When you have a friend like Freida Bailey who is Senior Logistics Executive of North American Operations (LA, Miami, NY, & Canada) for RALPH LAUREN full time, and a networking creative mind on the side, you GO when she says GO! Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) when she called to tell me she wanted to include me in the Artist Collab Project she was putting together, I jumped at the chance. Freida and I have grown to be close friends that we call family, but she is also my mentor that continues to push me in the “UP” direction.
In the weeks following Freida’s proposal we organized our project that included Jewelry Designer-Dana LeBlanc, Photographer-Abbie Cooke, Hair Stylist-Catherine Brockway, Makeup Artists Mimi & Jamie, and ME as the stylist/creative director. Put us together and we make a perfect team of personalities that mixed just as well as our talent. Notice we are all women, which was the obvious key to this project- GIRL POWER!
Power was definitely needed. The meetings and weeks leading up to the project were carefully planned...and this was the most difficult part for me. Me and Freida are friends but that doesn’t mean we think alike! She has a “Type A” brain and my brain is messy and creative. I work best when something is put in front of me that I can touch, see, and play with. After about a month of gathering models, conference calls, endless emails, spreadsheets, and an overall goal, it was time for the big day. I had made it through with a new respect for organized situations.
We started bright and early at 6AM (the first model arrived at 6:30) Freida had her friend (Mr. wonderful Alex) share his home with us and of course she had everything set up and flowing perfectly. Let me give you a run down:
Model arrives and collects cozy white robe.
Model gets beverage of choice (so what if it was AM).
Cat does hair magic.
Makeup is done by Jamie and Mimi.
I style Dana’s yummy candy-like jewelry on model.
Last is the photo shoot with Abbie, who takes a portrait of the model focusing on the bold jewels & model’s personality.
The end result is a networked circle of ladies. Each model gets a beautiful portrait, and the artists get portfolio work.
It was a long day full of creativity. I needed a certain feeling from the model to know what they were going to wear. This means I made a “Whitney spreadsheet” when I met each gal. To me Jewelry is special, each piece has it’s own personality that has to be matched perfectly with a woman’s character. Dana’s beads have so much depth, I could play for days! I can’t wait to see the presence of our day in the end result. Big thanks to Freida, Abbie, Dana, Cat, Jamie, Mimi & all of the models who put their time and energy into our project.
Dana LeBlanc:http://www.danaleblanc.com/
Abbie Cooke:http://www.chariotcreative.com/
Behind the scenes photos taken by yours truly:
