The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine (10 page)

In early 1995, Nancy contacted me and requested that I organize an interview and photoshoot with Tom Ford, a young American designing for Gucci who was creating waves in the industry. I dutifully began the arrangements, booking photographer Pascal Chevallier and newish model Diane Kruger, who is now an extremely successful Hollywood actress.

Ford was in the midst of preparing the Fall 1995 collection, so there were numerous phone calls and faxes back and forth with the Gucci PR office, trying to pin him down to a time. The whole process dragged on for weeks, and became so torturous Pascal called me at home one night and said, “Really,
ca suffit
. Who does this Tom Ford think he is?” As it happened, the superb Fall 1995 collection, featuring skin-tight velvet hipsters, unbuttoned satin shirts and mohair coats, was a spectacular success that radically transformed the fortunes of the famed luxury house. Tom did, finally, arrive at the studio for our shoot, and immediately managed to charm the entire
Vogue
team. He is a dream to interview: extremely engaged, engaging and old-school polite. On the subsequent occasions that we met over the years, he always mentioned that shoot and told me that he regarded Pascal’s portrait as one of his favorite photographs ever taken. Ford went on to become so famous after our shoot it was impossible for an Australian
publication to ever get access like that again, but I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. With the right editor.

Life wasn’t a complete bed of roses in Paris. My retainer just stretched from week to week, the incessantly chilly weather took some getting used to, and there seemed to be a public transport strike weekly. My non-existent French became frustrating, never more so than when I applied for a
carte de residence
visa. Each time I visited the dreaded prefecture for one interview after the other, the tetchy staff would roll their eyes at my halting French. I knew enough to understand one woman when she hissed to her colleague: “I don’t know why these idiots want to live here when they can’t even speak our language.” She did, I suppose, have a point, so I took to spending afternoons with Mourad’s mother watching bad television.

For some inexplicable reason, the original
Dallas
and
Dynasty
series were still on-air in France, dubbed, and they are the perfect way to learn how to speak French fast. “
C’est pas vrai!
” (“It’s not true!”) “How can you say that?” “What do you think you are doing?!” Granted, the delivery may have been a little melodramatic, but it was thanks to those banal TV shows I learned French 101.

Once I got the basics and knew how to marry, divorce and murder a man in French, I decided to enroll in language classes at the Alliance Francaise. I was happily ensconced in the middle of Course Two when I was surprised to discover that I was pregnant. “
C’est pas vrai!
” Mourad was thrilled. He had told me the first time we met that we would make beautiful babies, which was one of the major reasons I liked him in the first place.

My first visit to the obstetrician proved to be interesting. His English was worse than my French and after he had performed the ultrasound he said: “The baby is good.” Then there was a pause and he continued staring at the screen. “And the second baby is good.” I took
it to mean, because of our jumbled Franglais, that the baby, the one baby, was really, really good. “No,” he said haltingly. “There are two babies.” I was having twins. Of course I was.

The first three months were a little tricky because—although I felt fine—I had the most heightened sense of smell, so using the Metro was impossible. The odors of Paris were too much. I could smell chewing gum stuck on the pavement one block away. With my supersensitive nose, I was like the character Grenouille in Patrick Susskind’s novel
Perfume
. I would walk miles out of my way to avoid a cheese shop.

Walking on the Rue du Rivoli one steamy, hot lunchtime, I was so overcome by the smell of the traffic that I decided to duck into the W. H. Smith bookstore to breathe in the air-conditioning. Once inside, I felt the nausea begin to overcome me, and I sort of slumped down next to the crime-novel section, pretending to read them, even though I was soon lying horizontal on the floor. A lovely Englishman came to my aid and said, “You don’t look so good. Shall I put you in a taxi?” He very kindly deposited me into a cab, which shortly pulled up outside my apartment block. As I walked gingerly to the door of the building, I had to pass the café outside and got a whiff of steak tartare. With the raw egg on the top. I promptly threw up in the street, on my Robert Clergerie sandals, in full view of the horrified patrons. It wasn’t my finest moment in Paris, but from that day forward I felt absolutely brilliant.

