I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Gensler

IIDA Boston Fashion Show 2012 Recap

So did you get sick of me mentioning the lack of sleep and craziness related to the IIDA Boston Fashion Show Gala and Benefit?!?! Well, anyway, we busted our butts to get everything ready for that Thursday night and it really was all worth it. It’s a crazy amount of work for a 3 minute walk but it really is fun, even with all the drama and late super late nights.

This year’s theme was “audaCITY”  and we interpreted that into audacious things that were related to the cities. We rattled around many different ideas, including doing Gotham (a la Batman & friends) but we decided on designing around the idea of a ‘FAST FOOD MAFIA’. We created 4 costumes featuring Ronald McDonald, Wendy, Colonel Sanders, & Burger King. They were all a biut hardcore, dramatic, and darker than their real counterparts.

My coworker Megan (Ronald) wrote this up for a firmwide posting about the show:

“Rules of the game required portions of the entries to be created from industry materials, and since we partnered with Tandus this year  – hefty amounts of carpet backing, carpet fiber, and woven carpet were involved. The rest of the outfits included drinking straws & straw wrappers, ketchup packets, mustard packets, drinking cups and lids, paper bags, happy meal boxes, french fry containers and acutal french fries.

Models were Laura Brodersen, Stephen Muse, Danielle Meeker, and Megan Dobstaff (all from Gensler Boston) and the manpower behind the outfits included Genslerites –  Olena Ivanina, Nicole Spasiano, Alexa Anderson, Samantha Darcy, Laura Duenas, and Katie Kaiser.”

So here is a recap of the big day!

 

Ronald’s wig I made | last minute work

 

Is it wrong that I would want my make up to look like this daily? Incredible!

We then moved our operation over to the Westin hotel as it is connected to the Boston Convention Center, where the show was being held for the first time this year to accommodate the long runway and huge crowds.

 

obviously it’s wine time | no big, Olena is hot gluing mustard packets onto some pants

Make up Time for ‘The Burger King’

From the hotel room we then had to move the models and all the stuffs to the work room where the judging would take place.

 

OMG! It’s judging time! Gotta explain our interpretation of the show’s theme and how we created out costumes using industry materials (our sponsor was a carpet manufacturer) as well as fast food materials.

Wendy is so trampy. You would not want to mess with her.

We were all then hurried, hurried, hurried to get the models together and in line to be able to have the show begin!

I was gross with hot glue on my shirt so Olena blocked me while I changed my shirt in the workroom, then I threw on some make up and got my hair up in a big ass bun. Good to go!

 

It’s show time!

 

 my thoughts… ooo this first entry is weird. Those guys are awesome at flips and back hand springs. Wow. What’s up with these girls? Wait? What?!?! Oh their shoulders! Come on! You have to be kidding me! Great this starts the show, first entry!?!? how can anyone… whoa! That cloth just dropped!  And now they are turning around with them up there. Damn

 

Are you for real? They then spun around to show the audience the back of the graffiti covered clothes. Show offs.

some audacious ladies throughout history

drama

 

The 3 photos above are of the overall show winners. Honestly, I didn’t think they were all that impressive. Big whoop, black clothes and some painted fabric. Wow you have a tall guy. Special. Well, they (Dyer Brown Architects) actually were sponsored by Benjamin Moore and what was not understood from my distance from the stage is that they made ‘fabric’ using paint. From what I unserstand they poured paint in layers onto non stick surfaces to create a material they could then wear. Pretty kick ass.

 

I loved this! The girl in front was the Guggenheim in NYC!

One of 3 Dr Suess inspired themes

Then it was our turn!

 

 

 

one of my fav pictures of the night

 

I missed most of the rest of the show as I was backstage with the team taking pictures and having a little moment freaking out that sound guy played the wrong song during the walk. During prior years the teams were not permitted to pick songs so we were REALLY EXCITED to be able to pick a song this year so it was a huge disappointment that wrong some played. Esp since the song we got was a remix of Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ which is soooo different than what we picked:

 

 

After all the entries walk they do 1 last parade down the runway together. And then the different winning categories are announced…

We took home the award for “MOST ORIGINAL”!!!

