A couple of weeks ago on just another, cloudy Parisian morning, facing the computer with coffee and cigarette, an OMG!” mail pops up on my screen. What’s it gonna be this time, fresh pics of some celebrity’s armpit? Nah, it was something way more interesting, a j-peg from the McQ and US discount store TARGET’s new lookbook. It’s no big deal if Mr McQueen collaborates with TARGET. But… Isn’t that me on that print? Is my face really spread on that blondish girl’s breast ? OMG! People are gonna be wearing my face.

Back in early 2006, when I’d just moved to London, I was kind of modeling here and there, but mostly just going out as much as I could. Me and some of the other kids I’d been hanging out with were asked to drop by some magazine’s office and a few months later my face ended-up bigger than a house in Milan, New York and God knows where-else advertising Alexander McQueen’s cheaper McQ line. At that point I started suspecting we probably weren’t paid enough but none of the kids being plied with cocktails at McQ’s launch party seemed to mind, so I let it pass.

I thought my fucked-up, post new-wave/ teenage goth/military look was quite cool if a little embarrassing, but I’ve been taken in and spat out by the machine and reproduced as a $39.99 print dress designed to sell to Kelly Osbourne wannabes on their Saturday afternoon mall trips.

ALBAN ADAM