Earth Day 2012

Yesterday was Earth Day and I spent it coming back from a road trip to Leavenworth (carpooling, of course) with two of my lovely pageant sisters. It was a gorgeous day as we drove home to the Puget Sound region through the mountains and along the river appreciating how utterly beautiful our Washington state is. Being blessed as we are to live in a state so rich with the beauty of nature makes it easy to understand why its so important to protect it, all you have to do to feel connected to nature here is look outside. In Leavenworth, we were hosted by a fellow contestant in her home which overlooked get this – a vineyard and the white capped mountains surrounding the little Bavarian themed town, it was unbelievable idyllic and a wonderful view to wake up to on Earth Day.

I had wanted to do something to celebrate and participate in Earth Day this year, but I had the prior commitment in Leavenworth. However, the trip itself did inspire me to share a few things with my friends and readers about ways everyone can make a difference for Earth Day this year. You know how you sometimes click on a link on the internet that says “10 simple ways to organize your life” or 5 easy things you can do to lose weight” and then none of the things on the list are really all that simple or easy . . . well, I'll be honest, these tips may take a little effort, but have payoffs for the community and the planet and your family's health that are worth it, and they may open your eyes up to a beautiful new world and inspire more changes. Fair warning, clean living can be highly addictive.

Tip 1. Buy organic and buy local – and both when possible. The simplest way to start making healthier cleaner choices in your life is to start with food. Buying from local and organic sources supports those farmers who don't get huge subsidies from the government to produce mass quantities of vitamin depleted genetically modified food cheaply. When we make the choice to pay a few cents more, we say with one voice, in the universal language of money – that we want healthier food. If you drink wine, this is one of my favorite ways to always ensure you are supporting local farmers. Ask the expert in the wine section to show you to something that is organic and from Columbia Valley. Admittedly, there aren't that many choices that fit this category, but if we all buy the few that are there and those small wineries grow, they will be able to produce more and their competition will catch on and start going organic, and there will be more choices. When that happens, you can look back and say, “I made that happen.”

Tip 2. Visit a fantastic favorite website of mine: http://www.ewg.org/skindeep. This website put together by Environmental Working Group and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, contains a searchable database of pretty much every chemical imaginable that would be in a household or beauty product. It makes it easy to learn about what is in the products you use and what effects those substances have on the body. Pick up your shampoo bottle, flip it over and choose a chemical listed in the ingredients. Enter that chemical into the search field on Skin Deep and see what comes up. I guarantee you'll be surprised and horrified. Now try it with your fabric softener, your toothpaste, your deodorant, etc. After seeing what's in the products you currently buy, consider looking for ones that don't contain those same chemicals you just read about. Check out your local Super Supplements store for cleaner choices on most personal care, beauty, and household cleaning products.

Lastly, join me in celebrating MCS Awareness month this May. Betcha didn't know May was MCS awareness month . . . or for that matter, show of hands, how many are actually aware of what MCS is? Hence the need for an awareness month, and for making the changes listed above to send the message to manufactures of our household products that we want to live better, we want to live cleaner, we want to make life safe for those already afflicted by conditions such as MCS and Gulf War Syndrome, and we are going to let our dollars do our talking to prove our point. I am currently on the look out for local events and will share as I find out where they are happening, and I may be planning something myself to promote awareness for MCS in May.

(Climbing down off my soapbox in a ladylike manner)

I've gotta have these chairs!

Planning for the eventual opening of my fashion superstore wonderland is continuing daily. I am totally nose to the grindstone on polishing my business plan, which now has actual financial projections in it. I've had several all too familiar days of staring at spreadsheets of numbers again in the past weeks, but its a labor of love this time around, instead of just labor.

As the formal business plan comes together, I'm getting ready to put all of my hopes and dreams on the line and launch an online campaign to raise a chunk of start up capital for the store. If the campaign is unsuccessful, it would be a pretty major set back, because its going to be very difficult to get interest from banks and/or investors without at least SOME of my own skin in the game – and I currently have no skin. I'm skinless. On the flip side, though, if this little asking strangers for money adventure is successful, it could be absolutely life changing. It would seriously increase my chances of getting the loan and making the store a reality, and it would give me a little breathing room in the meantime to be able to clear up old debts and work on my credit rating so when I do apply to a bank they don't just laugh in my face.

