First Pages: Some Women

Some Women by m.wilson. m.wilson 2021 ©

I should have known that day, that day a few years ago, when I was in New York, and before I had ever married. I was on my way to a booking. It was a test shoot scheduled during the afternoon. The photographer was a female for a change, named Olivia Di Marco – who looked the tomboy with her very short pageboy haircut, shaven on one side. Judging from her portfolio, she seemed to have more of the artist’s eye than the flair for clothing and fashion stories. It was probably something she was working on. She would be shooting several girls that day, all of them styled in a kind of Mod 1960’s college-girl look, and which also kind of reminded me of Two For The Road with Audrey Hepburn. The clothes were pulled from a collection called in generationem, a runway show featuring all unknown designers. It was held each season in New York and Paris, and every year the new designers were selected by a society of fashion designers and editors of note. Our stylist was also incorporating some very special-looking vintage pieces; purses, furry wraps, and hats, along with some oversized pearls and things. We are told that these were all very delicate items and to handle them with care. 

Olivia herself seemed a completely different type of college student. I had met quite a few photographers in the city who had attended Parsons, and Olivia was just a little bit older looking. And she was a chain-smoker. Her camera, her dry and chapped hands, everything smoked. In fact, everyone there was smoking, and it made me want to smoke as well, rather desperately, though I was able to hold off. I tried not to smoke too much. Never more than about a pack a week and never when I was working.

The shoot was a quickie – and went by fast, like a foggy blur. We had shot mostly beauty, everything inside the studio. Outside, it was an eerily quiet sort of day, rather unusual for the city. TURN PAGE