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Mermaid to Order
Posh department store Neiman Marcus is famous for its Christmas catalogue full of weird, wonderful, and incredibly expensive present ideas. The 2003 version featured a mermaid costume—which came with swimming lessons from the man who turned Daryl Hannah into a mermaid in Splash. The made-to-order costume cost £10,000 but its creator, LA film-industry veteran Thom Shouse, agreed to let me try one out. We borrowed the fancy rooftop pool at the ParkerMeridien Hotel on West 57th Street for my maiden swim.
It took me a long, hellish ten minutes alone to wriggle into the heavy rubber tail—which had been created for another slightly slenderer body—that of actress Alyssa Milano for the TV series Charmed. I then spent an hour flailing around  on the side of the pool draped in shells and a blond wig and squeezing in my tummy whilst Post veteran photographer Steve Hirsch snapped away. Steve and I had worked on numerous more serious stories together, including two high-pressure assignments to Nantucket to track down disgraced Tyco boss Dennis Kozlowski, who was eventually imprisoned in 2005 for plundering millions from the manufacturing company. Steve thought snapping me now squeezed into a mermaid suit hilarious in comparison. |