Woohoo!!!!!!

Everyone loves Wendy’s 10′ long braids!! I love how they turned out!

Price and I made the brads using 4 sections of 3′ long 1 1/2″ dia pipe insulation that we then wrapped with carpet backing and then 2 shades of carpet fiber. Each strand was 12′ long and then they shortened up a bit when they were braided.  Danielle’s (Wendy) husband then spray painted them black at the ends and Olena and I added the black capert fibers and ribbons at the ends.

 

The award!! (I put it down and lost it. I’m horrible)

 

smile ladies

-the crew-

 

After we got the models undressed we then partied!!! It was so much fun taking pictures against a green screen, throwing back bourbon, and dancing around. A few of us in our office stayed until they shut it all down. Such an awesome night!!

A huge massive tremendous thank you to our team, the signifigant others that were roped in and helped out, and our amazing Tandus rep Kerry!!

Can’t wait for next year!!!!

the big G holiday party

Last Wednesday night we had our annual holiday party. We ventured over from Beantown to Catalyst in Cambridge. Thank gawd it was not snowing since there was no way I was going to do that… the Charles is like the Berlin wall- just something I don’t cross since getting home in Newton from there is a P.I.T.A. Back the the party recap…

 

I am have become the unofficial event photographer for our office. I think it’s the scrapbooker in me… must document everything! So I started off by bee-lining it to the center table to snap some food pictures before us vultures descended upon the nosh.

 

Us. I wish I had a picture of my outfit. I was actually happy with it for once. I wore a shear top (with a tank underneath thankyouverymuch) that had sequin blooms on it, a tan skirt, black tights, and my gold sparkly heels.

 

 

Once we got settled checking our coats and getting drinks, I got to snapping pictures. As one of the waiters offered me a quiche, I took a picture before I took one. He loved that so he offered to bring me all the trays before passing them out. He was sooo sweet to offer to do that… food blogging dream.

Plus, one of the great things associated with the staff bringing me the trays out to me first was that our table was able to get one of everything before missing out on something.

 

 

We had a great time there catching up with everyone, enjoying great food, and throwing back some drinks.

David, our in house reproduction guy, is on the right. We are Giants fans so we discuss their games afterwards when we see each other in the morning. Plus he gets the NY Post every day and shows me weird news articles, or he will show me crazy videos he sees online . Most often I correct the grammar of the people in such videos, so he thinks I’m insane for talking to the computer. Great times.

  

Admin group photo.

 

The 4 principals in our office.

It was such a great night out. The servers were patient with us since we stayed later than expected but it was just because we were having such a great time there. Eventually, we moved out to the bar and restaurant. Price and I didn’t stick around too long since I had a little nail polish bottle in bag explosion and I basically stunk up the place. Of course… it had to be me! And it was my NEW matte finisher that I had not gotten to use yet since I didn’t have a chance to do my nails at lunch. whomp whomp!

Our next party is in June. Can’t wait!

____________________

Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

IIDA NE ‘Ashion Show Videos

A follow-up to my previous post about the IIDA NE 2011 Fashion Show, I have completed 2 videos recapping the night. Check them out!

I made this using a Magic Movie feature thing with my flip software that grabs 4 seconds of each video segment  creating a mash-up. This shows our set up backstage and then the show itself. It’s a fun way of getting to see what we did for 4 hours in under 2 minutes!

When it was our turn to walk I gave my coworker my flipcam while I ran down to the end of the stage and  took photos. She accidentally turned the camera near the end so just turn your head and go with the flow… do it! Our moon man won the crowd over with his moonwalk at the end. 🙂

It was such a great night!

IIDA Boston 2011 Fashion Show

Last Thursday’s IIDA* New England 2011 Fashion Show was a big success. It was a lot of hard work but worth it in the end.

