It’s an odd thing to achieve a lifelong dream and find, almost immediately, another one waiting on the horizon. You’d think the satisfaction of achievement would be more long-lasting. That you’d arrive, exhale, feel the horizon stop moving and the dream finally settle into place. But that’s not how it works, not for me at least.

When I was younger I used to drop off Eugene’s prints at Windle so he could put them into his book. I’d collect them in from the photo labs on my bike, cycle them to wherever Eugene needed them, the salon or the agency, hand them over to reception, and leave. I’d stand in the salon for those brief moments and feel the atmosphere, a buzz. I knew then, that if I ever was going to work in a salon Windle was the place.

It took me decades to get there. There was a career break in the middle, I took a decade to focus on what I’ve always known to be my true vocation: bringing up my children. Life took the shape it needed to take. The dream sat where dreams sit when you can’t act on them. Not gone. Just waiting.

Then, in the spring of 2024, I put together a list of salons I’d like to work in. Of course Windle was the first place to go on that list. I interviewed at a few, quite an eye opener, and miraculously, within a month I found myself stepping through the door at Windle.

I felt like Aladdin stepping into a cave full of treasure. It’s not a return to a previous chapter, it’s literally a dream come true. Finally stepping inside a building I’d go out of my way just to walk past, so I could fantasise about working there. Inside it’s obviously a bit different, bigger now, but the atmosphere I’d sensed in reception all those years ago — the focused calm — is still there.

So that’s another dream achieved. I expected this might finally settle something, but of course it didn’t.

Because almost as soon as I’d landed inside the salon where I’d wanted to be for so long, the session work horizon reappeared. I knew Eugene still prepped there sometimes — Paul mentioned this at my interview.

Then one day Paul and I were chatting in reception and in walks guess who: Eugene. And when he sees me, he says “Simon!”

Knees go to jelly. Starstruck, despite my best efforts to conceal it — because I know that irks Eugene’s humility. I think he’s never been comfortable with the intensity of admiration that follows him around, and so I tried to dim it on his behalf. But 30 years on he’s still at the top of his game — just like KRS — and I couldn’t conceal that. Even just offering him a cup of tea I felt like a sycophant.

The next thing I know, we’re walking through the salon to the garden at the back, catching up on lost time and in passing he casually says: We’ve got to get you back on the team.

I’d said to Paul that I was afraid this might happen. In fact I think the exact phrase I used was that “I was scared I’d be tempted to run away to the circus,” in what I thought was the highly unlikely scenario whereby Eugene would a) recognise me and b) invite me back to the world of shows and shoots and call sheets. The world I loved all those years ago.

So of course I declined the offer…

Oh how it pains me to see that written down!

But I mustn’t be too hard on myself. I declined because I wanted to focus my attention on my chair in the salon. But that wasn’t the only reason. I’m in a phase of life where work could easily become a way to avoid other things. Where the circus could be less about the work itself and more about not having to be present for everything else. I didn’t want to fall into that addictive mode. And I was still shedding the last vestiges of impostor syndrome at that point. I know how easy it is not to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Living in London I see it all around me. That’s part of why I held back, even though deep down I could feel every cell in me wanting to say yes.

And there was something else underneath all of that, which I’ll come to.

I was also, frankly, chasing the wrong thing. There’s a KRS-One clip I think about a lot:

[KRS-One video embed placeholder — the principle: chase the money and it runs away, do it for the culture and the money chases you.]

As far as I can see, this is exactly Eugene’s MO. And that’s exactly what I’d lose sight of if I jumped at the offer too early, before I had stabilised my foundations at the salon. Before I’d grounded myself.

So I wrote him a letter. Obviously I’m not gonna show you what was in it — partly because that’s between us, but even if Eugene said he wouldn’t mind, I think I’m kinda embarrassed about how gutsy I’ve been. The substance was clear, at least I hope it was. I told him what I’d want this to be if we were to do it. Not assistance. Not picking up crumbs from his table. Not chasing his work or trying to inherit it. Something quite different.

I’d been my usual vulnerable self about all of this with Paul. The worry about the circus. The salon as something precious I didn’t want to lose. The deeper anxieties I’m not going to go into here. Paul listened. He didn’t dismiss the worry, nor did he dramatise it. He just held it carefully, which is exactly what a good mentor does.

He came back to me on it. He said something that has been a real breakthrough in how I think about this salon/session question, which I now know isn’t really a dichotomy at all. If held properly, both can complement each other.

In essence he said: it’s kinda obvious to the team here you belong in that world. If you’re unsure whether or not you want it, then pursue it just to find out. But when you do, just make sure you don’t let it take your energy. Make sure it nourishes you.

That advice felt cryptic in the moment, like almost all the wonderful advice Paul gives me. But as I’ve mulled it over these past weeks, it’s become ever more undeniable.

What’s unfolded since is the clarity I couldn’t quite see when I declined. I don’t want to assist Eugene. I want to work alongside him as a peer, a collaborator. My motivation is the same as it was three decades ago: I just deeply want to help and to be around Eugene. To me it feels like a friendship, like we’re birds of a feather. I wish it was that simple, but when it’s Daedalus’s feathers I can’t help thinking of Icarus.

I’m not nineteen anymore though. Now I have things to bring that I didn’t have then. I have a life outside the fashion world — ways of thinking and being that came from squatland, from anarchist principles I still hold, from the years of immersion in Paris counterculture that wasn’t about the shows. There’s a scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Nigel’s dream of finally seeing Paris properly, not just attending the shows, is dashed at an award ceremony. I stepped into Nigel’s dream when I was so young, and doing so rewarded me handsomely. Now I know I have precious things I want to share with Eugene. Honesty, candour, a deeply unorthodox perspective on life.

I can feel I’m doing the emotional work right here and now. Scratching away at the foolishness of being starstruck so that these qualities of mine can actually fly, and land. The act of writing this is a core part of that work.

I’m pretty sure Eugene would enjoy a tour of that world. Not in Paris. The artsquat scene there has been decimated by recent changes in the law. But here in London, where counterculture still seems to be hanging on by a thread and where I’m more embedded anyway.

Just like in the good ol’ days of assisting for free, I’m not in this for the money. Money has never motivated me. The “payment” I’m seeking isn’t financial. It’s technical: learning how he works now. It’s social: meeting the people he thinks I should meet. And it’s reputational: he’s been at the top of my CV for thirty years, and a conversation or two between us, here on this blog or somewhere else, would be worth more than any fee.

That’s the version I could say yes to. That’s the version that would nourish me rather than drain me.

It’s strange. You spend your life pulling toward a horizon, and when you finally reach it, you find the horizon isn’t there. Or rather, it hasn’t gone away, it’s just different and there’s always something beyond it. The question isn’t whether to keep moving toward it. The question is the one Paul left me with.

Does it nourish me?