She Just Can't Help Herself. Ollie Quain

      OLLIE QUAIN has written for a variety of the UK’s top music, fashion and lifestyle brands. Having toiled at this media coalface since the late nineties, she now lives in Ibiza … but pops back to London regularly to inform anyone who will listen how ace it is over there. She Just Can’t Help Herself is her second novel. The first, How To Lose Weight And Alienate People, is also available and – despite not winning any awards – is a rather good read.

      Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @olliequain

      To Eddie. The purriest. The furriest. The greatest.

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Eleven

       Twelve

       Thirteen

       Fourteen

       Fifteen

       Sixteen

       Seventeen

       Eighteen

       Nineteen

       Endpages

       Copyright

One

       ASHLEY

      Of course, there are times when I think to myself, ‘WHAT AM I DOING?’ But when you work in fashion, it’s essential that every so often you do to try to retain some perspective. After all, in this industry we have a tendency to lose ourselves when witnessing a ‘moment’. From the arrival of Karl Lagerfeld’s cat on Twitter to the return of the consciously unkempt eyebrow, it’s easy to get over-excited about stuff when everyone in the ‘bubble’ is ramped up too. I know a blogger who had to breathe into a paper bag when Balmain announced a diffusion line for H&M. It can get pretty ridiculous. But no one questions this ridiculousness out loud. If they have to, it is to an audience of one. (This guarantees the option of total denial later.) Because there is a rule: don’t prick the bubble. It mustn’t burst.

      ‘I want to feel the true essence of Noelle during your interview …’ my Editor, Catherine Ogilvy, gushed at me an hour ago in the foyer of the hotel, shortly before the main party was due to start at 3pm. ‘She is such an alluring dichotomy of sophistication and quirk. The designer’s muse who was happy to ‘sofa surf’ on arrival in New York … paying her hosts in ‘styling tips and personal artwork’. But let’s overlook that makeover show she presented, the one for the ugly teens …’

      ‘It never existed. All tapes have been destroyed,’ I dead-panned, trying to decide whether a) I liked Catherine’s pussy-bow-neck silk polka dot blouse and b) if I had time for a quick (private) drink in the lobby bar. Just to take the edge off. I’d come straight from a non-work-related meeting.

      ‘… of course,’ she added. ‘You must touch on that break-up, which Noelle handled with such bravery and fortitude.’

      ‘That relationship only lasted three months, Catherine.’

      ‘They were en route to marriage.’

      ‘No, he was on tour with that painful emo rock band he plays with, Barbed Wire. So called because anyone with ears would clamber over all forms of skin-lacerating high-security metal spiking to avoid one of their shows.’

      She giggled. ‘Tsk. Come on, that poetry she wrote after the split was very dark. Real inner-demons stuff.’

      ‘Yeah, she’s like Sylvia Plath for the Snapchat generation …’ I muttered, and looked over Catherine’s shoulder to check my hair and make-up in the mirror behind her.

      Both were as they should be, ie, not too done. I never like to appear as if there has been a deliberate focus on getting ready, even if there has. Crimes Against Fashion No. 9: continual obvious use of a ‘glam squad’. Guilty: Rita Ora.

      ‘… well,’ I added. ‘Thank goodness Noelle managed to get over the worst in time for Coa-fucking-chella. Heartache and purposefully frayed denim have never worked well together.’

      ‘And neither does being clever with not exactly Mensa-eligible celebrities. No messing about tonight with Noelle. Just remember why we’re all here: to get a better understanding of the woman herself in order to celebrate the launch of her book …’

      By ‘her book’, Catherine was referring to This is Me by Noelle Bamford. Not exactly a traditional autobiographical tome, this cobbled-together collection of text-message screen grabs from Noelle’s sycophantic pals, Polaroids taken on shoots, fridge-magnet life advice, the odd stanza of the aforementioned poetry (only made just literate by a hapless copy editor) and a guide to her favourite hip hang-outs … had resulted in a £400,000 publishing advance. I said we should swerve giving the book anything but minimal attention in the magazine. Even better, we should be seen to be choosing to ignore it. Catherine disagreed, calling the book a ‘zeitgeist moment in celebrity-slash-fashion-slash-self-reflexive publishing’ and a) offered to co-sponsor a launch party alongside the design house, Pascale, who make the perennially popular ‘Noelle’ tote-style handbag, which was everything Noelle was not: chunky and useful. And far, far