Building the Boutique

MAGIC in Las Vegas is right around the corner, and I for one am excite d to be attending the convention for the 2nd time and seeing the new styles for Fall ‘12.  For first time MAGIC buyers, the whole experience can be overwhelming and down right confusing.

1. Wear Cute Flats
Yes, we’re in the fashion industry, which means looking good is important (and yes, you probably will be judged on how you dress), but you will also be on your feet for hours (possibly 6 hrs straight or longer!), so it’s just as important to be practical.  Heels at market week are a huge no-no.  I recommend a cute pair of ballerina flats, with added pads to enhance your comfort.  Trust me, there is nothing more unbearable or distracting than wearing uncomfortable shoes at market.

2.  Bring Extra Business Cards
Already have your business cards printed and packed? Good; now pack some more.  Truth is I run out of business cards most of the times I go to market, because just about everyone you look at wants one.

3. Use the Shuttle & Car Services
Magic has buses, limo’s and car’s to shuffle buyers from between Mandalay Bay, the Convention Center, and most of the hotels on the strip, most of which run every 30 minutes (usually with a 2-3 hour break in the middle of the day).  Generally, the shuttles (which are airport buses) will only move you from one of the locations to and from your hotel, but the car service will take you back and forth between the two convention sites. Check online for schedules ahead of time, and find out where the shuttle is at/near your hotel the night before, so you’ll make your appointments on time.  A little bit of planning and this service will save you a good $15 in cab fare each way.

4. Bring or Grab A Tote Bag
MAGIC hands out free tote bags, but sometimes they run out (although you can usually find

5. Pick Up Free Magazines Last
Unless it’s Vogue, or something highly coveted.  There will be tons of Nylon’s left over throughout the day, and carrying around 6 mags will only slow you down.

6. Don’t Buy the Water (or the food)
There are little cafe’s set up inside each convention hall, where a small bottle of water is $5.  Just walking a few yards outside of the convention area you can find a cheaper bottle twice the size for $3 at a concession stand or gift shop.  Or better yet, go to CVS and bring your own.

7. Don’t Make Appointments
Especially if this is your first time going to market, because there really is no way of gauging how much time you’ll spend in each booth.

8. Book Using Costco Vegas.com Cards
Flights and hotels in Vegas for 3-4 nights aren’t cheap, but here’s a trick I discovered to cut costs.  Costco sells $100 Vegas.com gift cards for $80; buy as many as you need and book your hotel and flight via Vegas.com.  They allow you to use up to $20 per transaction, plus most of the hotels give you other perks like free food and spa services when you book online. (Also check RetailMeNot.com for Vegas.com discount codes!)

9. Attend the Seminars
There are all kinds of seminars and classes as magic, covering everything from visual merchandising to social networking (an a whole lot of it).  They’re free  and oh so informative; it’s another perk for buyers, so why not?

10. Browse First, Buy Later
If you’re a first time buyer, don’t expect to make an appointment with your rep your first day there, first thing in the morning.  Trust me; you will get lost, whether it’s finding the convention hall or finding the booth.  Keep in mind that MAGIC is HUGE.  The maps you see online don’t even do it justice.  Taking in just one section is overwhelming , so allow extra time just to find out where you’re going, breathe, and wander a little.  Sometimes the unexpected things you find are some of the greatest!

The new issue of First for Women Magazine is on newsstands now — and the mother daughter duo I styled made the cover!  HUGE congrats to them!  There’s also a bigger photo on page 32, and if you look really closely on the side you can see my name listed in the credits.  So exciting!  More photos from the shoot are coming soon!

I’m quite happy to have the “By the Riverbed” shoot I styled back in January published in W25 magazine this month.  I discovered this digital mag through a couple of fashion photographers I follow, and they publish some great work, so it’s an honor.  Check it out here starting on page 46.

More tears to come in the new year!

Sadly, it doesn’t look like the candy themed shoot I styled back in the summer will be picked up by any magazines anytime soon. It happens sometimes with test shoots; you learn and you move on from it.  Although I think a few great shots came out of this one, I can pin point a handful of things that could’ve been executed better (and will be next time!). Here are a few of my favorite shots from the shoot:

You can barely see it in this photo, but the necklace is 3 strands worth of color coordinated gummi worms (and his cigarette is candy).

