Tuesday, September 27, 2011

My Fashion Week adventures

This year I was given an opportunity to be a lead make up artist for all of the Elle Magazine Style 360 shows, what an amazing experience.
I got to work and meet with some incredible people, like super talented and nice Danilo, inspiring stylist Arianne Philips who styled our Bebe show, lovely and fun Toni and Guy crew lead by Whitney Blischke, Gia, David, Shannon and all of the rest of the crew that made this happen with such organization and grace......it was just magical.


It was amazing how calm and focused I was able to be amid all of the chaos of the backstage madness.
So much to think about, so much more than just doing make up, like captain of the glam ship.
We had an amazing crew of make up artist who with their talent and focus made all of it possible.
I am so grateful.
My beloved agent Brandi (the tiny cutie I am hugging the air out of in the picture) was there to land me her support and my agency was amazing at doing backstage coverage with our own blogger following me around.
I had special treat that one of my first assistants Crystal flew all the way from Atlanta to land me her support, and she was there with me trough make up tests, negotiations and everything else other than make up. She joined my dearest Emma to bring calming and reassuring presence that was a glue that kept everything together. Team is everything.



Our sponsor for Spring/Summer season was Beauti Control. Besides having some of the most delicious, kind and friendly crew, their product was beautiful and made our lives so much easier.

They provided myself and my crew with full kit that I used to create all of the looks for the shows.
They are famous for excellent skin care, but I have to say their color line was very impressive.
From beautiful foundations in wide range of color, to pigmented eyeshadow and lipsticks to my new favorite - liquid eyeliner pen, that I am glued to right now, even in my personal life......kudos Beauti Control team.





I was really lucky to be able to create so many different looks in the span of few days. It was an amazing platform to showcase different make up range I have locked up in my head.
We did everything from porcelain dolls for Bebe, to greasy eyed rock chick for Avril Lavigne's Abbey Dawn line to painted on cowboy boots for Marithe + Francois Girbaud.

I had fun doing wonderful Stacy Igel Boy Meets Girl presentation with Bachelorette Ashley Herbert leading the pack. Inspiration was Americana, so we added stars to join the red lipstick, homage to our flag.
Making sure JP did not kiss of her red lipstick was an extra homework I did not mind doing. They were so cute together.
Daisy Fuentes easy breezy St. Tropez girls were so much fun and so easy to do, since we just survived very intense day before.
Making models look rested and bronzed up with smokey eyes was walk in the park. Sachika twins, full of joy and beautiful energy wanted us to help them bring mermaids to life, and we were happy to deliver with gold, aqua and deep blue eyes.

For Abbey Dawn by Avril Lavigne, we did greased up black rocker eye that I brought back to sweet girlyness by adding  Hot Pink lipstick (by Beauti Control).
I was also mindful of the star guest Kylie Jenner (Kim Kardashian little sister, who was in the front row cheering her on) young age when doing her make up. I did not go as dramatic on her eyes as with rest of the models, I wanted to preserve the fact she is 14 years old.


 For Samantha Black we did graphic liner and salmon colored lips,  to mimic some of the black and white prints she had in her collection.

So there you have it.

From porcelain dolls, boys and girls wearing painted on shoes, hard partying rock chicks, all the way to posh St. Tropez girls and seductive mermaids....
I was given an opportunity to send colorful cast of characters down the runway, and be proud of it.
I love my job!!!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Stay tuned

I am few days away from exciting event of being a lead Make up artist for shows under Elle magazine Style 360. Backstage report to come!!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I am BAACK!!!

My two dearest readers, as you know, I was away for a good while, for a good reason though.
I became a wife, I introduced my beautiful husband to my country and I am moving in amazing direction in my career. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and I have so much to tell you. Lets start from the beginning.
Who would have thought, that little girl, obsessed with purple and far away lands would say yes to a man of her dreams in front of Statue of Liberty, dressed in her favorite color.
Dressed and married by a woman who is beloved friend and who lived with me trough some of the most painful and life changing moments of my life. It is like a fairytale.
But there I was, in the shadows of the beloved city, looking in the eyes of the man who brought me out of the darkness and has become my true constant companion, my inspiration and my true light.
My husband.
Getting married in front of the Statue of Liberty was very important for my life story. I wanted to say thank you, to people I lost, for people that envelop me with their love,  for the country they gave me and country that gave me them. This city, my true home. It's street are veins that course to my heart and pump me with constant inspiration and hope. How can I not fuse everything that I love, with the city I love.

