Hello Sailor!

So here I am it’s a beautifully sunny day outside and I’ve rushed loaded like a camel (which apparently goes best, as they say ;)) on the tube (which I mildly hate) through Oxford Circus (which I definitely hate) to a photographic studio (which I’m already feeling I’m gonna hate). Sitting here waiting for my good friend Sara-Mae (AKA pocket-size Marlene Dietrich) wondering how on earth I agreed to all this in the first place, and how I’m actually going to get out of it.

Sara had wooed me here with the promise of facials, hand massages and lunch, but as soon as I had stepped in front of the place we were due to attend, I realised what was really going down.

Marketing. My friend Sara and in fact now me too, had been duped. It was one of those awful conveyor belted ‘studios’ which doll you up like Bambi, shoot you like you’ve been caught in headlights and then try the old timeshare routine to get you to buy the astronomically priced photos which are of course only sold in packages.

Oh dear, how did I end up here? How had I had spent 33 years managing to avoid a situation thus far only to find myself sitting there with a clipboard and cart load of cosmetics?

When Sara arrived in a rain cloud of  perspiration, triumphant having actually made it ~ I didn’t quite know how to break it to her that I wanted to run for my life, so I quickly descended into a torrade of neurosis saying things like, ‘they want photo i.d or a credit card, they said they want me to prove I am who I say I am, who are these people, how long have they been here…’I was so affronted that people who were offering me a service wanted ME to prove who I was!!! I continued, ‘I mean you don’t go into a shop to buy something, and have to PROVE who you are first, do you? I mean what are these people up to exactly?’ Sara explained she had a refundable deposit tied up in this circus show, and in true timeshare tradition we had to proceed with the, wait for it, 6 hour, yes you heard me, itinerary to get it back. Nice.

You see one day my lovely innocent friend was sitting at home minding her own beeswax when the phone rang and a lovely lady asked if her and a friend (AKA another sucka AKA me!) would love to come on down the price is right to the studio and have a little hand massage, facial, champagne, shampoo, make-up, hairdo, day of pampering concluding with a photo sess, all for the small sum of a refundable deposit. My sweet friend, unaccustomed to the way of time share proceedings, thought it a splendid invitation and ‘kindly’ invited me along for the ride.

Actually Sara may be a little naive but she sure aint no sucker, this is pocket-sized Marlene Dietrich remember? She had a great idea which had drawn me in, hook, line and titanic sinker.

How about if we asked for 50’s hair and make-up? How about if we rustled up some 50’s style clothing and made it a little test shoot for The Pin Up Gals Project??

Well how about that? Hmm? How about it?!

As soon as we signed on the devils clipboard we were whisked off onto the conveyor belt for hair and make-up dhalings! Quicker than we could say champagne.

Make-up first and I had a brilliant Swedish guy, who learnt to do make-up when he was 17 back in Sweden where the drag queens taught him everything he knew. Once he came to England, he soon discovered that ladies in this country were in fact sporting the ‘same natural look of the Swedish drag queens, so it was simple’. Ce la.

Within half an hour, I had so much stage make-up waxed on my face, I was sure they would be burning limestone  in troughs in ‘le studio photographique’. You could have literally put a wick in my mouth and lit me like a candle ~ burning time 40 hours. I did look good though despite all this, I mean I would have made a pretty candle, albeit drag queen pretty, but pretty none the less 😉 !!

Next onto hair I had a lovely lady with a huge fake pearl necklace who told me her whole love life history (which was fascinating, especially since I didn’t even ask! And in true hairdresser/client style I also opened up to her my deepest secrets ~ well I was on an Actress roll, I’d been talking drag acts with my sweetie dhaling make-up artiste, why stop now?) Anyway I loved my hairdresser, I wanted her to adopt me (no offence mum).

Sara on the other hand had, none other than one of Beyoncé’s (yes you read it right) hairdressers, who was like on a first name basis with the singer innit? But I tell you, she did Beyoncé proud. Wow!! I mean my hair was pretty good! But Sara’s hair was incredible!! It was moulded. It was a mould. It was like Michael Angelo. It was like she kept styling, and straightening and hairspraying that hair until the style just emerged from it, like Botticelli Venus rising! Wow.

Anyway by the time I had all those pins and half a can of hairspray in my hair, lighting me like a candle may not have been a good idea. I was more like a firework than a candle at this point, actually we both were. But we looked good you know? 😉

Sara and I were offered a glass of very cheap (99p) bu cks fizz, which I declined, although I think Sara braved it! But before we could even wonder what happened to the hand massage and the foot rub and the facial – hello?! Well that definitely was not going to work out at this point! We were escorted to the basement and met by our cameraman?

