the meeting was already in session.
Now me, I would have been mortified to make such a ruckus that every head in the room whipped in my direction, but these girls didn't seem at all fazed.
"Oh my gosh, Alida! Did you start without us?" asked the white blonde in the center. She suddenly looked down at her watch, which I could see from across the room was a solid gold Cartier tank with small diamonds. "Cecilia, you didn't tell me it was ten-fifteen," she said accusingly to the Heidi Klum look-alike. With that watch, who needed their friend to tell her what time it was?
"That's okay, Daphne. Come on in. We're just getting started," said Alida with a tight smile.
"Sooooo sorry, Alida," said the platinum blonde girl. She strode up to Alida and gave her an air kiss on the cheek.
Instead of sitting down, the white blonde—obviously the leader of the pack—turned to face the other ten interns who were seated in the room.
"I'm sure I missed the name game, so I'll introduce myself now. I'm Daphne Hughes, this is my second summer interning here, and I go to Brown." She looked around the room to make sure everyone was paying attention. I moved my eyes to her friends, certain that they would now take the stage, but before they could, Daphne continued. "Listen, I just want to say that I know you all are probably really nervous right now, but don't worry. Everyone is really sweet here, and that's why it's the best magazine on the planet, so don't stress. Of course, they'll work us hard, won't they, Alida?"—she didn't pause to let Alida answer—"But it will be so worth it. This is the best way to get your foot in the door if you want to have a career in the fashion world."
Summer Intern SNY. Copyright © by Carrie Karasyov. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.