Six Six Sick In The Head: A Shopping Spree in The District

Christina in the aisle of Lasting Art (28th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue). They have a really amazing selection of fake flowers at a very reasonable price.

Fashion Week is quickly approaching, and since we will each be working full time at our respective day jobs, in addition to our crazy schedule of night jobs, we're trying to make all of our outfits beforehand in preparation. We have four different outfits in mind, which means four times as much shopping. I think anybody who has worked in the New York fashion industry would agree to having a love/hate relationship with the district. It's one of the ugliest, most unpleasant neighborhoods in Manhattan, filled with some of the most despicable lowlifes (on more than one occasion I've seen men chasing each other around with crowbars, etc), but it's full of nearly every single fabric, tool, and creative material you could ever possibly imagine. Even when you're a little sick in the head, like us.

This is the somewhat demented looking shopping list that we compiled:

3 fake white doves

10 bouquets fake white roses

6 bouquets fake white daisies

1 bouquet fake hydrangeas

2 tracks of 18-inch long black synthetic hair

Plaster of Paris bandage wrapping

1 1/2 yards black coated cotton

1 1/2 yards clear black vinyl

30 yards black elastic, 30 yards white elastic

48 gluesticks

3 yards each: nude jersey, white jersey, black jersey

1/2 gallon high gloss white paint

Christina and I managed to pick up most of the list in a couple of hours running around some of my favorite district spots: Lasting Art, Mood, and the Wig shop. Nicollette finished it off by picking up the rest at Spandex House and Daytona Trim. We've already started work on some of the outfits, and there are plenty of crazy DIYs coming soon...

Some more of the amazing selection of fake flowers!

When you need fake hair, you need fake hair. Wigs (6th Ave b/t 28th and 29th) is even scarier looking on the inside, but if you ever want to DIY your very own Margiela wig jacket (perhaps a future project for us to think about?), this is the place to go!

Christina at Mood, the fabric store of Project Runway fame. We don't go to Mood very often because it's a little out of our budget, but when we do, they always have the best selection of fabrics. We were very tempted by several things, like the rolls and rolls of Marc Jacobs Spring 2008 silk fabrics, which were selling for $40 a yard! We were good though, and avoiding things that weren't on our list.

This printed jersey fabric was super tempting. It's a print featuring all the holidays on it, and it totally looks like a Heatherette designed fabric, but it doesn't have their name on it, so I'm not sure if it came from them. It's $12 a yard, and would make great leggings, but we decided to pass because we don't need it. Hopefully it will be around next time...

-Tiffany

Nom De Guerre

There seems to be a lot of men on the blog lately, but here is a little more for the boys. I spent all last weekend assisting Nom De Guerre's Fall Winter Look Book. I once thought of the line as a skater street wear brand but the line has evolved in to an amazing menswear line with that has everything from suiting to denim. They draw most of their inspiration for WWII military garb with lots of layers and texture, but still have stream lined features. This seasons coats and jackets were made of a rubberized canvas, based on the Protective gear worn by Eastern European military officers. This could be the influence of Holly's (NDG Creative Director) relocation to Berlin. Every shoot she brings back the most amazing military binoculars, boots, goggles, bandoleers, hats etc. to use as styling props for the shoot.
Unfortunately my camera broke during the shoot so, I don't have very many photos, but I will update you when the actual look book comes out. I was working 12 hour days for them, but I didn't mind because I got to work with amazing creative people and during our down time I got to chat with them about all of their other projects that I am excited to share with you all in the future.



I love the racially ambiguous model casting.
Here is Holly adding a bandoleer to this military jacket. Those Bullets were huge!! Can you imagine...!

These are some shots from last season.

And yes, half of the job is dressing male models, but I have taught myself not to blush!
-C

Margarita Saplala Shoot!

Inside the studio, one of the REAL models getting shot for the lookbook.

Yesterday afternoon, we did a shoot for the invite to the party we are throwing for Margarita Saplala, one of the many talented designers on the W29 Showroom roster.  We've been talking about collaborating with W29 for a long time (check out their new blog, both Lulu and I make a guest appearance!), since we love Shelley and Susanne, so we're very excited to be working with them on this party.  We got up extra early for the 10AM call time, even though it turned out we weren't going to be shot until 3 PM.  Nonetheless, we had a great time watching the shoot, hanging out with the most amazing make-up artist, Emily, eating tons of gourmet pizza from Waldy's, and dressing up in Margarita's Fall 09 creations.  Plus, in return, we got to walk away with some amazing full length black silk evening gowns from Margarita's Spring 09 collection.  We'll work for clothes any day!  You will have to wait till it's closer to the party to see the actual images from the shoot and the outfits that we wore, but in the meantime, here are some backstage shots.

One of the lookbook models wearing a dress featuring Margarita's custom designed silk fabric prints.

Margarita styling one of the printed T-shirts.

A few pieces of the crazy crochet and rhinestone jewelry from the Accessories table.  All of the accessories were made by another W29 showroom designer, P.Y.T.

Emily, our makeup artist, was a true genius.  A former editor at the now defunct CosmoGirl, she was one of the few people I gave over full control to (I'm a control freak and usually bring my own foundation cause I don't trust most makeup artists!), and she gave us a lot of useful tips.  She decided to give us a slightly imperfect version of our usual black eye, since she didn't want it to look too pretty.  Here she starts with a dark black eyeliner for Christina.

Emily's assistant, who worked on Nicollette, put a paper towel under the eye as she applied the eyeshadow, to prevent the pesky black flakes of shadow from dropping on an already made-up face.

Emily smudged black eyeshadow both on the upper lid, and right under the lower lashline.  She said that after a night out, your eyemakeup always ends up under your eyes anyways, so you may as well put it there and do it right! 

-Tiffany