I saw a sign in the local shop yesterday morning for dry cleaning; it costs £5.30 per item. Seeing that notice took me back to 1969, when I thought I was a woman – a fifteen year old piece of skin and bone with no breasts. Out in the wonderful world; my first a job was in a boutique on Glasgow’s Renfield Street. Walls painted black, clothes rails hooked on chains that dangled from the ceiling and music on a loop so that we all knew which song came next; My Cherie Amour crawled through our minds, Proud Mary boomed, and Back in the USSR banged. We boogied Bad Moon Rising and blasted Alright Now out of the open glass doors; we were the biggest attraction in the street.
I was the youngest on the staff, and last in, so it became my job to take the shop-soiled merchandise to be cleaned. I had to take it to the nearest launderette with a dry-cleaning machine – which at that time was the one at St George’s Cross. I’d get on the subway with my bag, and a little pile of money. I didn’t mind, it was a good skive, and it got me away from the manageress! The Shetland wool crew-necks would have black lines across the shoulders from dust, and customers’ grubby fingers sliding the hangers along and along. So I got to read my Mills&Boon in peace for an hour then, I’d smooth and fold and stack the laundry back into the bag; the fumes from the chemicals would turn my head. Later in the day I’d have to iron everything and return them to the rails. I often wonder if shops still do that; or do they just sell off the soiled and damaged stuff cheap. That was another thing; I had to make repair whenever I could, invisibly – burst seams, hems, replace buttons – I even had to dye something, I think; perhaps it had faded from being in the window. I’m sure I had to sign the secret’s act.
After a couple of months, and with a few wage packets under my belt, I became a fashion statement. We would strut out at lunchtime, and sail through Central Station to the chip shop…sure that everyone was staring at us and turning green with envy at our daring style. We wore midi skirts, maxi skirts, tightly-fitted corduroy bell-bottoms and long-sleeved, narrow T-shirts with stars on. Made up with Miner’s Face Shapers and Rimmel Black Tulip lipstick (my father told me that if I ever collapsed in the street people would think I’d had a heart attack…my mother was mortified every time I left the house). We could only afford chips for lunch; most days I brought in bread for the toaster upstairs; I needed all my money to buy cigarettes – Players No10 were the cheapest, and if I paid child’s fare on the bus to and from work I could afford a pack of 20 a day. Sometimes I just stared out of the window and didn’t have to pay at all.
The Look was everything; I’d never been so stylish in my life. At one time we all had page-boy hairstyles, and we’d dot a few freckles across our noses with a brown eyebrow pencil. False eyelashes spiked from top and bottom, like long spiders’ legs; underneath we’d either draw or paint spiked lines – eyes were the thing. I have a vague memory of leaning on the handbag counter and looking up at boys who’d come in with their girlfriends. I thought I was stunningly beautiful, and, the sad look was in. When I was sixteen I assumed the world had been created just for me – and a few of my friends of course. It was a private club and we were the only members; no-one else could ever be as fabulous as us, except anyone who could afford to shop at Biba or Busstop.
The window dresser began to train me up, and the window became my stage; I would strike a pose, sitting on the floor at the feet of my mannequins – a doe-eyed dreamer, catching the attention of passing boys, sailors and unbeautiful teenagers. A new girl took over the dry-cleaning, though I still spent a lot of time at the ironing board, getting the packing-creases out of window stock. After many months I felt I was in control of my environment; choosing colour themes and styles gave me the confidence to argue with the manageress about sale items of the wrong hue going in my display. She didn’t have a creative bone in her whole body. I stormed out of my beautiful career and took a job in a café on West Nile Street. It was late 1970. Things were never quite the same again.