This is my favorite shot by far .  I bought a cheapie eye patch from party works (so glad we did this around Halloween!) and covered it with random hot pink candies. She looked fierce and uber-girlie at the same time — always a great combo!

Oh what a day! I just wrapped up an 8 hour shoot in Santa Barbara for the cover and editorial off the bridal mag — I’ve been up since 2am and still going on only a couple hours of sleep…how I don’t know! This was the biggest shoot I’ve done to date — I pulled from a dozen or more lines and shops, which included about 10 gowns, tons of jewelry, mens clothing, head pieces, shoes — the works! This shoot was one of those situations where just about everything that could go wrong does; worst of all being that NONE of the grooms outfits fit properly, which is pretty much as stylists worst nightmare.

Since we were shooting outdoors at multiple locations it was such a challenge to keep things organized; you’re working with sooo many items and out of a car (no table space, and no assistant). But despite all the problems we went through (which also included having to delay the shoot twice and booking a model at the 11th hour) the looks the crew put together came out AMAZING, I seriously couldn’t be more excited to see the final results. The fact that we had the most prominent photographer in our region shooting for us makes me extremely confident of the outcome.

We shot 7 looks, and generally us stylists try to make editorial spreads cohesive, but each look ended up having a completely different feel. Considering the fact that it’s our first issue and we didn’t have a solid theme, I’m not too concerned about this — it’s definitely inspiration for brides of all different tastes. We started with elegant and feminine styles and ended with dark, edgy and fashion forward looks.

ETA: I’ve seen 4 or 5 preview images and they’re looking AMAZING so far — it totally embodies the upscale, jetset type of feel the editor wanted — yay!  Can’t wait to do this again early next year.

My updates have been slow around here for the past month, but work has not been! For the past couple of weeks I’ve been either shooting, preparing for shoots, or working on the Bridal magazine, which launches in a few months.

The first was a bridal hair inspiration shoot with photographer Bryan Toh, who always does a fab job. We shot for 9 hours and did 3 looks, so needless to say it was a long day for everyone. I pulled four amazing gowns from a local bridal store and a couple of cocktail dresses from a local boutique — the model looked amazing, but I’m afraid the outcome of the shoot is going to end up a little too much on the “commercial side”.

The following weekend I styled a shoot for First for Women magazine with a very well known local photographer. This was my first professional freelance gig, my first shoot for a national newsstand publication, and the first time I was specifically asked by an editor to style for them — three birds with one stone! This is pretty much the moment every creative freelancer waits for, and at only a year into this career it’s pretty motivating. Look for the issue on newsstands January 2nd!

Mind you, all this time I’ve been prepping for the cover and editorial shoot of the bridal magazine ….which has been rescheduled twice at this point. As of right now, it’s scheduled for Tuesday which gives me tomorrow to put all the finishing touches in place. My entire living room is FILLED with bridal gowns, jewelry, shoes and suits. It’s amazing that I can pull what seems like too much, then it gets here and it’s not even enough!

Hoping the weather is good in Santa Barbara this Tuesday! Check back later this weekend for all the deets!

Very excited to see the editorial I styled earlier this month up on Austrian digital fashion mag  C-Heads This particular shoot was quite an adventure because it was my first time pulling looks from PR houses, and also my first time driving around LA!  (Shocking, I know!)  I ended up renting an SUV and staying overnight in LA the day before the shoot to get it all done.  Crazy and tiring day, but fun overall.  It took about 6.5 hours just to pull the full wardrobe (for this shoot and another shoot) from three different showrooms and it really opened my eyes as to how much work the big name stylists must put into their job, and why they can command as much as they do.

Tolani top; American Apparel belt; Boulee skirt; Skinny by Jessica Elliott rings; Evil Pawn necklace; WeLoveColors.com knee highs

Work Custom jeans; T-Bags top; H&M belt; Little Rooms cuff

Finders Keepers romper; Skinny by Jessica Elliott earrings; Zara belt; H&M belt
Boulee dress; Poparazzi earrings

Cameo dress; Skinny by Jessica Elliott earrings; Dalita bracelet; Judy Klimek necklace;

Blaque Label skirt; Cameo top; Skinny by Jessica Elliott earrings and rings
American Apparel belt; Poparazzi earrings; Boulee dress

LoveMode dress; Skinny by Jessica Elliott rings; WeLoveColors.com socks;

Outtake:

Photographed by Vanessa Cabrillas
MUA Kristee Liu
Hairstylist Jenn Taniguchi
Wardrobe stylist Kimberly Lawson
Stylists asst.  Jessica Sunshine Harding
Model Erika Davidson @ Next

My favorite shot: the 5th picture with the cut-out back.  That particular outfit went form being my favorite, to my least favorite, and then back to my favorite again.  I loved it at first but when I put it on the model, initially, she kinda looked like a fashionable Wonder Woman (it is red and blue and all).  But once I saw the angle of the photo and the cutouts on the back I fell in love with it again.

