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"   I started working for stylist Mel Ottenberg in New York when I was 23. He was looking for a new first assistant and got my phone number from another freelancer. Today, Mel is Rihanna&amp;#039;s stylist, but at the time he mostly worked on magazine editorials and print campaigns, and his big celebrity client was Christian Dior designer John Galliano.  I loved Galliano&amp;amp;#146;s work. In high school, I watched his runway shows on TV and pulled pictures of his designs out of magazines and taped them to my bedroom walls. I knew from previous jobs with other high-profile clients that I would probably have little (if any) personal interaction with him &amp;amp;#151; that was Mel&amp;amp;#146;s job; mine was to be as invisible as possible &amp;amp;#151; but it was still exciting.  Back then, one of the things Galliano was famous for was wearing theatrical costumes to take his bow at the end of every show. It was Mel&amp;#039;s job to style those final looks, and, as his assistant, it was my job to make sure he had everything he needed to do it right. On any other job that would have meant requesting runway looks from designers and coordinating messengers, but Galliano wasn&amp;#039;t interested in the kind of mainstream designer clothes that could be bought at Barneys or Saks. He wanted to look original, so everything had to be one-of-a kind, antique, or custom-made.  Three Galliano finale looks The 2009 Christian Dior cruise collection had a retro Palm-Springs-pool-party vibe, but Galliano didn&amp;amp;#146;t want to match his collection and told Mel he wanted to look like the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist.  The Artful Dodger The Artful Dodger was a street kid and a thief, so Mel wanted everything to look really old and beat up, but still luxurious and Victorian. I found half a dozen battered and broken antique military coats at a vintage clothing archive downtown &amp;amp;#151; dusty and stained with torn silk linings and ripped up hems. Mel loved them and we rented all six so Galliano would have options to choose from. But between the coats and the few tattered silk waistcoats I dug out of a bin in the back of the archive, most of our $5000 budget was spent and we didn&amp;#039;t even have any pants yet. Mel had a separate and much larger budget for Galliano&amp;#039;s personal clothing, most of which we bought at a dark and very expensive store downtown that specialized in men&amp;#039;s skirts and $400 Rick Owens tank tops. We hoped that some of the clothes we bought there would work for John&amp;#039;s finale costume as well. We bought a $2000 pair of boots four sizes too big &amp;amp;#151; Galliano loved wearing oversized shoes &amp;amp;#151; and a pair of coarsely woven pants for probably another $1000. On our way back to the office Mel saw a homeless man digging through a garbage can on the corner and said, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the look. It&amp;#039;s perfect. Ask him how much he wants for it?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;How much he wants for what?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Everything! The coat, the shoes, those socks. That&amp;#039;s the look!&amp;quot;  I refused. I told Mel there wasn&amp;#039;t time to clean it and Galliano wouldn&amp;#039;t want to wear something smelly. &amp;quot;Besides,&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;where would he change? Here on the street?&amp;quot; Mel reluctantly agreed with me, but told me it was my job to make sure the rest of the outfit had that same feel and patina as what the homeless man was wearing, and he made me take a picture of the guy with my digital camera for reference. While Mel went to meet with a jewelry designer about borrowing a &amp;quot;perfectly crushed&amp;quot; antique top hat, I started customizing pieces for Galliano&amp;#039;s outfit. Galliano wanted a ring of daisies to go around the brim of his hat, but I was worried florist daisies would be too perfect, so I sent the intern to go pick some in a nearby park. While he was out, I took out some white house paint and began speckling and splashing Galliano&amp;#039;s new oversized $2000 boots. I used sandpaper and a &amp;quot;dirt kit&amp;quot; Mel had full of little bags of different colored dry clay. I threw the boots into the street outside Mel&amp;amp;#146;s apartment and let cars run over them to try and break them in a little more. I sprayed them with vinegar and dipped pieces of them in boiling water. I didn&amp;#039;t really know what I was doing, but I had a photo of Galliano&amp;#039;s favorite pair of boots to base my work on and I just went for it. The intern came back with the daisies and I started weaving them together to make a crown. I had never made a flower crown before, but it seemed pretty straightforward, so I sent the intern to buy socks on Saint Marks Place while I worked.  Next, I took the $1000 pants and cut the bottoms off with a pair of kitchen scissors to make them more cropped, then I started picking at the edges with my teeth and various kitchen utensils until I had achieved the perfect fray. The intern returned with a pair of thigh-high black-and-white striped socks, a pack of white tube socks, and some grey ragwool socks. I put all the socks on a tray and poured boiling coffee on them, then I popped them into a 500-degree oven until they caught on fire. Once the socks were dry and freshly singed, I wadded them up, added more, darker coffee, and put them back in the oven to try and make the color a little less even. I had the intern rub coffee grounds onto the boots, and since he was a smoker, I had him put some holes in the pants with a lit cigarette. When the socks caught fire again I took them out, unrolled them, and continued to dry them with a hair dryer. I wanted to turn the thigh-highs into legwarmers and matching fingerless gloves, so I used the little burn holes as starting points and ripped them in half with my teeth. I turned the feet into gloves by chewing holes in the end and then I repeated the process with the other socks while the intern went at the boots with some coarse sandpaper.  When Mel came back with the hat, I popped the flower crown on its brim and helped him into a cab with the rental coats and all my freshly-distressed clothes, and we headed up to the Dior offices for Galliano&amp;#039;s fitting. Galliano decided against the gloves and the flowers, but he loved everything else, and he wore another flower crown I made him a few months later at a CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund event. Mel was happy. Galliano was happy. And I was picking synthetic sock yarn out of my teeth for a week.  Galliano at the 2009 Christian Dior cruise collection show  RELATED LINKS: I Was a Competitive Child Ice Dancer. Almost. Want a Career in Fashion? Read This.      Follow Charles on Twitter. Photo Credit: Getty Images      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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