Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I lived in NY for 1/2 of Feb

Odilon FW 2011. Red twill suit with 1930s antiqued metal fringe. Harold Kuhn & Stacey Clark's taste & design came together on the collection. Photo by Ryan Koopmans

And was preparing for this for much of January.

My dear baby Odilon by Stacey Clark had its first official presentation during NY Fashion Week. Somehow I took on the job of producer as well as PR (I do need a clone), with thanks to my friends Corinna & Michael @ Nouveau-PR for helping with front of house. I am very proud of how far Odilon has come in a very short time :)

More to follow, but I've just started to come up for air. NY is exhilarating and exhausting. Its so much like Japan to me in that the people work hard and play harder! With places open til 4AM, its no wonder people burn out in that city. I'm a night owl, but I think if NY is going to keep the party going til 4, they ought to starting working a couple of hours later as well ;)

I slept 1.5 hours the night before... Me, Alia, & Tavi at the Odilon presentation. I was most impressed by Tavi's combination of old-soul spirit and kindness mixed with youthful keen interest. Her father Steve was very kind as well and obviously has done an amazing job raising his girl (much like another poppa Steve and his wife Betsyn who are Odilon designer Stacey Clark's parents). Tavi's wig was so amazing on her, it seemed so natural. Somehow we are all a tone of it in this photo by Ryan Koopmans.

I could not have made it through the time there without my amazing creative collaborators. Its incredible to have built a team/family you know you can count on like dear Mr. William Lemon III (who has certainly seen me at my worst and my best); the ever talented, chic and serene Alia Raza; behind the scenes detail-oriented & amazing friend Julie DeAnda; spot-on wise & calming Corinna Springer (mentioned above), artful photog phenom Mr. Ryan Koopmans & model wrangler (casting agent) Larissa Gunn. Daily trips to Health & Harmony in the West Village helped with that amazing turmeric ginger juice to ward off the fashion flu. Of course mascot Callie came along for the trip as well, though she certainly prefers the weather in LA to those 15 degree nights in NY.

Oh, & we squeezed in time to make a short film with the AMAZING Hallie Gates as star. What an inspiring young woman! More on that later too.

Rachel Chandler channels Patty Hearst in an Odilon jumpsuit at their presentation. Photo by Ryan Koopmans

Rachel Chandler was also a love during this crazy time and while she's running around working til all hours of the night/morning, she also managed to DJ the Odilon presentation. Thank you Rachel and thank you Ezra Woods for introducing us!

While all work and no play makes one dull, I did take a handful of moments to do what I wanted to do in order to stay balanced--which I do thank Mr. Eddie Peel for advising. Sadly, the fun I had was always last minute, so I didn't get to see some of my dear friends who I always have dinner and time together with in NY over the past 10 years. That was surely something that made me sad :(

MAJOR thanks to TEMPTU (Ava !!!!!) and ION Studio (Natia, Marco, Naomi, & Leonardo!!!!!) for sponsoring ODILON's first time up on the big pedestal of competition that is NY Fashion Week. (Stacey & I also could not have made it through without our own TEMPTU airbrushes! And I had the best haircut ever & a hit of glossy color from ION--done while multi-tasking filling out event insurance forms & a million emails).

Beautiful Stacey & her models. Yes, we chose a lot of red heads for the Persephone meets 1970 collection. Photo by Ryan Koopmans

More later as I said, but Odilon has had great hits all over the web the past 2 weeks on the likes of Refinery 29, Getty Images, Nylon, Sugar, Just Jared, some Canadian newspapers, and more.... I'm keeping those things more updated on my Facebook & Twitter for now. So much to keep up with!