Having a client/friend/collaborator like Abigail Lorick is an Art Director's dream come true. She's open to just about everything I propose and she pushes the project beyond my expectations. Abi and I decided to go all out for her Spring '09 fashion week presentation entitled "A Room of One's Own."
The challenge we set ourselves up for was to create seven theatrical scenes based on the themes keeping up appearances, domestic destruction, and women on the verge. Pulling inspiration from our memories of the late '80s recession, Virginia Woolf's book, A Room of One's Own, along with various films like War of the Roses, and A Woman Under the Influence. We set out to create a world of domestic destruction that we could juxtapose against Lorick's lady-like look.
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Day 1: Scavenger Hunt "Labor day turned out to be a bit more laborious than usual when we decided to save money on props and find them ourselves. We went on a huge scavenger hunt on some islands off of Connecticut in search of objects that would fit our 'After the Storm' and 'Overgrown Garden' scenes. We took our set builder, Johnny Wahba's, boat on an island-hopping adventure and found beautiful drift wood, perfect sized stumps for models to sit on, shells, horseshoe crabs, sea grass, and bits of trash."
Day 2: Prop Pick-up "We had one day to do all the prop/set pickups and one day to build the scenes. There was a slight hitch when Tim & Ana's pick-up truck accidentally backed up into a stationery dumpster. Only a few hours were lost getting the tire replaced!"
Day 3: Load & Build "Time's a tickin.' We had one day before showtime to build this installation. Miles of foliage and much to lift on perhaps Manhattan's smallest & slowest freight elevator!"
"Where to begin?! Here I am wrestling with the vines and wondering how this is all going to come together."
Challenge: Make a sun-drenched loft space with 36 windows and four skylights pitch black. "I put Johnny and Anton [Yupangco] to the test and had them black-out all the windows to give it theatrical feel I was going for."
"Here's Peter carefully laying down the Chinatown chandeliers that started to fall apart the second we pulled them out of the packaging—fortunately that was exactly the look we were going for."
"Here is prop stylist, Ana Monroe and her 'After the Storm' masterpiece."
"Abi nursing her injured foot before the show—always powering through like a true Lorick Lady!" Right: "Polaroids of models in their looks." Photos by Cheyenne Ellis
"While models were arriving, stylists Gina Correll and Meredith Markworth-Pollack were getting the looks together." Photo by Cheyenne Ellis
The Show: Two Hours of Bliss "I couldn't have been happier with the way it all turned out. It was even more of a spectacle than I expected. As I looked around the room, I sensed that people were having a good time and that even the models were enjoying themselves, which in the end is what fashion should be about. Like Abigail reminds me, 'This should be fun and if we're not having fun doing what we're doing, then why go to all the trouble?'" Photos by Sunny Shokre
"After months of thinking, two days prepping, two days building, a stampede of 32 models, two photo shoots, and hundreds of guests, Abi and I took a few minutes revel in what we created before we had to destroy it and run to the after party!" Photo by Cheyenne Ellis