Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model

Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model
Victoire Dauxerre

A memoir of a brief career as a top model - and the brutally honest account of what goes on behind the scenes in a fascinating, closed industry.Scouted in the street when she is 17, Victoire Dauxerre’s story started like a teenager’s dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York’s major fashion shows, and part of the most select circle of in-demand supermodels in the world.But when fashion executives and photographers began to pressure her about her weight, forcing her to become ever thinner, Victoire’s fantasy came at a cost. Food was now her enemy, and soon, living on only three apples a day and Diet Coke galore, Victoire became anorexic.An unflinching, painful expose of the uglier face of fashion, her testimony is a shocking example of how our culture’s mechanisms of anorexia and bulimia can push a young woman to the point of suicide. It is the story of a survivor whose fight against poisonous illness and body image shows us how to take courage and embrace life.

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Copyright (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.williamcollinsbooks.com)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © Éditions des Arènes, Paris, 2016

English translation © Andy Bliss 2017

Cover photograph © Dan Kennedy

Victoire Dauxerre asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This edition published by arrangement with Éditions des Arènes in conjunction with their duly appointed agents The St Marks Agency, London.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008220525

Ebook Edition © February 2017 ISBN: 9780008220501

Version: 2018-01-22

Dedication (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9)

To my darling brothers, Alexis and Léopold

To my Granddaddy, whom I miss

And to every woman out there

Epigraph (#u08ca050e-da91-50a4-bbaf-b3dd02dbcfc9)

It is the stars,

The stars above us govern our conditions.

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene III

Contents

Cover (#uc0aee6c6-3372-5075-99c4-d81410f4dda3)

Title Page (#udb2832d4-7dee-56d6-b5e9-2188b10f4c2f)

Copyright (#ubac845cb-e1d8-581c-81b2-ac31126d8b16)

Dedication (#u0de1d064-bb9f-54f6-9a8a-db0af24be738)

Epigraph (#u27c3418e-b31a-545c-add0-37ccb3ad6edc)

Flashback (#u2915bf12-0d91-5ba5-8e3a-ed40ff80558c)

Claudia Schiffer (#u666c6392-8df3-5f7d-bd18-a579811d69db)

Waiting for Sciences Po (#ua4a8b1dc-facd-5e09-8bd4-2d4e998d6981)

Something Vintage, Something Classy (#u3d44e119-7333-5e95-8564-d42c295f9d81)

The Cathedral of Fashion (#u48617c01-a5a6-5886-9b30-2d888a6e431d)

Playing With My Body (#u61f378a5-e4ae-5619-aedf-cd1b4eecfb8e)

Learning How to Walk (#uef8a66eb-7605-5736-ae72-6625b19bc3ed)

33 23 34 (#ua4a0179c-ce60-5d98-b539-29d12791e326)

Three Apples a Day (#u7d22f7d4-eebd-553d-8c49-db621bdc3b32)

Yùki (#ucb975afa-b215-5bb9-9f0b-c10485682ea4)

The American Dream (#u3b781cd6-e81a-51c3-98ae-e05a5ee0193b)

The Little Voice (#litres_trial_promo)

Stop Eating! (#litres_trial_promo)

New York (#litres_trial_promo)

Casting Hell (#litres_trial_promo)

Russell Marsh (#litres_trial_promo)