As a newly-minted fashion design student (2nd week into the program), I felt it my duty to volunteer to work the Mercedes-Benz fashion shows. Here’s the story of what happened.
First off, I volunteered for two days, but the schedule changed, so I was only needed for one. On the day I worked, I drove out to Culver City where Smashbox Studios is. They had us park In a public garage a couple of miles away, and ran a shuttlebus over to the studios so we wouldn’t take up the small parking area. I got there before scheduled, so I located the stop and noticed a Wendy’s just a bit down the street. Not having had lunch, this was fortunate, and I could see the shuttlebus stop from there. I got my food, then sat at one of the outdoor tables (okay, ON the table, more precisely). So there I am, dressed all in black as requested by the organizers, with black sunglasses on, sitting casually on the table with a french fry in one hand and a drink in the other, and the restaurant speaker behind me blaring out the song, “Beverly Hills” when a police car rolls to a stop in front of me. Of course, I had that tiny “What did I do wrong?” thought flit through my head. The cop says to me, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look just like a Wendy’s commercial sitting there.” So funny!
I caught the bus, and then sat with the other volunteers for 45 minutes waiting to be told what to do. All of the other volunteers were 18 or 19 years old, some of them also FIDM students. Finally we were herded into the studio offices, signed our confidentiality agreements and were given t-shirts and badges to identify ourselves. Then they started divvying us up. Some were chosen to work as ushers, others to check people in off the lists, and then there were the dressers. Their job is to make sure the models get the appropriate clothing on before the show, and then help them make their change into the second outfit.
Since I had not had previous experience as a dresser, I was left in the “don’t know what to do with them” group. She kept coming back, though, saying they needed more dressers. On the third trip, no one new had shown up, so she had no volunteers for that. So I, smart-aleck that I am, said, “I dress my kids, does that count?” She laughed, blew me off, and disappeared. Less than five minutes later she returned and said, “There are eleven kids in this show. You. Come with me.” And I was in.
The show was for Ed Hardy. This line is designed by Christian Audingier. It’s streetwear using tattoo art as embellishment. It’s actually pretty cool on an individual basis, but when each piece the model is wearing has tattoo art all over it, it’s a pretty Cirque-du-Soleil atmosphere. But cool.
So I was ushered backstage. There was a long wide hallway lined on both sides with racks of clothing, each hanger holding the pieces with the models’ names and photos. I was sent to the end of the hall where a little annex was tented out for the kids’ section.
The kids were between 8 and 14 years old, and they were Disney-style singer/dancer/model kids. Quite amazing, and really nice. They were all accompanied by a mother, and only one of them was the “stage-mother” type. All the other volunteers had one model to coordinate, I had eleven! But it was fine. Surprisingly, the woman supervising me let me make some styling decisions (what should be tucked/untucked, rolled up, zipped/unzipped, etc.). We had to wait until all the models got dressed (to protect them from all the naked models) to herd them into hair and make-up. Then the mothers were dismissed and I was basically the babysitter/mother hen for the rest of the show.
I did do one thing I was very proud of. The kids opened the show with a big dance routine, and the smallest girl told me she had to do handsprings and such in the finale. I realized that it was going to be dangerous for her, because they had put her in knitted arm mitts that went over her palms and hooked over her thumb. Slip-per-y. She wanted to roll them up, but I knew the stylists wouldn’t want that, so we worked out when and where in her routine she would pull the thumbs out and push them up over her wrists. She did it and completed her stunts safely, so there were no kids with broken necks in the show.
Being older than the other volunteers, I also ended up the expert de facto. Anyone who had any questions about what to do and when asked me first, even though I was wearing the same volunteer shirt they did. I got big kudos from the nerve-shredded woman in charge and my supervisor, and now I get to put experienced dresser on my resume.
