a
Fashion
Prostitutes
Would you suck a smeggy cock-end, for a one-off Noki top? Would you tangle tonsils around old gimmers' testicles, for Chanel's desirable Spring/Summer ensemble? Would you let leering lips lick your love truncheon, for must-have McQueen jeans? Some do.
Superficially popular, Richard - a 24 year-old gay - is a familiar social face to many, though friend to few. Wearing black Agnés B long-sleeved T-shirt and slim-cut trousers, the waxing lyrical commences: "Everyone Wants-To-Know-Me," he da-da-das, drawing out the words for effect, puckering furiously on a Camel as only a hardcore London fashion queen can, "but they don't know me really - and hardly anyone knows where I get my money from." He can be spotted frequently, hanging onto the coat tails of mainstream fame, at those parties where tabloid people such as Emma Bunton, her boyfriend Jade from Damage, Jamie Theakston, the Appleton sisters, Dane Bowers, Jordan plus her implants, and the like, show up. Or, sometimes at gallery openings: one of the photographs in Richard's large scrapbook - pages of him in various states of swank dress - is of him at an East End art do, standing as-though-with, but not-actually-with, model and keen amateur photographer Dan Macmillan. (In this snap, Richard's eyes have gone all red and demonic, due to the flash). Now, briefly, he goes misty-eyed: "When I first got to London 1 enrolled on a course at the London College of Fashion - I didn't get into St. Martin's - they just didn't really understand what l was about." He recalls: "It was all l'd wanted to do for years, be a famous designer, part of the fashion industry, y'know? But it wasn't like l thought it'd be..." What did he think it would be like? He envisaged this: "Like in those photos in i-D magazine, where they ask people what they do and they're all, like, stylists, or make-up artists, or jewellery designers; all of them seem to be Creative-Stylish-People..." (da-da-da-ing again). The illusion lies dashed on the fashion rocks; for today - in the bosom of the family bungalow in Sutton, which he is house-sitting while his parents are away in Malta - he understands things more clearly, fair spitting: "But most of them are just students, or hairdressers, or working in clothes shops, aren't they?"
But back to the tale at hand (relief). Lacking the self discipline to learn about pattern cutting and all that tedious carry-on, Richard jacked in his college course and lived on his overdraft and via a part-time job in a juice bar for a few weeks. He first got on the fashion meat-rack when he turned his attentions to a married man in the music business. The married man apparently really came onto" him at a free-drinks showcase last year (for teen popstrel Lolly - the glossy, blagged invite is now pasted into the scrapbook) in a Leicester Square nightclub, and was the first of many to keep Richard in the type of cloth to which he rapidly became accustomed. “I got off with him in the toilets and he said if I gave him a blow job - and swallowed - he'd give me £100. I wasn't even properly skint or anything, but I was just thinking I could buy something new to wear!" explains Richard, bold as brass. "Anyway, I'd have done it for free - he was just my type: straight and hung!" The next day he purchased a Jeremy Scott Vive L'Avant Garde T-shirt (like DJ/TV presenter Jo Whiley, and Warren from boy band Northern Line used to wear) from the Pineal Eye in Soho. Not daft, he cottoned-on that he was onto something here, and could easily trade in his pretty-boy looks (think: Mark Owen, ex of Take That) for the finest Fashion Land could offer. "I want the best clothes, and I certainly couldn't have afforded them before, out of my grant... and when you go to those designer sales it's always the crap stuff that they couldn't sell," he reasons. "I want to be one of the people who can afford the most expensive new stuff... be on the waiting lists, like Meg Matthews (Sleaze bites lip, tries not to laugh) so that they call you when it's in stock."
One of his friends from the lovely London party circuit, whom Richard coaxes into talking about her secret job - ("they don't need to take your picture") - is American-born Tammy. Tammy is apparently aged 20, of quite wealthy stock, has never had a 'real' job, might go travelling soon, and - in another scrapbook photograph, taken at Julien Macdonald's fruity after-show party last year - looks like a much skinnier version of Martine McCutcheon (sporting tight Earl jeans and a Noki customised T-shirt). After much text messaging ('r u sure u will chng my name' etc.) a meeting is arranged in a café round the corner from Gloucester Road tube. She wears a beige Burberry trenchcoat and has a Fendi leather bag (full of £10, £20 and £50 notes, which she later gestures at under the table) and, needless to say, is off to Joseph later today to check out the stock-just-in situation. "I live near here with my mum - our house is on the same street as Kylie Minogue's," she reveals, adding gossip-ly: "she looks quite plain in the daytime. But I don't think she's had surgery, even though everyone's saying she has." Tammy is, she confesses, "such a fashion victim it's not true!" and declares herself to be currently "getting her shit together", whatever that means. Her role as fashion prostitute seems much less structured than that of Richard's: She doesn't have a place of her own, for starters, in which to ply her trade. "It usually happens in hotels or at their place," she explains. And she gets a generous allowance each month from her mother, ("Mom made sure we were looked after by my dad, after they got divorced"), hence is not short of a bob or two for new gear. "You know how it is though," she sighs, and grins: "Too much is never enough! As soon as I buy one thing I'll see something else I just have to have - and I do have very expensive tastes. My mom thinks I'm mad, the amount of money I spend on clothes. Almost every week in the Sunday Times Style magazine, or in Nova or Vogue I'll see something... something cool and adorable. And I'm getting into all the new streety designers, too, that whole Hoxton vibe is so out-there!"
