‘Seriously, though,’ I said. ‘Theming the issues is a great idea. We could definitely do that. It might give us a bit of an edge – make us different.’
And help us survive, I thought.
A tiny voice spoke from the corner of my office.
I looked round. Our work experience girl, a quiet student whose name I had absolutely no chance of remembering, was there, hunched over a notebook and blushing furiously.
‘Pardon?’ I said.
She blushed even more and cleared her throat.
‘I was just saying, it’s Mode’s fiftieth anniversary,’ she said. ‘In September. So if you wanted to do a vintage theme, that would be a good time to do it.’
I stared at her. She looked down at her notebook.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Emily,’ she said.
‘Emily, you are a genius.’
She beamed at me.
‘Let’s do it,’ I said. ‘Let’s theme every issue. This one could be…’
I thought for a moment. Everyone looked at me expectantly.
‘…back to basics,’ I said. ‘Inspired by Vanessa’s Jurassic diet.’
A ghost of a smile crossed Vanessa’s face. Just a ghost, mind you.
‘I’ll do black and white fashion with Amy, then,’ Riley said. ‘Maybe some denim? And do the vintage stuff too, and hang on to it for a couple of months.’
I nodded.
Slowly, painfully, but finally, everyone started to come up with ideas of themes, of features, of fashion shoots, cover stars – the works. The beauty editor, who was aptly named Pritti, wowed me with her knowledge of different make-up looks that could fit with every theme someone shouted out. Vanessa didn’t offer many ideas, but even she didn’t seem quite as hostile as she had done.
Eventually we had a plan for the back-to-basics issue, and the beginning of a plan for future issues, too. I knew this was going to be hard work. Harder than hard work. But maybe, just maybe, we were going to pull it off.
I can’t lie, those first few days on Mode were a slog. I started work early and stayed late, going over page proofs, rewriting features to make them fit within our back-to-basics theme, making endless lists – and avoiding Lizzie.
I’d expected to see Damo around but actually I’d not crossed paths with him since that first day. Once, I’d been staring out of my office window and seen him crossing the road outside, and I’d heard his laugh a few times echoing down the open-plan office from Homme, but I’d not actually spoken to him. I couldn’t decide if I was pleased or disappointed about that.
Desperate to get everyone involved in the process of revitalising Mode, I got a big white board put up in the office and urged everyone to write ideas on it.
‘Anything goes,’ I trilled, putting some pens on the shelf next to it. ‘The crazier, the better. Features ideas, cover ideas, events, sponsorship plans – absolutely anything.’
But now, a whole week after it had been put up, the board was still mostly bare. Riley had written up some ideas for future fashion shoots, but I wasn’t sure ‘SOMETHING FUNNY’ was really what Mode readers were after. I did, however, love the idea for a monthly ‘unlikely style crush’. How to recreate outfits worn by cartoon characters, people from books, old ladies… Riley had scrawled on the board.
I picked up a pen and wrote ‘I love this!’ next to her idea, then I stared at the rest of the bare board in despair.
‘Come on,’ I said, under my breath, even though it was barely eight a.m. and I was alone in the office. ‘I can’t do this by myself.’
I’d come in early to wrestle with the budgets for the next few issues, which wasn’t a fun way to start the day. The rest of the office filled up gradually, and by ten a.m. everyone was there. I left my office door open all the time but no one popped their heads round to say hello. I was still very much an outsider.
I sent my budget outline to Lizzie, hoping she’d agree with how I’d moved the money around, and then I sat quietly for a minute, trying to pluck up the courage to go and speak to my team. I didn’t want to – how ridiculous was that?
I picked up my phone to call Jen, then put it down again. She probably wouldn’t answer anyway, and – I thought with uncharacteristic insecurity – I couldn’t say I blamed her.
A knock on my office doorframe made me look up. It was Emily, the intern, wobbling under the weight of a pile of magazines.
‘I’ve been using these for my uni research project,’ she said. ‘Thought they might be useful.’
She lurched over to my desk and dropped the pile in front of me.
‘They’re the first issues of Mode,’ she said. ‘They’re amazing.’
I looked at the issue on the top. It was from the late 1960s and had Twiggy on the cover. I felt a shiver of excitement.
‘Where did you get these?’ I asked Emily.
She grinned at me.
‘There’s a guy called Kevin, works in the library in the basement,’ she said.
‘There’s a library?’ I was impressed with her knowledge.
‘It’s not massive, but it’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Kevin’s got a daughter about my age, I gave him some advice about something, and bob’s your uncle – he bent the rules and let me take the magazines away.’
I was impressed. I studied Emily carefully. She had strawberry blonde hair that was twisted back and up on her head, Adele-style, and she was wearing capri pants and a fitted fifties-look blouse. She looked great and absolutely nothing like the interns I was used to, who were like one great identical mass of oversized tote bags and false eyelashes.
She looked back at me for a moment then lowered her eyes shyly.
‘Just thought they might be helpful,’ she said.
‘They’re not just helpful,’ I said, picking up the Twiggy issue. ‘They’re life-saving.’
She grinned again.
‘How long are you here for, Emily?’ I asked.
‘One more month,’ she said.
I made a note on my to-do list to speak to HR about taking her on full-time, and to re-do the budget I’d just sent to Lizzie to pay for her, then smiled at her.
‘There are some photos in there,’ she said, gesturing to the magazines. ‘I found them inside one of the issues.’
She leafed through the pile and pulled out an A4-size black and white glossy print.
‘It’s the team who worked on the very first issue,’ she said.
I looked at the photo. There were about ten people in the shot, their arms linked. At the centre, holding a magazine, was an older woman – about fifty-ish – stylish in a boxy Chanel suit. It was mostly women and they all looked incredible. I breathed out.
‘Those clothes,’ I said.
‘I know,’ Emily said. She came round my desk and leaned over my shoulder.
‘That’s the first editor,’ she said, pointing to the older woman.
I nodded.
‘Margi Matthews,’ I said. I’d read about her, of