Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Happy Halloween! Mesela Masks now available!





We have been working hard to bring you the newest thing to Mesela. Custom made, hand crafted Feather Masks! You can purchase these one of a kind pieces at http://www.etsy.com/shop/mesela I will only be making 20 of these fabulous Masks so hurry and get your order in to receive the finishing touch to the perfect Halloween costume!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Mesela now on Twitter

Mesela has found a small little sliver of time to begin posting on Twitter! Follow us at http://twitter.com/#!/meselastudios We will be making daily posts as to our daily activities and any news worthy information!

Monday, October 11, 2010

What happened to New York?

As most of you know, Mesela was geared up and ready to head to New York for Fashion Week for the Spring 2011 Season. We had taken a trip to NYC to finalize some plans and meet with several necessary businesses. We arrived in NYC at our loft in Brooklyn and hit the ground running. We had a photoshoot scheduled, business meeting planned, trips in NYC every day all of which was to be facilitated by my former Creative Director who lived several blocks from the loft we were staying in. Unfortunately we ended up going to the city on our own due to our creative directors personal family problems. Our photoshoot kept getting pushed back and we were not able to meet with any of the businesses we had been told we had meetings with. We spent the first several days in NYC waiting on our Creative Director. On about the 3rd day we had had enough and decided to go beat the streets and find our own way. We accomplished more in that day than we did in the first 3 days combined.After some very tired feet (I literally wore a hole in the bottom of my flip flops) and some crazy humid weather we were able to check off the majority of what was on our list. We also found a little time to squeeze in some site seeing including time square, a fabulous shopping trip at the biggest forever 21 I have ever seen in my life, attending the Gay Pride Festival, and checking off NY hotdogs and pizza on our list of MUST haves.

Unfortunately on the day before we left our Creative Director sent us an email saying that he intended on quitting at the end of the month. We were, understandably, incredibly frustrated with this new information as we had not done anything, other than a photo shoot, he had scheduled for us to do. He stated he would complete all that he had promised and with this information I met him on the streets of NYC to discuss things. After an almost immediate insult to Christina upon our meeting our voices became louder and our words less thoughtful. I was very hurt and very angry and unfortunately I ended up letting him have it in a crowd of people outside of the Hilton Garden Inn!!!

I do not feel bad about what I did, I do however, feel stupid for not seeing what was going on in the beginning. I feel hurt and awful that Christina had to listen to his horrible insults towards her. I feel sad and confused for Dave having to step in and tell him to stop yelling at me. This whole ordeal was an awful experience and one I will NEVER forget. I am grateful for the lessons learned, however, I had not let myself feel betrayed and hurt and so the process of moving on and moving forward was long. After realizing that all of my hopes and dreams had been ripped unceremoniously out from under me I basically shut down.

I apologize for my absence. I am slowly coming back to reality and I have put my hopes back in to showing in NYC this coming Spring for the Fall 2011 Season. I hope that you have not lost faith in me and I pray that I will come back smarter and stronger because of this experience. Thank you all for sticking by my side and supporting me through this difficult time. I wont forget it :)

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Whirlwind in Wonderland

WOW! What a show we just completed. For those of you who missed it, Mesela Studios presented their premier fashion show in Anchorage, Alaska entitled Midnight in Wonderland on May 22nd. I had written earlier about all the preparation that we were doing for the show and it all paid off on Saturday evening. Kristen Grimes was showcasing two of her collections. The first was a spring/summer accessories collection that included elaborate headpieces, belts, and neckwraps. The highly anticipated Alice in Wonderland holiday collection was certainly a crowd favorite. Inspired by seven of the main charactures of Alice in Wonderland with a feathery twist was a site to see.

Well it started with 3 sleepless nights where we named our team the "Mesela Zombies". By the time the show started I don't think anyone knew how they were still functioning anymore. On Saturday, we ran into a few bumps in the road, as all glorious events must, but overall the show turned out amazing! Here are some pictures for you to gaze at and feel like you were sitting front row at the show.