It's not going to be easy though, in order to raise any substantial amount of money, its going to take a groundswell of support that stretches well beyond the realm of just my friends and family. I need this campaign to go viral! I do have a super cute video of myself sitting in front of my vanity mirror explaining the goal and mission of the store, and in the process, displaying several of my favorite creations. I put a lot of work into the video and am excited to at the very least, share that accomplishment with everyone.

Another important planning task I've been working on (although possibly not as important at this stage as the financial projections or the fund raising campaign) is sourcing out furnishings and décor for the store. It helps keep me motivated to dream about what the space will look like, and spend a few minutes a day browsing for pricing on things like crystal chandeliers, mannequins, dress racks, etc. It also helps me build a solid estimate of the amount I will need to borrow for start-up.

I have always tended to lean a little towards the champagne taste side of life, and unfortunately have always had to make do with less. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my life of always barely scraping by, life's experiences have taught me to be strong, self-reliant, patient and to always have faith. I normally also tend to do very well for myself on my shoestring budget. Somehow I always manage to get by and get what I want out of life, for the most part. Well, in choosing furnishings for my dream store I'm coming to realize this is probably going to be one of those “OK, I'll take the used one” kind of life situations. Furniture is expensive. Crystal chandeliers, yah, those are expensive too. Building a stage and a runway in an empty warehouse, mm hmm, that's gonna cost ya. There's one item that the store needs though, where I've reached a sticking point and I refuse to budge. The runway chairs.

I spent several hours researching the types of chairs that would be most economical and appropriate considering both storage space and durability . . . I poured through hundreds of photos of New York and Paris fashion shows, studying the chairs people were sitting in. I want an authentic “fashion show” chair lining my runway, not a hotel chair, a school play chair, an office cafeteria chair, etc. In my store vision photo that I built with an online rendering program, I put in Chiavari chairs. I have always loved them. I wish I could have had them at my wedding but the place already came with chairs so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to bring them in. (Looking back I wish I'd just gone for it, since when to things that Brides do make sense anyway?)

So after comparing the price of your average run of the mill folding chair to a stackable Chiavari chair, I was a little shocked to learn that its going to cost almost the same either way I go. Why the heck do folding chairs cost $20 a piece anyway? So, I decided if its going to cost $6,000 for chairs no matter what, I'm getting the dang crystal clear resin Chiavari chairs. They are fabulous.

EVEN THOUGH the cost is going to be the same either way, there's still this tiny little voice of self doubt that creeps into my head when I let my guard down. A tiny little voice that asks “Come on Angelique, what have you done in your life to deserve THOSE chairs?” I'm pretty sure the voice isn't really just referring to the chairs, but in general the chairs seem to represent the vision of the store actually becoming a reality, the idea that my life could really be one lived on no one's schedule but the one I set for myself and that I could one day be truly financially independent – wealthy even, as a business owner. The voice makes me feel guilty. I don't understand it, but I can certainly feel the very real guilt; guilt for planning a campaign to ask strangers for funding which feels a little like charity, guilt for a life I don't even have yet, guilt for wanting it so bad, and for sticking to my guns that I'm going to see this out even if it means failure. I'm the bread winner in our household, so I feel guilty for not just giving up on this pipe dream and hitting the job postings to find another thankless horrible black hole of a job where I can live out the next twenty years of my life, just breathing in and out.

For now at least, I'm able to fight the guilt back, and soldier on. I mean doesn't everyone deserve to go after their dreams? I think so. And I also think that nothing in this green Earth is going to stop me from getting the crystal Chiavari chairs. Now they are kind of like, more than chairs. They are becoming these shining little beacons of hope for the future. Anyway, be watching for my facebook and twitter announcements of the start of the funding campaign. I'll need everyone's help sharing it and forwarding it and re-tweeting it to get it in front of the eyes of people with big bucks to invest in a beautiful, passionately led fledgling Seattle business. And also, let me know if anyone sees 300 crystal clear Chiavari chairs at a garage sale.

Sweet Nothings

Well, I promised an exciting post-fashion show blog post, and I'm not 100% sure I can deliver, but I'll try. As I've reflected on the experience that was Sugar does Portland, and my second ever fashion show, overall, I am satisfied.

I was super prepared this time, had the car packed the night before and ready to go, and I wasn't still putting touches on things the day of the show, so that's an improvement over last time. Two of my models were no-shows, but I'm already an old pro after two whole fashion shows now, so I took it in stride and negotiated with another designer to share two of hers. All of the models killed it in my looks, as I have come to expect of Sugar events. We bonded and supported one another and launched careers and created magic.

