‘What about Gisele?’ said Kirsty, flicking through a copy of American Elle.
‘Can’t afford her.’
‘Kate?’
‘She’s everywhere. Plus we can’t afford her.’
‘Daria?’
Karin threw down the pile of model cards in irritation. ‘We’re not fucking Gucci, Kirsty. The commercial rates for the very top girls are fifty grand plus a day. This is a three-day shoot, plus travel days, plus agency fees. Then you’ve got the photographer and crew, location costs, the advertising agency’s bill plus the cost of running the ads in the magazines. Christ, we’re talking upwards of a million pounds.’
In fact, Karin was beginning to think that was the only answer, although her instincts were totally against it. Despite the prohibitive costs, she was wary about using a well-known face for the first Karenza campaign. She wanted the ads to showcase the product, not the model. Yes, they needed a girl who oozed glamour and beauty, but they also needed the girl to make it seem as though it was the Karenza swimwear that was giving her those magical attributes, not the other way around. Put simply, they needed show-stopping cinematic visuals and an exotic siren smouldering on a Caribbean beach, not some emaciated teenager in a photographic studio in Hoxton.
Karin stood up and stalked around the office impatiently, twisting her spiked heels into the cream carpet. She had come a long way in seven years since she had started the company from her old Chelsea apartment, but she wanted more, much more. She didn’t want to own a tiny niche of the fashion world, she wanted the whole thing – and she had a plan. While all her friends from Briarton had gone to Florence to take art history courses to equip them for dinner party conversation, Karin had headed straight for the Polimoda, Italy’s famous fashion college. Karin had lapped up every lesson and had quickly formed a strategy. Her decision to go into swimwear had been considered and calculated. Womenswear was too competitive, too brutal, too much of an uphill struggle. Shoes were a closed shop with Blahnik, Choo and Louboutin dominating the top of the market, and accessories were the golden goose of fashion – the mark-up on a designer handbag was huge and more importantly one size fits all. No wonder accessories was where the luxury goods companies LVMH, Gucci group and Club21 made their mouth-watering profits. Instead, Karin had spotted a gap. Society was getting richer and people were getting more greedy. They didn’t just want luxury goods – the bags, the shoes, the cars – they wanted the full luxury lifestyle. Karin had watched as her friends took a dozen holidays a year in an ever-growing list of exotic locations but, despite the constant talk of holiday wardrobes in the glossy magazines, these women rarely dressed at all during the day, staying in a swimsuit from dawn till dusk. Swimwear was sexy, it was glamorous, it was her.
‘Dammit, why are all these silly little girls so skinny and pale?’ said Karin impatiently, flipping through the model cards once again. ‘They just look like children.’
‘That will be because they are children,’ said Kirsty with a smile. ‘Models start at twelve these days, you know.’
‘But we’re not selling clothes to children,’ snapped Karin. ‘Our customers are women, real-life women with hips and tits, not these broom-handle freaks!’
Karin knew what women wanted. They didn’t want revealing wisps of lycra, they wanted to feel like Ursula Andress emerging out of the sea in Dr No, they wanted to feel like Sophia Loren wearing a turban in Arabesque. Classy, sexy, in control. So she created a collection of classic pieces that made great bodies look even hotter. She then carefully drip-fed them into the market, only allowing Karenza to be stocked in exclusive corners of the market like Harrods and Harvey Nichols. She wooed important fashion editors, sending them top-of-the-range bikinis every season and was rewarded by flattering articles about the hot new jet-set swimwear label that everyone was wearing. But it was Sebastian who had encouraged Karin to open her first shop. She had met him two years after her first collection had debuted, and they were engaged six months later. She didn’t need anyone to help her think big, but Sebastian was supportive – and, more importantly, he was connected. A school friend of Seb’s from Eton had offered her the lease on a small shop on Walton Street and, not being able to afford an expensive interior designer, Karin copied the look of a pal’s Cape Cod beach house, all fabulously pared-down with white floorboards and white walls. It was low-key luxe for people who didn’t want to shout about their wealth. It was perfect. Now she had three shops and a £20-million-pound annual turnover and Karenza was Europe’s fastest-growing swimwear company, but for Karin’s fierce ambitions it was not growing fast enough. It needed more visibility as a major luxury. She needed a print campaign in the major glossy magazines. She smiled a small, sad smile. She knew Sebastian would have approved.
Kirsty was waving a black-and-white photograph of a skinny brunette with long legs in Karin’s face.
‘She’s hot. What about her?’
‘Too thin. Looks cocky,’ she said, tossing the photo on the pile dismissively.
‘Or her?’ asked Kirsty, pointing at a toothy blonde.
‘No way! Check out that mouth. She looks like a rabbit.’
‘She did do the Prada show last season,’ offered Kirsty weakly.
‘Kirsty! The girl fronting this campaign represents our brand,’ snapped Karin. ‘She is our face and body. I want our potential customers to look at our campaign and think, “I can be that sexy and chic and gorgeous”. Even if she’s fat, I still want her to think that three hundred pounds is money well spent if she can be magically transformed into the gorgeous creature in our campaign.’
‘I thought you didn’t want any fat and frumpy housewives wearing Karenza designs,’ said Kirsty sulkily.
‘That’s not the point,’ replied Karin briskly. ‘We need someone hot. Someone who can fill a bikini like she’s been poured into it, not some six-foot stringy teenager. We want a woman.’
She spun round her Eames chair so it faced the window overlooking the street. ‘She’s got to be out there somewhere.’
Dan Stevens, one of Europe’s hottest fashion designers, was crossing Regent Street when he saw her. He was already late for his next appointment – his last meeting at Vogue House had gone on forever – but something about this girl, standing on the other side of the road, made him stop and look. Even from fifty feet away he could see her right-angle cheekbones, her poker-straight pale blonde hair and her dancer’s posture. Dan frowned; why didn’t he know this girl? He worked with top models and actresses every day; he thought he knew all the beautiful women in London, but he had never seen this one before. Surely she must work in fashion? He thought, she was too stunning, too stylish to be a civilian. He quickened his pace to catch up with her and, drawing level, tapped her on the shoulder. She was dazzling. How many hours had he spent retouching photographs of stars with bad skin, all those smoker’s lines around the mouth, or the eyes deadened from drugs and parties. This girl, though: wow. Those enormous, slightly startled lavender-blue eyes, her incredible bone structure: she was a knockout. Not for the first time in his career, he wished he was single.
‘Hi! I, ah, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Dan Stevens, I’m a photographer. Are you a model by any chance?’
Dan Stevens. Holy shit! Summer’s mouth dropped open. She’d only come shopping to cheer herself up because she hadn’t had a go-see in a week and here she was being stopped by one of the world’s hottest photographers. You couldn’t open W or US Vogue these days without seeing his name on a cover story. Molly would be really impressed.
‘Oh, I know who you are,’ she smiled, butterflies fluttering round her tummy. ‘And yes, I’m a model, although you won’t have heard of me.’
‘Good,’ said Dan. ‘Are you busy for the next