He rents his own top-floor studio flat, situated dead near the Edgware Road, and packed to the rafters - rail upon rail, bag upon bag - with designer clothing. People he knows at parties, nightclubs and boutiques etc. probably pontificate as to where he gets all the money to buy such endless wares. Especially as his 'collection' is, he claims, worth about £25,000.
Superficially popular, Richard - a 24 year-old gay - is a familiar social face to many, though friend to few. Wearing black Agnés B long-sleeved T-shirt and slim-cut trousers, the waxing lyrical commences: "Everyone Wants-To-Know-Me," he da-da-das, drawing out the words for effect, puckering furiously on a Camel as only a hardcore London fashion queen can, "but they don't know me really - and hardly anyone knows where I get my money from." He can be spotted frequently, hanging onto the coat tails of mainstream fame, at those parties where tabloid people such as Emma Bunton, her boyfriend Jade from Damage, Jamie Theakston, the Appleton sisters, Dane Bowers, Jordan plus her implants, and the like, show up. Or, sometimes at gallery openings: one of the photographs in Richard's large scrapbook - pages of him in various states of swank dress - is of him at an East End art do, standing as-though-with, but not-actually-with, model and keen amateur photographer Dan Macmillan. (In this snap, Richard's eyes have gone all red and demonic, due to the flash). Now, briefly, he goes misty-eyed: "When I first got to London 1 enrolled on a course at the London College of Fashion - I didn't get into St. Martin's - they just didn't really understand what l was about." He recalls: "It was all l'd wanted to do for years, be a famous designer, part of the fashion industry, y'know? But it wasn't like l thought it'd be..." What did he think it would be like? He envisaged this: "Like in those photos in i-D magazine, where they ask people what they do and they're all, like, stylists, or make-up artists, or jewellery designers; all of them seem to be Creative-Stylish-People..." (da-da-da-ing again). The illusion lies dashed on the fashion rocks; for today - in the bosom of the family bungalow in Sutton, which he is house-sitting while his parents are away in Malta - he understands things more clearly, fair spitting: "But most of them are just students, or hairdressers, or working in clothes shops, aren't they?"
But back to the tale at hand (relief). Lacking the self discipline to learn about pattern cutting and all that tedious carry-on, Richard jacked in his college course and lived on his overdraft and via a part-time job in a juice bar for a few weeks. He first got on the fashion meat-rack when he turned his attentions to a married man in the music business. The married man apparently really came onto" him at a free-drinks showcase last year (for teen popstrel Lolly - the glossy, blagged invite is now pasted into the scrapbook) in a Leicester Square nightclub, and was the first of many to keep Richard in the type of cloth to which he rapidly became accustomed. “I got off with him in the toilets and he said if I gave him a blow job - and swallowed - he'd give me £100. I wasn't even properly skint or anything, but I was just thinking I could buy something new to wear!" explains Richard, bold as brass. "Anyway, I'd have done it for free - he was just my type: straight and hung!" The next day he purchased a Jeremy Scott Vive L'Avant Garde T-shirt (like DJ/TV presenter Jo Whiley, and Warren from boy band Northern Line used to wear) from the Pineal Eye in Soho. Not daft, he cottoned-on that he was onto something here, and could easily trade in his pretty-boy looks (think: Mark Owen, ex of Take That) for the finest Fashion Land could offer. "I want the best clothes, and I certainly couldn't have afforded them before, out of my grant... and when you go to those designer sales it's always the crap stuff that they couldn't sell," he reasons. "I want to be one of the people who can afford the most expensive new stuff... be on the waiting lists, like Meg Matthews (Sleaze bites lip, tries not to laugh) so that they call you when it's in stock."
One of his friends from the lovely London party circuit, whom Richard coaxes into talking about her secret job - ("they don't need to take your picture") - is American-born Tammy. Tammy is apparently aged 20, of quite wealthy stock, has never had a 'real' job, might go travelling soon, and - in another scrapbook photograph, taken at Julien Macdonald's fruity after-show party last year - looks like a much skinnier version of Martine McCutcheon (sporting tight Earl jeans and a Noki customised T-shirt). After much text messaging ('r u sure u will chng my name' etc.) a meeting is arranged in a café round the corner from Gloucester Road tube. She wears a beige Burberry trenchcoat and has a Fendi leather bag (full of £10, £20 and £50 notes, which she later gestures at under the table) and, needless to say, is off to Joseph later today to check out the stock-just-in situation. "I live near here with my mum - our house is on the same street as Kylie Minogue's," she reveals, adding gossip-ly: "she looks quite plain in the daytime. But I don't think she's had surgery, even though everyone's saying she has." Tammy is, she confesses, "such a fashion victim it's not true!" and declares herself to be currently "getting her shit together", whatever that means. Her role as fashion prostitute seems much less structured than that of Richard's: She doesn't have a place of her own, for starters, in which to ply her trade. "It usually happens in hotels or at their place," she explains. And she gets a generous allowance each month from her mother, ("Mom made sure we were looked after by my dad, after they got divorced"), hence is not short of a bob or two for new gear. "You know how it is though," she sighs, and grins: "Too much is never enough! As soon as I buy one thing I'll see something else I just have to have - and I do have very expensive tastes. My mom thinks I'm mad, the amount of money I spend on clothes. Almost every week in the Sunday Times Style magazine, or in Nova or Vogue I'll see something... something cool and adorable. And I'm getting into all the new streety designers, too, that whole Hoxton vibe is so out-there!"