Friday, May 14, 2010

Sleepless nights with Redbull by my side

After returning home from "work" in Seattle, Kristen and I hit the pavement running. Our mini vacation is over and we now have a fashion show vastly pproaching. I told Kristen that she needs to sew her little heart out and that I will do the rest.

We found a fabulous new dance company, Pulse, who agreed to be our entertainment for the show. Pulse dancers will be dressed as the Queen of Heart's cards and will both open and conclude the show. Kristen and I found some great outfits for them to dance in and poured paint over them to create an exciting funky effect.

With much thought and consideration, the playlist is now finalized and has some spicy tracks on it. The show starts off with an urban feel with the accessory line, and slowly gets creepier and creepier, until the finale Queen of Hearts comes out to Marlyn Manson's "Beautiful People" and screams "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!". The dancers then go into their final dance number before the meet and greet with the designer, Kristen Grimes. This show will be quite the theatrical event and the hottest fashion show that Anchorage has ever seen.

The time is drawing closer and Kristen and I are starting to feel the pressure of this fashion show. Kristen has reverted to letting her genious flow through zero sleep and redbull in order to get these pieces done in time. I rest assured that when the fashion show rolls around the there will be completed pieces looking fierce on the runway.

There is a lot of buzz around Anchorage about this fashion show. A substantial amount of people know about Mesela, the Alaska designer who uses feathers, but few have actually seen her work. There are other fashion shows that are going on that night, but people are turning down invitations to the other shows to attend Mesela's Premier Fashion Show. It is so exciting!

The media loves Kristen and Mesela Studios. Kristen has been profiled by a newspaper, a television station wants to do a feature story on her, and on Friday May 21st Kristen and I will be guests on MOVIN 104.9 radio morning talk show.

We have been networking our buns off! Last week we attended the Teft.Punk grand opening. This is a new photography studio in Anchorage that features the talented Shalem Mathew of Shalem Mathew Photography and Mitch Kitter of Propaganda Photography. Watched Pulse Dance Company perform at the Laughing Lotus 3 year anniversary celebration. We have gone through bipolar meetings with local boutique to determine which Anchorage boutique will feature Mesela's designs. And telling anybody and everybody that we know to come to the fashion show!

Tonight, Kristen and I are attending the Variety Show at Mad Myrnas to promote our fashion show. Mad Myrnas is a famous gay bar here in Anchorage, and we would love to have members of our gay community know about our fabulous show and to show their support. So we are showing our support first by attending their weekly variety show. I've heard that it is a fantastic show and I am excited to see what the evening has instore for us.

This weekend will be quite busy for Mesela Studios. Not only is Kristen chugging away at her 2 collections that are being showcased, I am staying busy as well. On Saturday I am conducting a Model Runway Walk Bootcamp. Most of the girls have fabulous walks, but some models don't have a lot of runway experience, so I am giving them a quick bootcamp to teach them the essensials to having a FIERCE walk on the runway. Then on Sunday, we are having a runthrough of the entire show for everyone involved. It certainly is going to be a full weekend.

Mesela Studios is very excited for our premier fashion show in Alaska. Be sure to listen to us as we are the morning guests on MOVIN 104.9 at 8 am Friday, May 21st. And come to Midnight in Wonderland May 22nd at 6pm at Platinum Jaxx in downtown Anchorage. You'll hear ALL about the show on this blog. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Emerald City



What a weekend! Kristen and I escaped from reality to Seattle for business but certainly got to play tourists and have a fabulous time. We arrived safe and sound on Saturday to see that Seattle looks like a ghost town. I didn't understand how on a Saturday afternoon hardly anyone was in downtown Seattle. However, of the people that were downtown a very bold man with a megaphone inside his car announced while we were walking by 'girl, you make those pants look good!" and "I am digging that red hair". I was laughing so hard I almost fell down the hill.

Kristen and I wondered around this surprisingly windy city with our map and "oohed and ahhed" at all the buildings. We went to the W hotel to scope out where we would be meeting for Project Runway. We then ate dinner at Wild Ginger restaurant. This was our first taste of what Seattle had to offer in terms of food and boy were we impressed. After eating a delicious dinner in this dark, edgy restaurant we went back to the hotel to put some very last minute touches on the pieces and get ready for our big day.