My pregnancy did not slow my work, although I was so big people seemed a little nervous around me, thinking that I may be about to give birth any minute. My position as beauty editor of
Vogue Singapore
meant that I had to fly back and forth from Paris to Singapore quite regularly, but even at five months the airline officials were reluctant to let me on the plane, as it looked like labor was imminent.

I had decided that I wanted to give birth in Sydney so, six months pregnant, I flew back and moved in with my mother Gloria and her
partner Robert. Mourad was to arrive just before my due date. For two weeks I caught up with friends, popped in and out of the
Vogue
offices and was having a generally marvelous time. Top of my list was to find an obstetrician and make all the necessary arrangements, but I was so busy I didn’t quite get around to it. I did have a checkup at the local clinic and all was fine.

Nancy threw me the most lavish baby shower. I knew I was having boys, so everything was white and blue. The presents were beyond chic. It was a true
Vogue
pregnancy. Then, a few days after the celebration, as I sat at my mother’s dining table typing out an invoice, my water broke. I was only thirty-one weeks.

My mother was out, so I very calmly wrote her a note, which I left on the table, saying that I thought the babies were coming and I would call her later. I then rang my friend Janet, who—having no idea about having a baby whatsoever—suggested that I have a shower, and instructed me on what to wear and what to pack in my toiletries bag (well, she worked at Revlon).

I telephoned for a taxi, waited patiently, and when I got into the car asked the driver to take me to the nearest hospital. “Are you going to have a baby?” he inquired, looking at me nervously. “Yes,” was my response. “Probably not right this second, but I can’t be sure.” He drove like a demon, tossed me out into the driveway of Sutherland District Hospital and screeched away.

I trotted slowly into the reception area. I thought I was handling myself with absolute aplomb, although Mum told me later that I had left the front door of the house wide open. “Good afternoon,” I said politely to the woman at the desk. “Ah. I’m pregnant. With twins. I’m only thirty-one weeks. And my waters just broke. I’m not registered here. Or with any doctor. And I’m not sure where my Medicare card is. My apologies.”

I will forever be one of Australia’s greatest advocates of our health care system because I was immediately whisked to the labor ward and had the finest care anyone could be given, for what was a complicated premature delivery. It was necessary for the boys to be taken straight to special care and placed into humicribs, as they each weighed just under two kilos and were having difficulty breathing. My mother and my best friend from schooldays, Jenny, had both been with me in the labor ward, and I believe the experience put poor Jenny off having a baby for life.

I called Mourad in France, from my bed, letting him know his sons had arrived a little earlier than expected. Later that day I awoke in my own room, in the hospital I had been born in, knowing my babies were in safe hands. A magisterial kookaburra was sitting on the ledge of the balcony. It felt good to be home, if only for a while.

There were some truly
Vogue
moments during the fortnight I was in the hospital. I was inundated with the most amazing flowers, from the best floral designers in Sydney, more and more, until my room resembled an enchanted garden. The nurses asked if they could bring people through to admire them, which was fine by me. My room became a popular tourist destination. You couldn’t even find the twins among the foliage. And of course the beauty industry demonstrated their usual generosity and showered me with bounty. Displaying a classy understanding of what is truly important to a new mother after giving birth naturally to twins, Chanel sent the entire product line of Chanel No. 5. I distinctly recall shuffling down the hall in one of those regulation-issue hospital gowns, wheeling my drip and clutching a bottle of No. 5 Bath and Shower Gel.

Clinique delivered baby bibs and bottles in Clinique green. The twins, named Joseph and Sam, were identical, and a handy tip I
learned from one of the floral sightseers was to paint the toenails of one baby, so you wouldn’t mix them up and you would know who had just been fed. Once again, Chanel stepped in, supplying me with the popular Rouge Noir nail lacquer, which I thought was a good, strong, masculine shade.

Three crazy months later I was back in Paris, thankfully with the most generous family-in-law that a new mother could ever wish for. Mourad’s parents doted on their new grandsons, and were happy to take them overnight, often for days at a stretch. Mourad sometimes had to remind me to ask for them back.