Our wedding was very intimate and every bit made by us and people we love. We made our own invitation, we, along with our friends decorated our love boat, our photographers were people we know and love. We were a part of very personal and emotional event. Both of my dresses were made by my best friend, who has fused all of the intimate details into them, she has weaved our life story into the fabric and weaved her soul into the every stich. How lucky am I?

So there we were, promising each other, something we lived for this beautiful 10 years. To continue to be each other best friends and to respect each other individuality and intellect.
Together, so individual and our own, we managed to create one person that is able to embrace dual aspects of itself and be stronger united.
We made this promise surrounded by people we love and I can not tell you how happy I am to be a wife to the kindest, gentlest, most talented and inspiring man in the world.
Thank you universe!



Saturday, January 15, 2011

Exciting New Year

It has been such eventful end of the last year for me. After not so exciting and almost drab year, on my birthday it all changed with a question "Will you marry me".
That is right ladies and gentleman, this lady is engaged :).  But it is not I who is turning into Bridezilla, oh no sir :)
My beautiful love is dreaming up magical wedding and stars are shooting out of his eyes, oh,  I love him so.
Every year, somehow he manages to throw me surprise birthday party and I swear to you I never catch on. Which is sad, since I do consider myself super sleuth; I am the last person you want to watch movie with, I will figure out the plot and the ending in first 20 minutes. But for some reason, Michael's surprise parties always get me. It is like covert ops with him, he engages army of people to distract me and help him out.
This year he had enlisted help of our friends Amber and Julien (aka Juliber) to lure me out to Central Park to do our routine ritual of gorging on fattening crap from Grace's market on our favorite meadow, before engaging in game of badminton (how counter productive). They always bring their black Pomeranian pooch, my dear friend Ivan with them, but this time Amber said, while holding up bandaged finger, that Ivan bit her (he does have a bit of a drama queen personality), I believed her.
This is my portrait of Ivan


So here we are walking around central park, taking our time, I am like Ferdinand the bull distracted with every pretty flower, and I HAVE to take the picture. Instead of birds chirping, all I hear is my dearest Amber mentioning how much she has to go to the bathroom. I know we are walking toward one, so again, I am taking picture, inhaling pretty November air, but my dear friend is doing a pee dance. So I join her at the boathouse on the lake, where upon exiting bathroom she suggest little drink, which sounds magical.
I am surveying place where we will sit, see my cousin Alex beaufiul face smiling at me, go back to surveying the seats and then.....schreeetch.....did I just see my Alex in the same restaurant...



I look now, for real, and there they are standing by the bar, my friends, neighbors, my cousin, with flowers in their hands, smiles on their faces.... SURPRISE!!!

Yep, he did it again, surrounded me with people I love and his love on that beautiful November day.
Another cast member of the covert operation was my cousin Alex, who helped him organize everything and brought most amazing cupcakes from Magnolia bakery.

There I was surrounded with people I love, content and happy, when Michael asks me to take a walk with him for a few minutes. So I am hopping after him, joking that he has Mariachi band waiting for me somewhere, but he is so serious and focused, I can feel something is up.
He sits me down on the edge of Bethesda fountain, at sunset, and goes down on his knees. He pulls up the most beautiful antique looking box, and starts telling me about his search for a perfect ring…then he starts to sound like Charlie Brown character to me (mhuahah, ahljfku, buahha bahha), since I am too busy crying, realizing what he is doing.
And there it was, on the bed of purple silk, laid the head of the crow. Its elegant silver beak pointing to my heart and I scream YES trough river of tears, I put the ring on the wrong hand and cry some more.
Then jogger stops by and offers to take our photo, I flaying hands saying “We just got engaged”, he smiles and says he knows, he figured it out.
 Hello captain Obvious 

So there I was, once again surrounded by my friends, admiring my beautiful engagement ring, basking in the glow of a promise.
My ring is so magical, he listened to my explicit opinions of no diamonds and that engagement rings should be something unique to the person. Crow is a protector and a messenger and she delivered the most amazing message to me.
So here I am, I start this New Year, knowing I will say “I do” to most important person in my life, I will be his wife.
I start this year toasting to the new chapter, to us working hard and working together … our pockets full of dreams.