The call came on a Tuesday. My agent said one word - "Milan" - and I spent the next thirty seconds pretending to be calm.
Men's fashion week is a strange machine when you're inside it for the first time. The castings are fast and brutal: you walk ten metres, someone nods or doesn't, and you're back on the street inside four minutes. I did nineteen castings in three days and booked four shows. I'm told that's a good ratio. It didn't feel like it at casting number eleven.
The shows themselves are over almost before they begin. Hours of fittings, steaming, and standing around in socks - then ninety seconds under the lights that justify all of it. What surprised me most was the silence backstage right before the first exit. Forty models, dressers, producers - and total quiet. Then the music hits and the machine starts moving.
The lesson came from an older model, a guy who'd walked every season for a decade. He watched me bouncing on my toes before the Boss show and said: "Nerves mean you think this is about you. It isn't. Carry the clothes." That reframe fixed my walk on the spot.
I flew home exhausted, broke from the coffee prices, and completely certain I wanted to do it all again.