This has been the first day that I have even had a moment to stop and reflect on the show.  There is so much to talk about, but before we get into that, I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone.  Fellow classmates, show production, press, Tia(my model), FIT, internship, family and friends and of course MY love.  You all made the show on Monday a success and for that I thank you!!!  (CLAPPING)

I was lucky enough to get tickets to both showings.  Arriving early for the 4:30pm show I found my fellow classmate and checked the list for my name +2.  Now come on that is just fun to being with, I am never on “THE LIST”.  (Yeah we need to change this people. ) We were escorted to our seats and I gasped a little when we entered.  It was totally different from past shows.  It was a U shaped stage and of course you know what that means, clocking more time on the runway!!!!  There was a live string quartet and the usually show things.  The press were all piled up at the end of the runway and I just had to take a pic of the press taking pics.  The show went smoothly and I honestly don’t remember the look of my dress coming down, the endorphins I think overcame my memory.  It was a great feeling though!!!  Did a little interview with the school press and then took a coffee break.  I have to say I am very impressed with this years graduating class, including menswear and the jewelry/accessories.

The second  showing at 730pm was packed!!!  I had met up with my man and his mom who have been my cheering section through this whole process.  My parents were unable to attend since they live out of state and it was such short notice.  They cheered from a far and were there in my heart.  We had perfect seats to get a good video of the show and this time the excitement let me admire my hard work.  The dress came to life!  And my model Tia wore it with such zest.  It was my first show on a runway, in New York no less.

Before show

Press (the irony)

Backstage the line up

Full audience

My dress going down the runway

Tia blowing kisses

Dress in transit

Pic of me so excited

After the show, it was snappy snappy, here there and everywhere.  One of the designers from my internship at J.Mendel came.  I almost backed into Carrolina Herrara and spotted Calvin klein from acrossed the room.  Then my old roomie Ariel came and surprised me!  It was time to celebrate!  We went and got cocktails and tapas, recapping the evening festivities.

The next morning I was so excited to see if the school had made the press.  After a quick google the first link that I found, opened and it was pics of my dress!!!

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So surprised and excited!  Then over the next few days have been keeping up the search

kiss-off (Thank you Jezebel!!!)

Wednesday we got out garments back and now Im prepping for the photo shoot of my look-book this weekend with Constantine Mitides (FIT student) www.constantinmitides.com

IT WAS A GREAT SHOW! And I feel very grateful that i got to be apart of it.  Stay tuned, coming up the creation of a graduation dress and the results of the photo shoot!

TIRED, I am so tired!  Monday was the fitting for my dress.  You have to show up one hour before your fitting time, then you sit and wait.  You could feel the  tension in the waiting room.  There was drama from missing models, wrong shoes sizes, to OMG I have to take my dress in how many inches?  I luckily have a great model.  Her name is Tia Shipman.  The dress likes her too and only needed to be taken in about an inch.  We tried on all three shoes and the show producers, well they liked the middle ones, with the ruffle.  Once again its out of my hands.  The whole process was short and sweet, in out get her fit.

Fitting the model in my dress

Then I lost it!  The stress of working on the collection, the fitting and then relizing that the rest of my classes still have tons of work to be done.  I kind of just zoned out.  The hard part seemed over but there was still alot to do this week.  I was intrigued by why my model looked familiar.  So I googled!  She was a model on project runway multiple seasons and she won season 5 with Leanne Marshall.  This really upped my outlook.  I still cant believe this is all happening.  Its very surreal that this is the last month as a student and Im in the BFA show!

Tia's comp card

Dress ready for drop off

Wednesday I worked on the corrections to the dress in class, went to intern and then worked on the dress back at school for another 5 hours!!!  I adjusted the zipper, finished the french lining, hand sewed on more petals.  So now there are 4 yrds of petals on that dress.  Oh and sprayed the hell out of that thing with static guard.  Labeled the shoes, bag and tried to put a freshly presses dress in its new bag.