The next morning we started the morning with jitters and primping. We concluded before we left that whatever happens, happens for a reason. We scurried along to get to the W hotel with plenty of time to spare. While sitting in the waiting room with the other contestants Kristens nerves started to settle a little. We got everything ready and had our heads held high in confidence that this interview would go well. We stepped in and the three judges were sitting at their tables, cameras on, and plenty of people eager to hear what Kristen had to say about herself. She started off talking about where she comes from and her accomplishments, and then the bomb dropped. As soon as she said that she has been in the fashion industry for three months the judges completely became closed off. We left the interview frustrated but also a bit releaved.

Kristen found out that she will be headlining her own fashion show in New York City during Fashion Week September 10-17th. So we figured that she has all these wonderful things going for her without having to go on Project Runway. This way, she has time to complete her entire spring collection before fashion week without rushing through it. So we took it as a blessing in disgize. We moved on and enjoyed the rest of our trip to Seattle. It was time to play. We went to a Brazilian restaurant for lunch and tried a little bit of everything that the restaurant offered. They had a Sunday buffet and people came around and sliced meat off for us to try. It was quite an experience since neither of us had ever eaten Brazilian food before, but it was quite enjoyable.

Kristen and I went and explored the Pike Street
Market, played and had a great time. As soon we got there, we started exploring around, buying momentous gifts for loved ones, and seeing all the charactures of Pike Street. We listened and danced to street musicians and befriended the nice "fish guys". The fish guys were a hoot and totally made our day. Tahoe, one of the fish guys, was fascinated by Kristen's success story and was so excited for her to rise to the top. We then went and ate at a fabulous seafood restaurant that had pretty good food with AMAZING deserts. We ate a velvet chocolate cake that was to die for. We hoped that we wouldn't go back home 20 pounds heavier but concluded that if we did, it would all be worth it.

The fun really began when we had lunch on top of the Space Needle. It was great to sit on top of this famous rotating monument and eat lunch while gazing over a beautiful sunny day in Seattle. We looked over the city and marveled at the beautiful Pacific Ocean, high rising towers, and beautiful harbors. While looking around we saw a really colorful building with amazing
arcetecture. We asked our server what that brightly colored building was and she said it was the music museum. We immediately went "ooh! we want to go there!". So we did, and boy did we feel like little kids in a playground. We looked at Jimi Hendrix broken guitars, gazed at famous rockstar pictures, learned how to play some instruments, and had a photoshoot that only rockstars could enjoy. We had an amazing time in the music museum and couldn't get over how cool of a place it was. Afterwards, we walked over to the International fountain and splashed around taking off our heels and getting as close to the fountain as we could without getting wet.

The next morning we packed everything up very early and headed back home. The trip was a great event for the both of us. It was a great learning experience, we discovered a lot about ourselves and also got to escape reality and play. Now we are back home and back to work. Be sure to keep checking back to this blog, as I will continue to post updates on our upcoming events including Midnight in Wonderland Mesela's Premier Fashion Show in May, business meetings in NYC in June, followed by Fashion Week in NYC in September.

Christina

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Chaos in a Nutshell

Monday Kristen got a call from the casting crew and producers of Project Runway saying that she is a semi-finalist for the show. They said she would need to report to Seattle by Sunday for the first casting interview. After all the "AAAHHHHH"s and "I can't believe this is happening"s were all out, reality set in. I believe her exact words were "How the am I going to get to Seattle by Sunday?" I got her phone call with the good news during finals at UAA and screamed in a room full of people studying. It was quite embarresing but well worth the good news.

Kristen was told that she would have to bring down 4-5 of her original work that was sewn by her to be reviewed. That sounds all fine and dandy, Kristen has plenty of original pieces that represent Mesela, except that they are all down in Indianapolis being photographed. Well shoot, now she has very limited days to create from scratch 4-5 pieces. So the work begun!

