February 22, 2010

Volunteering at New York Fashion Week: My Experience

Hey duckies! I know I haven't posted in a bit, but hopefully this makes up for it.
A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to volunteer for two very different companies for fashion week.  Here I will tell you about my experience!

On Friday, I worked for a company called Modelinia. They are a website, www.modelinia.com, that follows models and keeps you updated on model news. Their tagline is, "because models don't get enough attention", which I thought was pretty funny.
I heard about Modelinia from a friend. A few Parsons students were going to volunteer for them throughout the weekend.
In my opinion, they did not treat their volunteers very well, being misleading about what we were actually going to do.  At first, I worked in their office for a bit.  Then, the schedule said that my group of volunteers would be "at Bryant Park", or "at the tents".  Once I arrived and saw my friend Jack standing next to a ginormous pile of magazines, it was clear that we were going to be outside in the freezing cold for six hours, trying to force Modelinia magazine on the passers-by.  They had not told us in advance that we would be outside, so most of us were not dressed properly for the job.
They also tried to make us stay well past our previously established shifts, which we weren't getting paid for it.  I am all for starting at the bottom, and I understand that interns and volunteers have to do the work that no one else wants to do.  However, I could not feel my feet!


The only good part was that I met the band Semi Precious Weapons! They are super fantastic, put on an awesome show, and have opened for Lady Gaga (a few years ago, she was opening for them!)  They were also reallyyy nice, called me "baby", and took a picture with me. Haha!


They are gorgeous. ♥

The next day I was supposed to work for a designer, Ivy H. 
She's a Parsons alumni, and she has a beautiful website (www.ivyh.net).  I knew that we would be helping out with an actual fashion show, so I was a bit nervous. However, I was also super excited!
Before the show started, there was a lot of running around and doing a million tasks at once. Everything had to be perfect, many things were going wrong, and it was not as glamourous as you might think!  But it was an amazing experience and I loved working for Ivy. I hope to help her out again next season!
The clothes were beautiful. Ivy's influence for this season was Japanese Samurai and armour.  I got to help dress the models in these beautiful clothes!


Coat check. So glam.


Me and my friend Jack, another volunteer.

The beautiful models doing an after-show photoshoot.


The amazing Ivy fixing an outfit for the shoot. (I am in love with that coat!)



One of the fabulous models!

Ivy and her interns.


Ivy let us all hang out after the show, and gave us some advice about being a designer.  Her main tips were, to paraphrase: 
work hard,
don't lose focus, and 
don't let the haters stand in your way!


She also talked about not letting boys get in your way. Having a boyfriend is sooo not the most important thing in life! "I ♥ fashion! Fashion is my boyfriend!"
And I you!


xx, Nikkidee :]

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