Thursday morning 9am, dress in bag, I went to drop off my show piece.  The huge sigh of relief that I got from turning in the finished dress was amazing.  I cant imagine what to expect from my emotions on Monday.

Check list: Dress in the bag and turned in, check.  Shoes for the show, check. Tickets to the show, check.  Moral support and representation for the show, check.  Now the real question, WHAT TO WEAR TO THE SHOW?

EXCITEMENT

Yesterday was a bit of a roller coaster of emotions.  I was prepared to not get into the show and to support for my fellow classmates who would trek on.  I was at my internship when I got the email about the results of the show and had to re-read the list to make sure that my name was really on it.

I GOT IT!  WOW, really?!

The dress that got in

There were so many beautiful pieces and they picked mine to be one of the 11 special occasion students that got in.  Apparently I am still shocked and in awe.  My whole state of mine had to change.  Now I have a fitting and have to find shoes for the show.

I wasted no time.  Its shoe shopping I mean come on.  I think that I hit about 10 shoe stores in like 2 hrs and managed to purchase 3 pairs.  I couldn’t decide. Like everything I have a budget of $30.  I know that is like nothing.  But I had to say under my budget of $1000 for my three dresses so I figured I can do this too.

The fitting is on Monday at noon.  The shoes need to be approved and the dress needs to be altered in the back to fit the model perfectly.  Seriously still in shock.  Thank you for all the support of my friends and family.  This was a rough week.  Looking forward to the show.  I hope that everyone will watch it on line of be in the audience!

Shoes for the show

Lets start with that.  Where I last left off was at the brink of the weekend, warm pizza in hand and the final stretch ahead of me.  Today was D-DAY (part one)!  All the garments were due for the critic’s judging and the critic’s award. Hopefully one of the dress is chosen to move on to round two on Wednesday with the show judges.  The Cotton Inc dresses are kind of a shoe in, keeping in mind that they need to be constructed well.

I would like to give a shout out to my class!  YOU ALL DID A GREAT JOB AND I WISH US ALL THE BEST OF LUCK FOR WEDNESDAY!!!

So how did I get to this fine monday.  Well I spend I would say 95% of every waking moment from last wednesday to last night at 3am working on the my garments.

Total hours of sleep achieved in 5 nights: 22 ( not counting the 1.5hrs that I fell asleep while working in a chair)

Total# of pizza consumed:  3

Total# of  meltdowns: well at least 4 that I can think of (but dont tell anyone

Total garments ready for presentation: 3

Sleeping tonight………..Priceless!

Last night I was still sewing on the pleates that took eternity to do and had to alter my design because I did not have enough.  All those days pleating and still not enough.  Can you believe that!

There was a great deal of hand work that went into these peices.

Dress #1-The Marshmallow

-Piallettes all sewn on by hand, each petal is burned by me, and the waistband and eggplant bodice are hand sewn

Dress 1 Front

Dress 1 Side

Dress#2-Cotton Inc.

-ALL the fluting on the bodice is sew on by hand and the pleating is all hand pleated!

Dress 2 Front

Dress 2 Straps

Dress 2 Train

Dress 2 Back

Dress#3-Moppy

-The whole skirt, all those little “feather pieces” all hand pleated

Dress 3 Front

Dress 3 Skirt

Dress 3 Side

This morning, there was a small argument with me and one of the classroom forms. We only use one form but for presentations we have to hunt down and round up extra forms.  Hoping that one size 6 is the same as the other.  In my opinion that is like hoping that all brunette are alike.  I mean really. So of course one of the forms I had was giving me grief.  There was a tug of war and a re-fitting, but I made it work.

After all is steamed and in its place, the class left for and hour and a half while the critic and the professor narrowed down the 46 garments to one garment per person (some two if you did the cotton dress). As for me the Marshmesllow and the cotton dress are moving on to round 2.  There is one minor snag.  They don’t like my straps on the cotton dress, so those have to go for wednesday.

Awaiting Day two………will keep you posted.