I had choreographed little interactions between my models as they passed on the runway and it was a true story in motion. My vision of a Studio 54-esque Venetian Disco Carnival Party came to life, it was fantastic. But all of that, even as I typed it, was not giving me goosebumps, I wasn't on the edge of my seat recalling the memory of a truly unforgettable night. It was a great experience, but what more is there to tell? Where is the excitement for my reader in saying “It was a great experience, I had a lovely evening”?

Maybe I'm just getting too old for unforgettable nights. I have to say, the next day, I realized I was a little disappointed in myself for the various missed opportunities I'd had to grab life by the balls that night and live that I had passed up. For example, I spent hours creating the most fabulous rhinestone shoes that have ever existed, and I only actually wore them for about fifteen minutes. I realized as I went through photos the next day that I didn't even get any good pictures of me in the shoes. What was I thinking? So many places around that venue where I could have grabbed a photographer and gotten awesome shots of those shoes, (which I actually would like to start selling, could have used some good portfolio/publicity shots) the staircase in front of the grungy wall outside the club, flung over the shoulder of one of the hunky male Sugar models . . . you know, just plenty of places. I also didn't think to have the models get photos in the garments or mingle in the crowd wearing the stuff after the show, we just changed out of everything immediately and threw it all back in the car. Months of work, and it was barely seen.

Two friends of mine came all the way to Portland to support me in the show, and had a hotel in town. Knowing I was bound to be exhausted after the show, they begged me to crash with them in Portland, to come out and have a few drinks with them and relax after all the hard work. I said no. I snuck out of the show before the party even really died down, and headed straight home. I realized about a half hour in to the four hour drive that that was a really stupid move. I thankfully made it home safely, after three hours of slapping myself in the face and driving with the windows down and radio on full blast trying to avoid nodding off and wondering why I didn't just stay with Jackie and Colin. Why didn't I wear those fabulous shoes out in Portland and have a couple beers? What happened to me? When did I get old?

 

The weekend after the Portland show was Sugar's Not So Silent Auction fundraiser event at Pink in Seattle, to raise money to get the tour bus out of the shop. I deliberately waited to write my blog post recapping the Portland show until after the auction because I thought I could salvage the lameness of the story I had to tell by making the night following the auction a wild and crazy as well as productive and business bolstering night. This time I was fully prepared to network and mingle and party, to prove I'm not 32 and practically dead. I had my hair done, painted my nails for the first time in months, I wore my graffiti corset, my boobs looked amazing. I wore my rhinestone shoes again. I even threw my crown and sash in my set bag, thinking I would have an opportunity after the auction to further promote the Sugar cause by reppin for the Sugar team as their resident beauty queen.

Unfortunately, the auction was a complete crash and burn. We didn't sell any of the items donated by Designers, including me. The only things we did sell all night were cupcakes, and sort of desperate, vaguely human trafficking reminiscent dates with models and members of the Sugar team. We were all kind of bummed afterwards, and got booted out of the VIP room precisely at 10:00 pm, so in all the rush to get everything back in the car, it didn't seem like anyone was in the mood to make further plans for the evening, so I ended up just leaving and heading for home.

After the auction I decided I was going to need a nice bath and a glass of wine, but I didn't have any at home, so I popped in to QFC to grab a bottle. As I perused the selection, I thought about what I would say in this blog post. I pretty much assumed at that point all hope for an exciting story to tell to accompany the photos of my collection in the show and promote Sugar's tour as they get ready to head to Austin next month was gone. Lost in contemplation, I barely noticed a really eccentrically dressed person walk up next to me. If it hadn't been for her 12 inch block platform shoes clacking on the linoleum I probably wouldn't have even looked up, but as I did, I saw standing next to me, the one and only Lady Gaga. Yes, I ran into Lady Gaga in the wine section at QFC. She gestured in the direction of the champagne and the burly bodyguard with her began loading a cart with all the bottles QFC had of whatever was on the top shelf. Then she actually spoke to me. “Oh my GOSH,” she said, “where did you get those shoes, they are amazing!”

I was completely awestruck, but I managed to stammer a reply, “I made them, I'm a designer.” “I must have them!” she exclaimed, “how much do you want for them?” I screamed a little. Lady Gaga wanted to buy the shoes off my feet – which would mean millions of people would see my work, my career would completely take off, this was all really happening in the wine section at QFC. . . OK, I give up. None of that actually happened. I actually came straight home, showered and watched the news with Gerrard. I am old and lame. Sorry.

