The Party
Anya did so much to help me make the rebranding party a success. I couldn’t thank her enough. She lined up three top female models and two very sexy male models for a shoot with the bags. I hadn’t had to pay the models; their agents were able to write it off as charitable work as I’d made a donation on their behalf to the charity I was supporting in conjunction with the event.
I managed to talk my silent partners (Mother and Father) into releasing funds to finance a poster ad campaign in choice locations around London and Manchester, including bus stops and prominent wall spaces. Of course Anya was used to seeing herself on large billboards but I had my fellow passengers on the bus in spasms one morning.
‘Look,’ I shouted, ‘that’s my friend up there. And that’s my bag!’
We’d just approached a roundabout and, high up on a wall was the poster of Anya, sitting in a studio wearing a pearl-coloured dress that spread on the floor all around her. Her knees were bent under the dress and my designer bag sat artistically on her knees, a look in her eye that said, “I wouldn’t buy any other bag.” Or at least that was my interpretation. The slogan read: “Anya Stankovic, Every Woman.” Beneath that the Shearman Bright logo was tastefully displayed. It completely blew my mind.
The people on the bus looked around at each other and at me, the crazy person who dared to talk to strangers on public transport. Some politely looked at the poster and smiled at me, possibly not believing a word I’d said. Those who hadn’t separated themselves from their earphones also looked up. Having not heard what I said, they probably thought I’d won on Gala bingo. I sat, looking smug, for the entire bus ride and for the whole time I was on the tube from Hammersmith to Green Park.
Posters and banners designed using the very best of the photos from the shoot with Anya and her supermodel friends were put up in the windows and lifts at Harrods to promote the evening event. As Harrods was the main seller of Shearman man bags (and not least because my sister, Ebony, was a chief buyer at Harrods) I’d arranged the rebranding party to take place there.
Harrods would clear a whole floor for the event, which would involve finger foods and champagne, interviews with all the designers of the new line of Shearman Bright women’s handbags, and more celebrities than you could shake a stick at.
‘I’ll give Naomi and Kate a call,’ Anya had casually said to me one day during the planning stages. ‘See if either of them are free for the party.’
‘Really?’ I said, eyes popping out of my head in glee. ‘I’ll send them both bags; hopefully they’ll be carrying them when they arrive. If they arrive. I hope they arrive. Which reminds me, I must make sure the press photographers are there in good time. Who else could you get?’
Anya came up with a list of at least ten other models and a handful of actors. They, or their agents, all said yes to coming to the event.
I went through the list of celebrities I knew, personally, and invited them. No one from my list was as fabulous as Anya’s but they’d be great to have along. I cornered Mother and my sisters and made sure they invited every fashion person they knew. The editors of my favourite magazines, Marie Claire and Vogue, were a “Yes”. I’d invited editors from other magazines but as long as my two favourites were there I’d be happy. All the relevant journalists and bloggers were now on board and there’d been tons of coverage online.
On all our social media we announced that there would be limited tickets open to the public, all money going to the charity, plus Harrods had approved a one-night only huge discount deal for the lucky recipients of tickets. Weeks of good press both in print and online sparked off enough interest to bring a good number of fashion-hungry fans of leather goods rushing to buy tickets from the revamped Shearman Bright website. In fact, the day that ticket sales were announced they were gone in a matter of hours.
Seeing how well the response from the public had been, I decided to run a competition on Instagram, Twitter, and the website to win an Every Woman bag. It was a free to enter prize draw for anyone subscribing to the mailing list, which saw our subscribers shoot up by a staggering amount. On Twitter #ShearmanBrightEveryWoman was trending.
I was on a high during the weeks of preparation and each night I would come home and lie flat on my back on my red sofa for hours on end, as if I’d just run the New York and London marathons back to back. I was only able to lift my head when Anthony held a glass of wine near my nose. I’d have a few sips and he would walk me to the kitchen table where he’d cooked me a meal and made sure I ate before I went to bed.
‘I could get Marcey Gates along,’ said Riley out of the blue one day.
Marcey Gates was the latest breaking artist in commercial music. Her first album had outsold Adele’s latest and she was due to begin a world tour starting in LA, already having broken into the US charts.
‘You know her?’ I asked Riley, choking on a croissant.
‘She was my best friend at school,’ Riley replied, casually.
My mouth dropped open. ‘And you guys are still in touch?’ I said.
Riley nodded. ‘Oh yeah. She and I used to sing in her bedroom. In fact when she started appearing on YouTube, singing covers, I was usually sitting on the bed out of sight and flicking through a magazine. That battered old Korg she used to play was her brother’s. I went out with him for a while.’ Riley’s eyes glazed over, then she shook her head. ‘But Marcey and I text all the time. She texted when she signed to Sony and I texted her when you offered me the job here.’
I stared at Riley, completely amazed. ‘Yes, p-please invite her,’ I stammered. ‘And if it’s all right with her management we could have her perform, too?’
‘I’ll get on the phone to her now.’
‘I love you, Riley.’ I hugged her, all the while happy that I’d gone on my instincts and hired her in the first place.
So, the scene was set. As long as half the celebrities who said they’d come showed up, we’d have a successful party and by the weekend, the majority of shops selling Shearman man bags would also be selling the all-new Shearman Bright range.
The big night finally arrived. Most of the A-Listers showed up as well as the right amount of media and industry people and, of course, there was Anthony, my A-Lister boyfriend.
Never really one for wanting to be around flashing cameras and flashy people, especially the ones in fashion, Anthony did a lot of hanging out on the sidelines.
‘Thank you for being here.’ I found a spare moment to slip in beside him before he wandered out into the corridor to spend the evening playing chess on his phone.
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ said Anthony. ‘You know I wouldn’t miss this for anything. Your special night. Your parties get better and better.’
‘Well, I did my best,’ I replied, looking around and taking in how wonderful the atmosphere had been.
‘Looks like you’ve got some really big names here,’ he said.
‘And what do you know about really big names in the world of fashion?’ I asked, turning to him with a raised eyebrow.
‘Nothing, but people keep introducing themselves to me and telling me how important they are.’
We both laughed.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ said Anthony. He squeezed my hand and flashed me one of his wide, Anthony smiles. ‘And I love the new logo. Shearman Bright. Has quite a ring to it.’
‘I thought so.’
‘There she is!’ someone exclaimed and in seconds I was whisked away from Anthony and didn’t see him until he came to kiss me on the cheek later, telling me he’d take a taxi home and would see me there.
Marcey Gates’s management were happy to allow their artist to perform. It was a one-off and two weeks away from her tour. The added publicity of her drinking champagne with Naomi Campbell et al didn’t hurt and neither did it hurt Shearman Bright that a young rock star was photographed carrying one of the Every Woman bags.
‘You did it, Magenta.’ Riley put her arm around my waist as we listened to her pop star friend perform acoustically. She sang a handful of songs, accompanied by a guitarist on a high stool, all of which would inevitably end up on YouTube.
‘We did it,’ I said putting my arm around her shoulder and squeezing her thin frame to me.
The music floated around us and we clapped, almost hysterically, at the end of every number. We made the most of the celebration because the next day it would be business as usual and what an awful lot of business was being generated that night.