This was the shortest shoot I’ve ever done; I have no idea how we managed to  shoot 8 looks in 5.5 hours, and finish 30minutes ahead of schedule, when we usually end up running over by 2 hours, but I think a lot of that is testament to working with a professional model who didn’t need a lot of time to warm up.  However, I don’t think I’ve ever been challenged so much about some of my styling decisions on set!  The model is actually wearing the dress backwards in the 6th photo, and it almost took the jaws of life just to get her in the dressing room to even try it. I’m glad I knixed the tights at the photographers suggestion before the shoot though.  I’m ultimately happy with the outcome of the styling of this shoot,  I wish I had used a few more accessories in a couple of images, but overall I’m happy to have something more mis-matched and unexpected in my portfolio!

Check it out on C-Heads.com!

Well, these last few days have been a total whirlwind!  I went down to LA on Sunday for the spring market and LA Fashion Week.  In the four years that I’ve been doing this, not once have I ever had a problem getting a hotel in Los Angeles during market, but it seems someone had the bright idea to book a water and energy convention at the same time, so EVERY single hotel in downtown LA was booked solid.  Oy.  For someone like me, who travels by bus and train (and can’t be bothered spending extra on a rental car) it’s problematic.  I ended up having to stay all the way in Pasadena (at the Westin; nice hotel and nice rates via priceline!), which actually wasn’t as bad as it sounds — the amtrak stop in Pasadena was only 3 blocks from my hotel (and several other hotels) and the hotel itself was about the same distance from the LA metro, so I was able to take the gold line directly into downtown for market.  Another plus was that I got to visit old town Pasadena for the first time and did some major shopping at Veronica M down there.  On my last night I actually ended up moving to a hotel in Hollywood, which wasn’t nearly as nice but a lot closer to where I needed to be.

This time at market was fun because I was mainly there for consulting.  I had some time on Monday so I got to (finally!) catch one of the fashion shows, which featured three up and coming designers.  All three brought some amazing pieces.  I also got to take part in some of the freebies this time around — which included a free manicure and professional make up.  But best of all, I got the chance to attend a seminar with guest speaker Danielle Gonzales about visual merchandising.  It was so much fun getting into learning mode; it was like being at FIDM all over again, and I didn’t realize how much I missed that feeling.  I was amazed at how much useful information she packed into an hour — did you know that Hollister made their stores dark and noisy to drive out parents? There are so many smart little tricks to upping conversions that I never would’ve thought of (and sadly, I don’t think most small boutiques consider).  I recommend every buyer take time out of their schedule to attend these seminars during market (and yes, they’re FREE), and I for one can’t wait for MAGIC in February so I can attend more.

On Tuesday the plan was to consult with yet another up-and-coming boutique owner….or not.  In all the time I’ve been doing this I’ve never been stood up by a client, so it was definitely an odd experience waiting at the CMC for hours for them to show up.

Oh well, it’s always a good trip when you get to go to Bottega Louie

Another test shoot this week, this time with photographer Bryan Toh.  This was my second time working with Bryan, and on top of being a great photographer he has a serious knack when it comes to set design and prop styling.  The last shoot I did with him was featured in the post My Dark Twisted Fairytale, which featured an outdoor tea party and a teepee.  This time it was an indoor fort and floating blocks that he constructed himself — needless to say, the sets were pretty rad.  And I can’t wait to see the finished product!

With the fall season right around the corner, photographer Vanessa Cabrillas and I have started to map out our ideas for upcoming editorials.  We have about half a dozen storyboards right now, and this is one of my favorites called “No Face”. It’s much more artsy and modern than anything we have in our portfolios thus far, so I’m quite excited about it.  Our plan is to submit this to an online magazine for emerging talent that is very well known in the industry.  Wish us luck!