Preparation . . . Trepidation . . . Palpitations

So my second stab at being a real Designer and producing an actual runway show is about to unfold tomorrow. I'll be showing at Sugar does Portland, which is set to be much bigger and sexier and louder than Sugar does Seattle was in July, so I'm super duper excited, and equally as nervous. I put everything I had into this collection over the past month (as well as a couple hundred dollars that I DIDN'T have's worth of fabric, rhinestones and hot glue) and its finally finished and ready to show. I have been completely freaking out for the last three or four days thinking I wasn't going to make it with things still in pieces and missing trims and zippers . . . all the while my brain was running in a million directions at once and instead of focusing on completing my finishing touches, I keep getting sidetracked adding new pieces and working on non-essential things like a pair of shoes for moi to wear at the event. Of course, after completing one shoe and seeing how absolutely frikin amazeballs it was, I had to move finishing the shoes over to the essential column, and I did stay up til about 3 am last night making sure those shoes are runway ready. Cinderella and Dorothy got nothin on me. *snap*

I actually love it when the creative process takes me places like that where I completely didn't expect it to go. Like how the last afterthought piece that I just threw together to fill out the line up could somehow end up being my favorite look in the collection. Or how I struggled to figure out which look to put on which models from a group of mostly first time runway models with wildly varied heights and measurements none of whom I've worked with before, but came to the conclusion that the mix of talent and variety and experience levels is actually going to create something truly magical. I had set a goal after the last Sugar show that the next time I did a runway collection it would have more cohesion and a clear vision. I think I have accomplished that goal. I think it will look amazing and tell a story and I'm so excited to share it with the world!

After I get through this show, its back to focusing on everything else I should have been doing this month that got put on hold so I could do this collection. Like writing my business plan and working on presentation materials for my pitch to beg for start up capital for Lime Light, paying my bills and being a wife, a daughter, a sister and a beauty queen.

I'm actually off to kind of a rocky start in the beauty queen department again in 2012. Chalk it up to being out of practice, I guess, but I'm just not quite back into the swing of it yet. OK, who am I kidding, I never really was all that great at it in the first place, but I had also set a goal that if I did this pageant again, I would really commit and do it right this time. So, I plan to start getting out there and representing Snohomish County and spreading the word about preventing chemical injury a little later this month with a visit to the Health Fair being held at Providence Medical Center here in Everett. They are having an open house to show off their new fancy scmanchy hyperbaric chambers, which I have to say, are kind of cool. I'll just kind of choose to forget that January was pretty much a wash as far as making public appearances with full-on crown and sash.

I did make it out to Girl Power Hour's Go Red for Women event the Friday before my Mom was scheduled to have a pacemaker installed, so I was admittedly a little distracted and a little extra emotional at that particular event. I'm happy to report though, that my Mom did great, and she is now bionic. She has always been the strongest, wisest, most caring woman I know, and now she is stronger, faster, better than ever.

My Mom has always been the perfect role model, the perfect example of what I would want to be if I do make the choice to become a mother someday. She instilled in me my strong sense of self and always encouraged my creativity. I was extremely relieved and happy to celebrate Women's Heart Health Month with Mom, who can now call herself a survivor (and a cyborg)!

A little known fact about my Mom, is that she wanted to be a Fashion Designer when she was a teenager. She was on the bigger side, so she taught herself how to sew so that she could have clothes that were in fashion because she couldn't buy in them off the rack. She never became a Designer, but now her daughter is following in her dreams. This strange twist of fate actually gave me the idea for a pair of paintings that I am hurriedly finishing tonight on a complete inspiration binger. As if I needed one more thing to have to finish before I leave for Portland tomorrow at 7:00 am, but this kind of inspiration comes from God, its a gift. You can't ignore it, and you can't turn it off. The only way to get rid of the feeling it gives you is to create what its telling you to create, it has to come out. I only took a break to throw down a blog entry because I needed to wait for a layer of paint to dry. I'm so thankful to have my Mom as my example and to have learned everything that I have from her. Now back to painting and packing.

Wish me luck, readers, and I'll see you all after the show!