It was my first year involved in the fashion show as I had previously been busy with school commitments. It was great to start with this year since it had a great theme of ‘Iconography’. We had to select something iconic to create costumes based upon. We selected this image of Buzz Aldrin on the moon. We focused on creating a male costume that was similar to the typical astronaut suite. For the 2 other costumes we created 2 female costumes that were a bit more fun with a focus on future space fashion. A little different than Zenon fashion, no?

Besides the great theme, we had great products to work with. Part of the fashion show is to creatively use products that we use in our design projects. This year we partnered up with Stone Source for tile and store, Spinneybek for leather, and Cambridge Architectural for metal mesh. They ended up working so well for our theme.

Here is a run down of the event…

_____________________

 

We had to get costumes over to the hotel so a few of use left early so we could set up and get our 3 lovely models all set up. Once everything was up on the 7th floor staging area we headed down to the lobby for a celebratory drink. We ended up with shots of Patron…

 

Back up stairs.. let the work begin! Lots of makeup and an announcement…

 

We started with a shimmery base white coat on Laura. Then silvery base coat on Megan…

I added the blue to Megan’s hair since her accent color was blue. Alissa added lots of dark base to my coworker/model Brett…

 

Having a great time and some other teams getting ready…

We decided on bands on all of models’ faces so they were added in the different colors to match their accents…

 

On goes the red accent on Laura. Then A LOT of glitter on top of all of that… (click the R picture to enlarge it)

Megan getting some touch ups. I think she looks amazing here…

 

Anna, a hairstylist prior to switching careers, working on Laura’s hair…

 

Geared up! We had to get our models dressed up in preparation of judging. The gear is hot and heavy so we had to time to correctly so they would not get too tired or sore from wearing it…

 

Obviously you should take embarrassing photos of your coworkers as well as the models…

Judging time! (yeah I know there is a girl getting dressed behind us. no big!) Megan explained our theme and the materials we used to the judges prior to the big runway walk…

 

The hours flew by preparing for the event but it started! Former coworker Mai is a co-chair so she was one of the beginning MC’s. There were more introductions but then it was time for the show to start!

 

Title: “Poche”- inspired by graphic patterns used in drawings

 

Title: “WeARHOL”- using iconic Warhol images, such as Marilyn

Title: “The serpent. The ultimate icon.”

 

Title: “The Beatles(ography)”- yellow submarine (L), Octopus’s garden and strawberry fields(R)

 

Title: “Dweller Among the Clouds”

 

Title: “All Hail McQueen”- they painted the models on stage with paint sprayers

 

Title: “Paint by Numnbers”- including Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Shepard Fairey’s Obama, and Warhol’s “Turquoise Marilyn”

Title: “Living Popart”

And ours… “Man on the Moon”

Brett walking down the record 90′ long runway in front of a record 1,000 person crowd…

The flag was made of a large wood dowel with a sheet of foam core attached to it. It was then covered in tile and leather…

Megan at the end of the runway posing in front of the judges…

Laura making it down the runway…

Brett handed off the flag to Megan while he did the moonwalk to a cheering crowd prior to walking back…

 

Title: “Magic Kingdom Come”

I wish I had a better picture of the main headpiece. It was detailed beautifully. Each of the costumes were stunning. Look at the costumed guy on the left, and then to the woman at the lectern standing next to him to get a perspective at the size of each of these 3 costumes. Crazy…

 

Title: “Icon of the Virgin”

In total there were 22 submissions, including a few schools. I missed a bit of the ones after us since I ran back up to the room to get a scissor incase Laura wanted to cut off the HEAVY metal mesh skirt that was digging into her hips. She sucked it up and wore the skirt for the final procession of all the models.

Then the awards…

WOOOHOOOO!!! We won an award!!! We were awarded with Best Interpretation of Theme.

After Bergmeyer’s “Magic Kingdom Come” we were bummed since their peices were stunning so it seemed like we had no chance for any of the awards. Thankfully we got one of specific awards while they picked up best in show.

