www.timesonline.co.uk
The first and last time
Laura Bailey
The first time . . . I wore Chanel was six years ago, at the Cannes film festival. I was almost scared to try the dress on, saving it like a child hoards Easter chocolate. Chanel meant another life — Paris shot in smoky black and white, raven-haired starlets, that sort of thing — while I was happiest in miniskirts and flip-flops. But as the silky layers of grey slipped over my shoulders, I became a dress girl, or, rather, woman. I stood taller. I did my eyeliner properly. The dress could have been made for me — I felt both held and free. Earlier that day, I’d been boating and hiking, and I was salt-sprayed, sweaty, barefoot. A man whom I’d spent the day chatting to introduced himself to me that night on the red carpet. I giggled and blamed the transformative powers of Chanel. The dress was sent back the next day, but my new-found grown-up grace remained.
The last time . . . I ate meat, I was 12 years old, vulnerable to all kinds of “save the world” propaganda. On a school trip to France, the teacher thought it would be amusing to introduce us to the delights of frogs’ legs. Suddenly, I couldn’t separate the animals that I loved from the food on my plate — I could hear the crunching of bones and limbs at the table. The combination of steamed skin and deep-fried flesh repelled me. Unidentified crunchy bits and imaginary eyes pleading from a pool of garlic butter tormented me, and I had the kind of cosmic enlightenment only a 12-year-old is capable of. Enough was enough. I was not meant to do this. I put down my fork and asked in my best schoolgirl French for “plus de pommes frites, s’il vous plaît”. I have never changed my mind.