Two weeks ago today I woke up early and knew the next 14hrs of my life would be completely mental but I hoped it would all be totally worth it. For the past 8 weeks I had been working on a collaborative art and fashion show, due to be held at the Met, Fortitude Valley. Four artists and five designers had signed up, alongside two hair stylists, two make up artists and 19 models, all working towards one fabulous night of fashion and art for the masses.
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| The beautiful models on the catwalk. Image: Offbeat Imaging |
The day was full of crazy business as I raced from my place at Chermside, to my parents place at Eatons Hill to collect the family ute, then off to the staging hire place at Brendale, stopping off at Bowen Hills to collect the lighting and then finally arriving in the Valley to begin the set up process by midday.
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| Alana Hart MUA creating a beautiful look on Emily Image: Flagstone Images |
At 3pm I felt cool calm and collected and kept making remarks stating how happy I was to be so organised, and how strange I felt to not be panicking about anything, I felt like I'd forgotten to put pants on or something... So far the only problem we'd really had was the lack of staff provided to help set up the staging, I am however not afraid of hard work, and despite being turned into a ball of sweat as a result, I got stuck in and my brother and I put the stage together ourselves.
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| The beautiful work of Stacey Maree. Image: Offbeat Imaging |
Everything was running reasonably smoothly and by 4pm I even had time to duck out of the venue and have a 5 minute pre show chillout before all the madness really took place, so far everything seemed to be on track and the event was coming together as planned...
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| Me dressing Emily for our run through. Image: Offbeat Imaging |
I should have known, of course things were due to go wrong, but Murphy's law predicts things go a-rye when you don't have time to fix them! If I have any advice for anyone wanting to put on a show, avoid having one on Friday the 13th, this is a cursed day for events!!!
Five o'clock rolled around and despite knowing I still had 2 house before doors were due to open, all of a sudden time ran away from me. Our full dress rehearsal was suppose to take place at 5:30pm and run for half an hour. By 6pm we still had half dressed models running about hysterically without any idea of where they were going, who they were wearing or where they were due to stop on the catwalk for ideal photographic positioning. The chairs arrived as I was trying to organise our run through but not everything was as it should have been.
"There's only 30 chairs!!!!"
"Well I've paid for 40 chairs, and people have paid for the privilege of having said chair, so we are going to need more chairs"
Lucky for me, our chair delivery man was the owner of the hire place and he snuck in the extra 10 chairs for me seconds before we opened our doors at 7:15pm.
We managed to get through the dress rehearsal without anyone falling off stage but not without a few confused and bamboozled faces, but I had faith that enough of the models knew what they were doing, and if not I could try and direct my lovely lambs from side stage if need be.
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| Loana in an Evelyn Curtis dress Image: Flagstone Images |
The last two hours before the event flew past in a blur of people asking me questions and general panic from varied sources.
Our previously discussed lighting plan went completely out the window and as a result two of my artists ended up in less than perfect lighting, half the sushi I had purchased for my VIPS never made it out of the bag, I lost my belt and as a result was running around half dressed for a solid 10 minutes but by half past 7 everything had fallen into place and we were ready to rumble.
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| Looking dashing in our Evelyn Curtis dresses. Image: Offbeat Imaging |
Despite having a very quiet and shy crowd (too afraid to sit in the chairs I had only two hours earlier stressed about not having for them) I stood up in front of everyone, introduced myself and the catwalk show begun. It whooshed past in a flurry of kaftans and tassels, sequins and prints, sparkly treasures, half naked men with funky cut tees and all ended with my latest collection "She Wears A Crown".
The crowd applauded and were promptly ushered out of the main room so we could begin pack up, where I had a mild breakdown, put a whole in my finger (I was carrying a chair and fell into a brick wall) and chilled out with some friendly Columbian glasseys, so all in all, the event was an amazing success.
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| With all of my beautiful models in the "She Wears A Crown" collection. Image: Flagstone Images |
The photos turned out insanely good, the feedback from those who attended was alllll good and the crew I had the pleasure to work with were absolutely fantastic! I felt a little disappointed that I didn't have a huge swarm of people attend, but given the time of the year that the event was held, I can understand.
Looking back at the night I can honestly say I loved every second of it, but what makes it all worth while is seeing the smiles on the faces of everyone involved and hearing the encouraging words coming from those involved, saying they loved the event and felt so proud to be a part of it, as I felt so humbled to have them be a part of it.
Art & Style is my new baby and in 2014 will hopefully expand to even bigger and better horizons, with more fabulous art work, fashion and beauty to showcase to the wonderful people of Brisbane! If you would like to be a part of Art & Style 2014 please send an email to lexi@evelyncurtis.com and feel free to check out all the photos of the event on Facebook.
