Friday, April 20, 2012

Fashionistas!



Thanks to Suave hair products, a stylist team, and DailyCandy, my friends and I got to attend this fabulous event at the Palomar Hotel and be treated like stars!  We first had our hair done (see above), which took the stylist about 4 minutes to do - impressive! She had lived for years in Paris and NYC doing hair and makeup, styling for Vogue and Marie Claire, to name a few. Pretty fascinating to imagine that life and her working runways and shoots with the top models in the world, frantically finishing model after model, sending them out.  This is, of course, how I imagine her career, which sadly might not have been as glamorous as I'm envisioning. Or maybe it was. I do know that I loved my hair and she did it so swiftly!


This event had light food provided, probably meant as a snack, which I made into dinner by filling my plate with about 6 kinds of cheese, bread, crackers, and fruit. There was a lady doing fashion drawings of people and my friend got an incredible one of herself. There were free gift bags full of Suave products (I love products! And free things! :) and some nice people. There were also two contestants that are currently on the show Fashion Star there... and we even got our photo with the cute guy! (Nzimiro Oputa and Orly Shani).



The event concluded with us all sitting, sporting our lovely new hairdos, and watching Fashion Star with the two contestants. During the commercials, they would tell us some behind-the-scenes stories, including how they got on the show, the process, and some of the gossip/back story that ended up cut from the show. I will just share a few things I thought was interesting. 

     •     I asked how they got on the show, and they both said a friend had emailed about the open call, and after realizing it was a real thing, were interested.  What I think is crazy is that Orly missed the open call, so emailed about it ... and they called her! Out of all the thousands of people that I'm guessing were at the open call, they a) noticed her email and b) instead of knocking her for missing the open call, they instead decided they wanted her to continue the audition process. To me this just shows how crazy life is, that she was meant to be on that show, that luck was on her side, and she got picked. Or her friend was an A- list star :) Nzimiro had a more traditional audition process. 

     •     Orly said that, unlike Project Runway, this show provided contestants with a pattern maker and a sewer. She said she could never do Project Runway, because she can't sew without a pattern, whereas Nzimiro apparently can make something out of anything. Just thought that was interesting - the contestants do the design, then can watch other people make it.

     •     They said that once they made it through the first round, they were flown to LA, where they had about 6 more interviews.  They said they would be escorted in and out of their hotel room, to and from interviews, because the producers didn't want them to accidentally run into another potential contestant.  Out of about 40, they were 2 of 16 chosen.  

     •     Orly is still a bartender in NYC. I'm not sure how either one of them ended up doing on the show... so we'll have to keep watching to find out! 

It was a lovely evening, and a great glimpse into an entirely different industry - an intriguing one of reality shows and fashion, and I felt glamorous to be amongst such stylish fashionistas!