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.

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

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