When Monsoon booked Elsie for their spring dresses, she took her preparation extremely seriously. There was a training schedule. It was drawn in crayon, and it said, in full: "TWIRL."
For two weeks, every dress in the house was tested for what she calls spin-ability. The scoring system is complicated and known only to Elsie, but it appears to involve how high the hem flies and whether Captain Buttons (teddy bear, business partner) looks impressed from his seat on the garden wall.
The photographer wanted movement in every frame - real spinning, not posed - and Elsie was in her element. She twirled until the birch trees behind her were a blur. When the photographer switched to black and white, she asked to see the back of the camera, studied the photo for a long moment, and said, "That's the fastest I've ever been." We had it printed for her wall.
Our favourite part of the job came a month later: a lady stopped us outside the supermarket to say her daughter had chosen "the twirling dress" from the catalogue for her birthday. Elsie was quiet and pink-cheeked about it all the way home, and then practised her autograph. She's ready, apparently, just in case.