Ms. Hardison put her hand on my shoulder. “Baby,” she said, “models don’t talk that much.” Consulting the bulletin board, Mr. Bastian instructed his stylists to dress me in two of the looks, both involving cashmere sweaters and cloth-covered loafers worn without socks. At one point, four people were touching me, tweaking and zhuzhing: human carwash. I loved it.

After each wardrobe change, I did my walk. You could almost hear a mangy German shepherd tied to a chain-link fence, barking. Ms. Hardison later told me that, when I had reached the far side of the room the first time, Mr. Bastian had turned to her and said, “Is he putting us on?”

For my second attempt, various members of the group gave me suggestions, all in an effort to cure my stooped shoulders and my lack of urgency or self-importance, my failure to convey that my devastating man-musk would bodily flatten all who crossed its path. Stefan Campbell, the director of the show, suggested I push my navel against my spine. Ms. Hardison told me to walk as if I had a secret. Then she asked me to name a hero (I said, “David Bowie”) and then to walk like him.

It all felt a little drama school, and I feared someone was going to tell me to lie on the cold studio floor and to breathe through my ankles.

Mr. Bastian then invited me to watch some of the other models audition. The parade of physical and sartorial beauty was dazzling. The models were the opposite of what I’d expected: they were largely heterosexual and shy and sweet. I also learned that when walking, I should pick a spot on the wall, for focus. I learned that smiling was the mark of the amateur.

That night at home, I practiced my walking. Every designer, it’s been said, has a preferred gait. Ms. Prada’s has been described as “zombie” and Marc Jacobs’s as “running for the bus.” Mr. Bastian’s, I’d decided, is more “date with destiny” or “Easter Island: The Walk-Off.”