Here’s the latest Diary of an Anonymous Fashion Assistant entry, where our contributor, who shall henceforth be known as Blair Mercer, dishes about the daily life of a fashion assistant at a major fashion mag at a major publishing house. She’s hauled sacks of Louboutins through the Sahara, been wrestled by Colonel Gaddafi’s guards at a five star hotel in Paris and was physically scarred by an A-list celeb. She’ll tell you all about it.

Setting off from London this time, we’ve been shooting a three-part ad for a famous champagne brand. Having done the first two parts in England, it’s going to culminate in an extravagant recreation of a grand ball in the brand’s French chateau. Fashion Director (FD) and I are struggling under the weight of 18 trunks and I enlist the help of English Best Friend (EBF), also a fashion assistant, to come to France with us as additional dogsbody/bag carrier. We have so many cases we need a Mack truck from our hotel to the Eurostar. We end up ramming the cases in the tiny luggage compartments and each sitting in a separate carriage to watch over them–hair, makeup, and 15 models are forced to be our security detail.

Arrive in Paris, and all pile onto the huge bus that will take us north to the Champagne region. Two hours later we turn a corner to a beautiful five-star hotel, EBF and I getting seriously excited until the bus driver shouts “Talent only!”, the models hop off, and the bus trundles on. We pull up outside a tiny, run down B&B and discover not only are we staying here, three miles from the nice hotel, but there’s no elevator. Nine trips up the stairs later, EBF pushes the door open to our tiny room where we’re going to spend the next two nights climbing over the cases to get to our bed (singular) and storing as much as we can in the bath.

The next morning, all drama is forgotten when we see the breathtaking chateau–marbled floors, mirrored hallways, and more chandeliers than you can cram onto one ceiling. The first hours fly by as we frantically unpack, steam, dress the girls, hem pants, tie bowties, and greet the guards who have brought the millions of euros of jewelry.