Texting and Transpo

I'm in the middle of a big house move, so my promised pics of the infamous Night of Wine in the Bushes will have to wait another week or two....but in the meantime, let me entertain you with some stories of texting and transportation in Milan.

Like I've said before, in most markets outside of Asia and Los Angeles, models find themselves walking out of their agencies on their first day there with a map the size of a tarpaulin and a list of go-sees. This is survival of the fittest. There is no big black Escalade on twenty-two's waiting to take you anywhere....not even a tore-up Toyota Corolla with your name on it. You get to Milan, Paris, London, Hamburg, Barcelona, Miami or wherever else you may land and it is up to you and only you to get your pretty little model arse to where you are supposed to be. None of this America's Next Top Model girls-getting-driven-around shite. Nope.

Yet, somehow, we all seem to hit the ground running just fine. So fine, that our little network of friends was in contact with each other on the trams, subways, and busses of Milan at all times via our Omnitel Savvy cell phones. We'd be sending each other texts about who was hot and who had a crush on who. We'd message each other random song lyrics with words substituted in that only we would find funny...so I won't bother boring or twisting your minds with that....;) If a casting was too full or just sucked in general, there we were warning our buddies about it. When we were hankering for gelato or happy hour the texts would get sent out and within an hour we'd all be practicing mad gluttony together. It was great.

Had we been driving our own cars, this would've never been possible. We'd have been too busy worrying about traffic and if the car's water pump needed to be replaced. Texting on public transpo was AWESOME......and that was back then....on our archaic little plastic phones. I can't even imagine how great it would be with all the gadgetry the baby models have now!

Our cellys were used for nothing more than pleasure. It was all about the gossip and plannification of great times together. We didn't need our phones to figure out the weather forecast for the next millenia or whether we could find reliable Chicago auto repair or check our Facebook pages. Facebook? Love it now, but back then...did it even exist? We were actually all together...just a text message away...no need for the social networking...we were living it.

Oh yeah...the good old days of public transpo in Milan. Good times. No worries about anything....oh man, take me back to that, even just for a minute!

Of Cars and Feet

I have really small feet for a model....so small that clients have joked with me about how I can possibly stand up without tipping over because my feet are so miniscule for a girl my height. It's genetic..what can I say? All the women in my family have feet small enough to make a Geisha cry with envy. At 5'8" I wear a size 6 shoe. Yep 6. So while clients would think that was funny or cute, I always got to work on shoe catalogs the world over because my hoofs were just right for sample sizes. No complaints here!

The only market I ever had trouble booking foot jobs (wow that sounds slightly naughty) was Miami. In Europe and Asia I had public transportation to take, and In Los Angeles I always drove my car. However, in Miami models walk to all of the castings and since it's hot we'd all wear flip-flops. This is great until you get to a casting, without having been told it was specifically for a shoe catalog, and you realize that your feet are black from street grime that somehow manages to creep over the soles of your sandals and right onto your toes. Sexy. Castings like those would find me wishing I had arrived in the comfort of a Ford Explorer or at least a scooter.

During one particular casting, I found out that the client was asking the models to remove their shoes in order to look at our feet from every angle and 9 out of 10 girls were walking out of the casting room with red faces....I started sweating bullets wondering if I should skip the casting and make my bookers blow a head gasket or have the clients see my tan and black feet and utter some words of disgust in French, Italian or German....I saw the little fountain in front of the hotel the casting was being held in and wanted so badly to dip my feet in it...but the concierge was hovering. Ugh. I went in and apologized, handed them my card and made a quick retreat...without any shoe removal. Shoe casting FAIL!

I loved being able to drive my own car to castings in LA. I had my trusty Honday Civic, a Triple A card and knew where I needed to go for some good ol' Los Angeles auto repair should I have needed it. Traffic and parking aside, there was something so nice about the freedom of having your own set of wheels...listening to music to amp me for whatever casting I was having, the ability to have some personal time and space...it was golden. Needless to say, in Los Angeles, my feet were ALWAYS camera ready!