We moved to a lovely apartment in Saint Germain en Laye, just outside of Paris, and while it was the end of my nightclubbing days our different schedules somehow seemed to work. I would spend the morning with the babies and then, when they went down for a sleep, call my editors in Singapore and Sydney to discuss upcoming stories. Mourad would then wake up, take over and I would head into the city and do interviews and shoots. Being based in Paris also meant that I could travel easily and so I did, incessantly, overnighting in Denmark to interview a scientist, weekending in London, attending the Biennale in Florence, or a lunch in Tuscany.

The most extravagant beauty launch I was ever invited to attend during my time in Paris was held by Elizabeth Arden in 1994. It was a four day event and took place in Monte Carlo for the launch of a new fragrance, Sun Moon Stars, created by legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld. Most excitingly, my friend Deborah Thomas was being flown in from Australia, and Lee Tulloch was also attending.

The scale of this launch was unprecedented. Journalists from around the world were flying in first-class to Cannes and then helicoptered into Monte Carlo. We were booked at the magnificent Hôtel
de Paris, one of the finest hotels in the world. Lee, Deb and I checked in, pinching ourselves, while the whiny American editors went ballistic when they were informed that the rooms would not be ready for another half an hour. They were “exhausted” from their Concorde flights. Deborah had come from Sydney and she was ready to run a marathon.

In my experience on press trips, American journalists are incredibly high maintenance. Italians have very lofty standards, but instead of complaining they just show up whenever they like—or not at all— which is maybe preferable to kvetching. The English mainly whine. I have no opinion on the French because they rarely mingle.

We were then given mock credit cards which we were able to use for anything we required—in the hotel, at the casino, at the Beach Club—and which would then be billed back to Arden. Dinner that evening was at Le Grill on the eighth floor of the Hôtel de Paris, where the roof slid back to reveal a starry night sky, a clever gesture to kick off the lavish PR exercise.

The next day was free. Deborah, Lee and I had the most indulgent day lounging around at the Monte Carlo Beach Club, where hiring a towel is the equivalent of about one week’s rent. Thankfully we had our Elizabeth Arden play money. I spent most of the afternoon fixated by the glamorous jetset Euro mothers and their children, wondering why one toddler required two nannies. It became perfectly obvious at sunset, while the mother was slipping out of her Eres bikini, that one nanny is needed to put Junior into his cashmere swimrobe while the other packs up the Chanel tote.

Our hectic schedule included tours of Saint Paul de Vence, long lunches at the world’s most famous restaurants and a stroll around the magical medieval village of Eze. But no work as such. We were shown a bottle of the fragrance, saw the advertising images featuring
the American actress Daryl Hannah, and told that she would be joining us for a special dinner at the home of Karl Lagerfeld. It was like a dream holiday.

One balmy afternoon, I wandered through the streets surrounding the hotel and came across a store selling vintage postcards. My mother had traveled to Monaco in the late fifties and during her trip sent a card home to her father, a black-and-white vista of Monte Carlo that I had found and placed in an old wooden photo frame. Here, in this poky shop, was exactly the same postcard. I was thrilled. I would post the identical card to my mother, nearly forty years later. I returned to the Hôtel de Paris and rushed excitedly up to the concierge’s desk to buy a stamp.

The concierge was chatting with an American man when I interrupted them, but they both turned to me amiably. “Where did you find this old postcard?” the concierge laughed, and I launched breathlessly into my longwinded family history of the card and what an amazing coincidence it was that I had found it. The American was nodding along, listening politely, asking me good-natured questions and I thought to myself, “Gosh you’re handsome. You look kind of familiar.” We started chatting casually for several minutes and then suddenly it dawned on me. It was Robert Redford.

I must have displayed that creepy star-struck face people get when they realize they are in the presence of a screen idol. His look turned into one that said: “Damn, she has just clicked who I am.” I then backed clumsily into the old-fashioned telephone cabinet behind me and dialed Deborah’s room. “Get down here,” I hissed. “Robert Redford is at reception.” Deborah unfortunately had her wet hair up in a towel, and by the time she descended I had turned into a blithering idiot and Mr. Redford had taken a hasty retreat. I did spot him later that afternoon leaving the hotel, and he waved and smiled at me.
I’ve met many celebrities over the years but that encounter was fun, because it was by chance and the conversation was natural. Until I blew it.