In all the night was a blast. I don’t have photos of the after party since I didn’t want to spill anything on my camera and what happens at the after party, stays at the after party! I got home after 2 and Friday was a l-o-n-g day but it was so worth it.

*IIDA= Institute of International Interior Design Association.

gettin’ lectured

Last night Price and I went to lecture about City Center, MGM’s latest project in Vegas, at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). I was interested in this lecture because Gensler was the executive architect for the project. It was a huge collaborative effort, that Gensler managed, between several large famous architectural firms, landscape design firms, interior designers, and consultants. This was a HUGE project~ 18 million square feet and $8.5 million dollars~ so I wanted to hear about the design process and how it came together.

 

This really is a turning point in Vegas. City Center is not the typical kitch that you see in vegas- no pyramid, no eiffe tower, no statue of liberty, no volcano with shooting flames. This is a beautiful center that can redefine what Vegas architecture will be.

Aside from Gensler’s participation, I wanted to see the lecture because of the panel of architects there. Umm anyone heard of Daniel Libeskind? Even if you don’t recognize the name, you can recognize the work from the Jewish Museum Berlin in Berlin, Germany, the latest addition to the Royal Onterio Musuem in Toronto, ON. I could not miss a lecture with Libeskind, Clarke, Gonzalez-Paulido, Kohn, and Lin. This is a who’s who of famous firm founders/partners. Sure, they are just regular people, but famous architect people. It’s like getting coffee when Art Gensler (a founder of Gensler) is also in the pantry during a visit and the only thing I can think of is ” Don’t spill! Don’t trip!!” (I have fallen while carrying coffee before- I tore up my knee pretty well too).

 

So Price and I settled in for the 2 hour lecture about how it was to design, work, and collaborate on City Center. It was interesting to have the client and the architects there so you could hear what the client really wanted and how the architect filled their needs. MGM had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted and with master planning finalized the program and spaces to then work with architects to design each of these pieces, from the casino and hotel of Aria, high-end boutique (400 room) hotel of the Mardarin Oriental, and the high-end shopping center called Cyrstals, etc.

I think that the lecture went well but I think that there could have been some plans to show the scale or the overall spaces. The renderings were great but there is something about a line drawing that can also tell you a lot. The panel discussed some pretty in depth things, like Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido answered questions regarding the use of curtain wall systems. While all the projects are different materiality they are similar and Gonzalez- Pulido explained how the projects using curtain wall systems allows this to happen. When they were designing Veer, a condo towers, they turned to the curtain wall systems because of their efficiency, which would help them obtain the LEED Gold they were striving for.

 

Overall questions and comments from the audience were positive there was 1 GSD student who had a holier than thou complex and started to ask if they feel as architects they should create spaces that are improving the human condition, instead of creating a space that emphasizes capitalism and commercialism. I think that they handled the question well by explaining they were designing for their audience- the touristy person who is coming for an escape. Sure they can’t afford the pricey Louis Vuitton bag they can still enjoy the space they are in.

In all it was fun to go to because it was interesting to heard about the program, process, design intent, materials, and to hear from these world-class architects.

Sorry for some crummy photos- I’m an idiot who could not find her camera in her purse because it was in my coat pocket that I was carrying around. So I used my iphone and ended up finding my camera at the end. So dumb.

The Harvard GSD lecture schedule can be found HERE.

Lecture:

A ‘CityCenter’ for the Strip: A Discussion with Fred Clarke, Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido, A. Eugene Kohn, Daniel Libeskind, Sven Van Assche, Rafael Vinoly, and Christine Williams
Client:
Sven Van Assche
Christine Williams
 
Panel:
Fred Clarke, Senior Principal, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido, Partner and Vice President, Murphy/Jahn Architects
A. Eugene Kohn, Chairman, Kohn Pederson Fox Associates
Daniel Libeskind, Studio Daniel Libeskind
Chan-li Lin, Director, Rafael Vinoly Architects
Moderated by Alex Krieger, Chan Krieger Sieniewicz and Professor in Practice and Interim Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard GSD