My First Fashion Show With Charlotte Corn

How was your first fashion show?

It was amazing. I had a fitting the week before, then came back straight away, so I actually wasn’t in Paris for that long. There was just me and one other girl at the fitting when I was there, and we had all our garments taken in. I met Riccardo at the fitting, when I tried on the dress for the first time, and I had practiced my walk in front of him. They couldn’t find a belt to fit the right way so I had lots of different belts and different jewellery and Riccardo chose what he wanted for each piece. I heard back straight away that I was going to do the show, but I had a week to wait had to come home back to reality. Then I went back to do the show with Joel, who is a scout in London, and that was absolutely amazing.

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What was it like to come home and go back to school?

Well I wasn’t allowed to say anything to my school friends, so I was sitting in class thinking about how I’d be somewhere completely different in a few days time! [laughs] I couldn’t even say I had a show, I just said I had some work to do, that I was going to be away! They didn’t want anyone to post anything on social media, but after the show, all my friends were congratulating me on doing the show. They had seen it on Instagram and they were really pleased for me. So were my parents. I got back to the hotel and Skyped them and my sister straight away. That was nice.

Were you nervous to do the show?

I wasn’t really nervous because when I was younger, I went to stage school at the weekend. I think that really helped with confidence, and I am really grateful to my parents for letting me do that. I learned a mixture of drama, singing, acting and dance, and we did lots of productions, in front of a couple of hundred people at a time.  I learned not to worry too much just to go out and do it, you can’t have regrets about things, you just have to do it. We also learned breathing techniques, which stop you from getting too stressed before a performance. You close your eyes and count to ten, have a minute to yourself, just be in a bubble away from the drama, which really helps, especially when it is so manic backstage. There are lots of people doing nails, hair and make-up and everything, it is buzzing. You just to take a minute and prepare yourself, it’s good.

What were you wearing in the Givenchy show?

I had a really long black gown, if I was any shorter than I wouldn’t have been able to walk in it because it was so long! [laughs] It was made of chiffon with really heavy beading all down the front, so it was quite heavy, especially with the coat, because the material was so thick, but on the plus side, it made you have you shoulders back! It just felt incredible, the quality of the clothes was amazing. I am studying textiles at school, so I was amazed to see behind the scenes at a couture house. There were people sewing the clothes right up until the very last minute and they were all fitted to size right before the show. On some other people’s dresses, there were were beads that had fallen off so they were sewing them back on. 

Who did you talk to backstage?

I met Greta Varlese for the first time. She is really lovely, it was really nice to meet her especially since she did EML. It was so nice to meet the other models and hear about their experiences. Quite a few girls were new faces so hadn’t done shows before so we were in the same boat. There were people from all over the world and everyone has a different story of how they got into modelling or how they got a part in Givenchy. Right before the show we had our toenails painted and there was a heater, and we all had our feet in front of it warming them up, that was a good bonding experience!

Photo © Givenchy via Youtube

What was it like to be part of a menswear show?

It was just a select few girls who get to do it, so I feel really lucky. The boys had their fitting earlier than as so we didn’t really get to see them at the same time until right before the show all lined up. Riccardo was very busy but lots of other ladies behind the scenes made us feel really welcome.  I was the first girl to have her make up done so the whole team was watching the lady doing my make up so they knew what to do. I had to go back and have more red eyeliner put on because it wasn’t strong enough. We had bare cheeks and before you go onto the catwalk so the run up they were double checking everything. I feel like the people who work on fashion shows have to have a lot of patience!