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!