During all this craziness, we are also in the midst of preparing for Mesela's Premier Fashion Show that is set for May 22nd, 6pm at Platinum Jaxx. So we have also been working hard to get things set for the show. We figured that while we are in Seattle, the fashion show planning will have to be put on hold. Mesela has Project Runway to get onto.

The producers of Project Runway continued to call Kristen throughout the short week asking her a multitude of questions such as "What is your favorite designer"? It's funny because Kristen is so novice in the industry that she hasn't had time to develope a favorite designer. She asks the producers if she should find a designer that she likes and they say "No, that's a reason why we like you. We love the fact that you have only been doing this for 3 months and you have as amazing of work as you do."

So as Kristen is busy sewing, sewing, sewing I'm trying to get everything for the trip together. Kristen is using a guest pass that was donated to her by a kind and dear friend of hers, I flew down on frequent flyer miles, and our hotel room was donated to us by a generous woman who truly believes that Kristen will make it far in the fashion industry. On such short of notice, people really stepped up and showed their support for Mesela. It was truly a blessing. This is how things work in the life of Mesela, there is chaos one minute and then miraculously things just come together. It's quite an interesting experience.

In a nutshell, that has been our chaotic, exciting, sleep-less week. I am currently on a plane navigated toward the Emerald City. Kristen should be on the flight after me so we will meet at the hotel in downtown Seattle. I am so exstatic about what this trip has in store for Mesela. I have a good feeling about this. We are both going into this wide eyed and wanting to learn. I will keep you bloggers posted on every step of this fabulous journey. More to come!

Christina

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Wow.

I had a fabulous, incredible, amazing time in Indy. So many beautiful places and wonderful people. check out my FB fan page to see pics http://www.facebook.com/meseladesigns

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Indianapolis, Here I Come!!!

We're packing up the truck and getting ready to head to the airport. I can't believe this day is finally here. It seems like such a long time ago that this all started but its only been a few short months. I am so incredibly grateful to be here at this point in my life. I look forward to whatever awaits me in Indianapolis. I will, of course, let you know exactly what that is as soon as I find out! :)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

The countdown

It's begun! Less than 1 week until we head to Indianapolis for Midwest Fashion Week! We are beyond excited and SO looking forward to the new sites and sounds of Indy. We will be posting exclusive behind the scenes pics and news updates as the week goes on so stay tuned and be the first to see what goes on behind the curtains of MWFW!!!!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Mesela is now a blogger! Yikes!

Hello to all our fans who have requested that we start a blog! I'm a little nervous about this whole thing but we'll see how it goes!

Here's a short Intro for those of you who don't know who we are...

About 3 months ago I (Kristen) started searching for a feather tutu to buy for my daughters. I thought they were absolutely ADORABLE but could not find one ANYWHERE. I looked for weeks and just kept coming up empty handed. SO I made my own. It turned out beautifully and my infatuation with feathers was born.

My idea started out as just a small line of baby accessories but as I kept searching for feather embellished pieces, both clothing and accessories, I kept coming up empty handed. So I began to experiment with feathers and fabrics, having never sewn a stitch in my life this was an interesting adventure at first... occasionally still is.

When I had a few pieces completed I posted them on a collabrative modeling site and within a week I was contacted by Midwest Fashion Week to be one of their featured designers for their Fall/Winter fashion show in Indianapolis!!! I was SOOOO incredibly thrilled (still am) and completely honored to have been asked. I Leave for Indy on March 16th :)

Since then I have continued to make pieces and have had a consistent schedule of 1 to 3 photo shoots per week. Everyone that has seen my pieces have absolutely fallen in love and I couldn't be happier. I have been involved in the arts my entire life so this is an absolute dream come true for me to be able to have a job (if you can really call it that) where all I do all day is draw, design and create and have an absolute blast in the process :)

You can find me on Facebook www.facebook.com/meseladesigns as well as my website (coming soon) www.meselastudios.com

I am so excited and so blessed to have finally found the place that I am supposed to be and doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Thank you all for your continued support and your 'Obsession', as one lovely friend of mine put it, with my ever changing collection.

Here's to a year full of possibility and promise. May all YOUR dreams come true :)

Kristen Files
Designer
Mesela Studios