Life in Parallel Universes

How do I even begin to summarize all that's happened to me in the past 8 or 9 weeks or so since I last posted? It's interesting to think of the Universe as having many many parallel versions going on all at the same time, as some Astrophysicists hypothesize is the case. At any given crossroads we come to, when we choose to go one way, there is potentially a version of the world somewhere outside of our plane of perception where we made the opposite choice, and the consequences of that play out. God and the Universe at his command have handed me some major life changes in the past couple of months, and my life is now so different from what it was then that it seems almost like I've been transported from one reality into a parallel version where I'm happier and more motivated and headed in the direction that other old me should have been headed in years ago but wasn't awake enough to turn her butt around.

My last entry was dated 11.10.11, I was stuck in a job that I hated and looking for an avenue to gain experience in the fashion idustry so I could move toward a career change in that direction. The differences between the cold corporate world I trudged to every day and the exciting colorful inspiring world I'd had recent tastes of and now knew I belonged in, were so drastic that it made the every day at work much much worse. How could I be expected to focus on the task at hand when the task was crushing my soul? The very next day, as luck would have it, I got fired.

I knew I shouldn't be doing backflips over losing my job, but I was overcome with a sense of peace and relief almost instantly. I shed a few tears, I worried about my clients for a minute or two. Then I realized that I would forever look back on that event as one of the best things that's ever happened to me. Within a week, I had told my friend Kellie who had recently become a partner in the Sugar Art and Fashion Show company, that I had free time on my hands and would be happy to help them with preparations for their upcoming nationwide tour. Next thing I knew, I was an intern and an official member of the Sugar team. I became their Seattle based Designer Mentor, scouting fresh new Designers in cities across the country where the tour will be stopping, and supporting them along the way as they prepare their collections for the shows – and I found myself once again creating a collection for a Sugar show. Sugar does Portland is set for February 10^th and I will be showing an 8 look collection which is rapidly coming together now, inspired as I mentioned in my last entry, by Venetian Carnival . . . imagined as a twisted, promiscuous, Studio 54-esque society party in black and white. It's pretty frikin hot.

It hasn't been that long that I've been living my life at this relaxed, artistic pace - staying up til 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning on creative binges then sleeping til 10:00 - but I already look back on my life as a Community Manager like it was another lifetime. It feels so far away now, and the thought of ever going back is just not even conceivable. I know I won't have to though, because I've determined to make my way in the world as a Business Owner. My little web store is up and running, but still not yet widely advertised or trafficked, so its really the perfect time to consider a re-brand and a new direction, a brick and mortar store! I'm enrolled in a business course that will help me put together a business plan and seek financing, and in the coming weeks I'll be doing all I can to save and raise capital for start up to make my vision of a warehouse fashion superstore girls playland come to life.

My store – which I've decided to call Lime Light – will be a true destination shopping experience. We'll carry Angelique Ashton Designs of course, as well as pageant and stage jewelry, corsets, hats, tu-tus, feather boas, heels, maybe even evening gowns . . . but the main attraction will be that the store has a runway and a full stage for live shows. It will be a boutique by day where ladies can pick up anything their heart desires for a costume or performance, and will be encouraged to step out of the dressing room onto the runway to work it – then by night the place will transform into the city's premier fashion venue, hosting fashion shows, bachelorette parties, and musical acts.

It will be a world unto itself, a parallel universe where a girl can still play dress up, no matter her age. It will be a safe place, where people are free to express who they are and have fun with it. Our multifaceted mission will be to spread glitter all over the community, promote self-esteem in teens and young women, promote safe and natural cosmetics and support the local Artist community. It will be the shimmery ethereal magical princess wonderland from inside my head, on the outside of my head. We will have champagne and cupcakes and live unicorns. I thought about cotton candy, but honestly, I'm not sure I want people with sticky fingers handling everything and petting my unicorns. I mean, they aren't self-bathing like cats, I have to wash them.

I was hesitant for a while to write about my baby in the making (that sounded weird . . .) Lime Light, as fragile a dream as it still is - for fear of failure once it was out there, for fear someone might steal my idea before I'm able to raise the money to do it, for fear of laughter or sideways looks, but now that its written, I realize there wasn't really anything to be afraid of. It will happen, and those reading this are only supporters, not – dare I say it – haters . . . or unicorn rights activists.

Next, partly as a result of having time on my hands, and partly because I was harboring a little residual disappointment that the Mrs. Earth pageant was postponed and I was unable to compete in it as planned this summer, and partly because my business caters to the pageant world and I know it would be good advertising . . . I've decided to participate in the Mrs. Washington America pageant this year, as Mrs. Snohomish County once again.

