A Face To Die For by Jan Warburton Page A

telling me Kate was back in London for a short while and was available to do a photographic shoot for Miss Courtney . Did I still want her? Of course I still did. The only problem … she was expensive.
    I conferred with Edward, and to my delight he agreed for her to model several garments for a showroom catalogue and wall displays. 'A top modelling face, might just tip the scales in our favour again,’ he conceded. Hooray!
    Sales had slowed down a bit since the huge success of the first two collections, in spite of my efforts to introduce a younger, snappier look to the range. New independent designers had taken off as I'd predicted, with their snazzy, shorter styles, and we were still dragging our heels.
    'But which photographer shall we use? Norman Parker Brown will be rather costly I imagine,' I said.
    'Too damned right he is! Kate Marshall will already cost us a bomb! Contact the photographic agency we've used before.'
    *
    Meeting up with her again at the photo session was interesting. She explained she was already aware that I was the designer she'd known at college from a photo of me in a magazine when we'd started up Miss Courtney .
    'Of course, I'd have willingly come like a shot to model for you before now, Annabel. I’ve just been so tied up on the Continent.' She fixed her beautiful pale grey eyes on me. 'But Norm decided we should both work over there this year, and I've been kept so busy. Paris and Milan are still the biggest fashion Meccas of course; their fashion houses snapped me up for all their shows every season. I had to do heaps of photographic modelling work for them too. Anyway, I'm back here for a short while and the agency mentioned you wanted me. Since Norm's been commissioned to photograph some Royals this week, I agreed to set it up with you.'
    I then admitted having seen her modelling one of my first Miss Courtney designs in the Harrods show.
    She nodded, grinning widely. 'That's right, I remember! That was the last show I did before going to Paris. Someone said you'd been in the audience. Why the hell didn't you come behind to see me?
    Fancy, I'd had no idea anyone had recognised me that day.
    Even so, Kate was a busy girl and the first photo shoot had to be done in record time. We'd finally chosen to use a young, up-and-coming photographer called Jake Sinclair. He was already popular with many top models and designers. Luckily Kate and he had worked together before and she liked him.
    The results of the afternoon's shoots in the V&A Museum and in Kensington Gardens turned out brilliantly. One of the photos even made it onto the cover of Vogue . Edward was especially overjoyed about that.
    'Wonderful shots! Great idea of Sinclair's ... to use the historical costume rooms at the museum as a backcloth. Nice contrast... period and modern. Perfect!'
    Using Kate had been a stroke of genius and I was already beginning to imagine what an asset knowing her personally might be to me in my quest for success.
    Even so, after that first photo shoot I saw very little of her again on a personal level, despite the occasional modelling job she did for us from time to time.
    There was one day though, when she was modelling in two of Edward's collection shows, held of course, in the more grandiose main House of Courtney salon. A small selection of my Ready-to- Wear garments was also included in the show. The shows had just happened to fit in neatly with a two day break in Kate’s extremely busy schedule; between the big collections in Paris and Milan and jetting off on exotic photo shoots with Parker Brown. He still monopolized her life.
    On the day of the shows we managed a brief working lunch together of sandwiches and coffee in my studio. As we chatted, I carried on selecting fabrics for designs from some new colour swatches that had just arrived in, anxious to show her that I too had a busy working life. Anyway, I was jolly proud of my achievement so far.
    As we chatted I couldn't help noticing a touch of