So I know my many many (like all three) blog followers have been waiting with baited breath to hear about my costume collection unveil in Vegas over Halloween weekend. The collection I decided to call “Vegas Marie” was a trio of Marie Antoinette inspired corset and mini skirt combos with lace bell sleeves and a ton of blinged-out French glitter girl accessories. My two girlfriends and I rocked it on the Strip in honor of my friend Nicki's 30th birthday. It was amazing. The photos are amazing portfolio material. We made the top 10 in a Las Vegas nightclub $25,000 costume contest and professional Las Vegas showgirls came up to me and asked me for business cards. It was everything I had hoped and more. It was affirmation.
It came on the heels of a horrible week – eh actually make that a horrible month at work leading me to the conclusion that I'm just not very good at being a property manager. I try, I care, but I still flounder. Possibly caring is really my problem. I take the constant criticism way too personally. I don't have the thick skin that business requires, I'm emotional, I'm passionate, and I pay for it.
So the portfolio is coming together now with the Vegas Marie collection to round it out, and the website is actually up and running, although I still don't have quite enough inventory listed to feel ready to really launch advertising. Now that I have something I can show people to show what I can do, its time to set my sights on what will be the next big step. I would love to get a little more focused in my next collection, and show something that has real cohesion and vision, as opposed to just pulling out everything I already have in my closet and mashing it together. I need enough time to pull something like that together, so I'm thinking next summer. And I have a concept.
I'm not exactly ready to share the entire theme just yet, but I will say that the inspiration came from my trip to Vegas, and my beautiful friend Jessica. Since it was Halloween weekend, and we only had one costume actually planned for a three night stay, we had sort of planned ahead to bring costume accessories that could be worn the other two nights with regular party dresses, to be sort of “in costume”without having to go all out costume every night. Jessica brought us three gorgeous Venetian style masks. We ended up never wearing them. A few days after the trip, I glanced at my vanity at the pile of jewelry that I had unpacked in a fury looking for a pair of earrings we couldn't find when we were packing up already a half hour late for check out at the hotel . . . and the mask sitting prettily on top of the pile. Inspiration. In that pile of hurriedly unpacked accessories, I saw glitter and feathers and steamy Venetian Carnival nights. I love this part - the sketching and the dreaming, its almost as good as seeing it all live on real people. So stay tuned Glamour fans.