Um. Camera man. Photographer. He sounded like Frank Butcher, looked more like a very sweaty, Phil Mitchell, told us to get behind the curtain and get changed. At this point we can’t see any of the studios, the artistes and receptionists upstairs have gone home and its all looking a bit ~ um dodge?

‘Phil’ decided to have a quick ‘convo’ with us about the shoot. He could see what we were going for, liked it etc. We filled him in about the project, and our intentions for the shoot to which he ‘yeah yeah yeahd’ us, then Sara I think mentioned I was an Actress,to which he said he was a director, to which I said oh wow you’re a director too? To which he got all defensive and started saying it was the same thing ‘yeah a director or a photographer, cameraman’, and that we just needed to zip our dresses and our mouths and work it, he would tell us where and how. Ok? Who were we to refuse, honestly?

I don’t know if there was a lot of drug taking going down in the studio or if they just worked so damn hard they just hadn’t seen daylight for a few months. They kind of reminded me of those drug infused hookers that you see in films like Mona Lisa with Bob Hoskins who are imprisoned by their habit. I kind of half expected a pimp to jump out and bitch slap anyone who didn’t produce good photos. ‘Phil’ asked the same questions again and again and even concluded our session by telling me ‘good luck with the catalogue’ (?)

Once dressed we were hustled around the corner into a labyrinth of studios with other ‘Phil’s’ ‘shooting’ people. The studio was seriously impressive. I have done (some) modelling for photographers in the past and seen a few studios, but this was amazing! They had furniture of all kinds, from sixties bubble chairs to Chesterton leather sofas and built-in backdrops, and staircases, it was a serious ‘ting and ‘ting.

‘Phil’ couldn’t believe how ‘great’ the pictures were coming out. But he was strict. He was very nervous like a goat on amphetamines. He would jump on us for improvising and say ‘don’t do ANYTHING unless I tell you to,’ followed by in all seriousness, ‘right do that again’. And when we’d stopped to be told off and couldn’t emulate what we’d done, he’d get flustered, ‘no, no, do it again, do ‘it’ again’.

Each few frames we were passed on further into the dark labyrinth of rooms. By the time we reached the last hole in the wall which was pitch black inside and ‘Phil’ told us to go through, I swear down I thought we were about to partake in a snuff movie never to be seen again.

Once in the room it actually got scarier. I know that’s hard to believe, but in that room in the pitch dark against bare brickwork was a single, I kid you not, metal framed Victorian (snuff style) bed and some red light gels lying on the floor looking very much like a pool of blood. In the corner was what looked like a bricked up chimney breast. We had entered Fred West’s basement. Sara-Mae promptly asked chirpily shakily ‘is that blood on the floor?’, but I assured her it must be lighting gels, I was hoping at least.

10 minutes later we were dressed back in our civvies and turfed out onto the street. We were told to come back in an hour to look at the photos which we could then buy for an undisclosed price (we managed to find out on the sly, one pic=£70) or they would be erased there and then, a process we had to indulge in order to obtain the refundable deposit. It was already 7pm.

By now my inner Diva was fully fledged. I explained to them about our project and kindly asked if we could view another day. This was refused unless  we left another £50 deposit . I then told them about the project and invited them to consider donating some photos to the project for publicity purposes, which I was willing to give them some time to peruse over, I assured them that I was making them a very good offer which they could take or leave. They gave me an e-mail of someone (who still hasn’t got back to me ~ strangely?) to contact with regards to it all.

But then Sara had another great idea. Go Sara, go Sara! How about if we got her husband Mike Scott to photograph us in our slightly melted get up, and we used these assured pics for the blog and some publicity? Sure we didn’t have the lighting or the fancy shmancy sets, but we had hair full of hairspray and faces full of wax and we were ready to burn ~ literally!

So we did. In the gorgeous location of ~ actually I’m not going to say. Only that it was a pub and it was my idea (the only one I managed to contribute that day!) So enjoy!

We are still due to go back and get Sara’s deposit and check out ‘Phil’s’ pictures which I’m sure won’t be a touch on Mike’s. Ha! So thanks Mike and Sara for your great ideas and support as always. xox

Please support The Pin Up Gals raise money for mouth cancer on the mouth cancer walk www.justgiving.pinupgalsproject.com

Related Articles

• Heidi Klum Poses As Marlene Dietrich, Talks Eyebrows (VIDEO, PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)