The pageant world is another of those parallel universes, different from regular life, and with its own set of rules. Not that anyone is going back and re-reading all my old blog entries, but I went through them and edited a little, for adult humor and language. While I like to add a little “punch” for comedic effect from time to time, I wanted to make it appropriate to be able to extend the invitation to my current year pageant sisters and anyone else following the pageant, to learn all about me through my random rambling musings.

So now you're up to date, my dream and vision is out of the bag, and there it all is. 2012 is going to be a year of fun, a year of glamour, a year of ambition, a year of making dreams reality, making new friends, and making magic! *Cloud of glitter flies at your face.*

(If I could make the computer blow glitter at you through the monitor right now I would - you'll just have to imagine that part).

Affirmation & Inspiration

 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 30^th 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.

This is exactly why I need to be doing something that I am passionate about, something I'm good at. My talents are going to waste. Being in a city like Las Vegas where everything you see is fantasy come to life really renews a person's dreams. Things are possible there. I know every time I go there I bring a piece of that magic back with me in my heart.

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.

Sweet Success!

I finally have a few minutes to relax and reflect on the experience of my first fashion show. Last week I participated in the Sugar does Seattle Art and Fashion Show, a show that mashed together designers with all different kinds of aesthetics as well as local artists and musicians. It was insanely fun, inspiring, and I learned a ton about myself as a designer and the direction I'm headed in.

One thing I learned is that I'm not a fashion designer. I'm still an accessories designer who is baby stepping into the world of costuming, in that I do design one of a kind wearable art pieces that are intended as a focal point, rather than a complete look on their own. In order to not send models down the runway naked in just hats and jewelry, though, (as exciting a show as that would have made) I needed to come up with clothing looks that enhanced the designs I was showing. I went with sheer tulle ballgown skirts and fishnets on each model, rounding out a bubblegum fantasy look that I got by drawing inspiration from the idea of the Sugar show itself. This genius woman, Timmery Turner, created Sugar in LA to support and promote up and coming female artists and designers. The spirit of this showcase, marrying different forms of street art with the next things in fashion under an umbrella of sticky sweet love and respect for each other in the community, is beautiful in itself. The collection I found myself making for the show was inspired by graffiti, tattoos, candy and sugar.

It was frikin fabulous. Backstage was nothing short of complete insanity. I felt like I was watching myself from outside of my body most of the night. I ended up with the greatest group of models and hair and make up professionals who WORKED my creations, made everything come together and were so easy going. A couple of them told me at the end of the night that I kept my cool under pressure and I was well organized, which I took as the highest compliment considering I felt completely the opposite. It was HOT backstage (and not just because of the male models being body-painted in every corner). There was very little room to maneuver and to get models dressed and get hair and make up done, everyone was sweating gallons. Another very important tidbit I learned about my previously untested in a real world setting corset creations – is that they aren't washable. Eww . . .

Its impossible to reflect on the night and not see things that I could have done better. For instance, rather than spazzing out on how awesome of a frikin acid trip dreamscape it was seeing my collection standing live in front of me, I probably should have been doing designer-y stuff like last looks before they went out. Watching the video back I noticed things like a necklace that I forgot to put on one of the models, which unfortunately I think made that particular look, and a couple of the ballgown skirts that were worn high on the waist when I would preferred to see them a little lower slung. I also intended to make rings as thank you gifts for all my models, but as I was still putting tags and linings in and changing directions on things for the show the morning of the show, I realized I wasn't going to have time for that (Sorry models). Then there was my rather pathetic tiny little vendor table, which could have used about 6 additional feet of room to spread out merchandise for the display to really look the way I pictured it in my mind. All in all really, that's minor stuff. It went incredibly well and had the effect that I wanted it to. Publicity baby!

I talked with tons of fellow fashion industry peeps at the show, and since the show the connections have continued to be made. I'm terrified now to lose the momentum I have going at this moment, so hopefully it wont be too long before I'll be announcing whatever's up next for Shameless Glamour!

I also have had time since the show to reflect on that dang company name again, after hearing it shouted a million times throughout the day as we all tried to get organized, I realized its kind of long and doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as one would hope. I have debated dropping the “glamour” and just being Shameless. I sort of feel now that glamour is kind of implied . . . Either way, SG or just Shameless, its going pretty well. The website is going to start getting regular retail items listed on it soon and have full online shopping functionality, and hopefully I'll get a website launch party together this Fall. Stay Tuned!