Painfully Hip » Fashion Shows

Painfully Shorn… or How I Fell in Love with a Gay Man.

amber — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:48:15 +0000

Last week I woke up and felt like it was Christmas morning in July (except it wasn’t July, it was October… only it felt like July because I’m in the desert…). Why you ask? Because it was motherfucking HAIRCUT DAY.

You see, the gorgeous Jasmine of Billie Goat Vintage had asked me 2 months ago to be part of her amazing runway show on Sept 25th, and had graciously asked me to please grow out my hair for it. I knew it was important to her, so I didn’t hesitate to promise to keep away from the scissors – NOT an easy feat considering that my hair is my arch nemesis, and I’d rather have as little of it on my head as possible at all times.

Here I am on the runway… Turned out there was actually no need at all for me to grow it out since they just ended up fixing a big yellow clove hitch of fake hair to the side of my head anyway… By the way, those are butterfly wings affixed to my eye. The hair and makeup was pretty awesome all round. Check it.

Click photo to see the rest of this amazing show!

I must thank you again, Jasmine, not only for letting me sport the most amazing dress ever, but for priming me up for the best haircut of my life.

Fast-forward. I have just met one of the most talented hair stylists I will probably ever know. We become fast friends because he is FUCKING AWESOME… and he offers to cut my HAIR!! My gnarly, fried, bleached-to-shit, nothing hair! And what does he do with it? He makes gold. An alchemist is he. He spent, like, an hour on my 3 strands of hair. Addam Moreno, ladies and gentleMAN, the creative director of Joico.

Yes, Dirty Harry, I DO feel lucky. Thanks for asking.

photo by Ryan Mihalyi
hair by Addam Moreno
gilt shark tooth earrings by Laura Kepner-Adney

Here’s the front, just for the record, in the immediate afterglow of scissor heaven via my laptop photobooth.

This is what glee looks like

BTW, Tucsonans, we are currently looking for hair models for a free cut and color by Addam. YOU WIN. Please contact me at painfullyhipATgmail.com IF you are not afraid of change.

Phoenicians? Is that what we call people of Phoenix? I really hope so!
Don’t miss BOOTY SAFARI tomorrow night, October 15, at the Ruby Room! My friend Joe! He paints with light! Plus it will be a crazay partay!

I will have butterfly wings on my face. Literally and metaphorically.

amber — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:27:52 +0000

Arizona! Come see us make like models at the Grand Avenue Festival, taking place in a rad former pie factory warehouse:

This will feature the most beautiful altered vintage from Butter Toast Boutique, the brick and mortar version of the amazing Billie Goat Vintage. I’m really excited. Hope to see some of you kids there!

Wait. I’ve been invited to model in a pie factory runway show. Should I have a bad feeling about this?

preen (and buffalo exchange!) fashion show for tucson HocoFest 2009

diana — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:45:24 +0000

what’s HocoFest? oh, you know… i had no idea either. until there was a fashion show involved (and that right there sums up the extent of the brain-space i devote to anything non textile-related…).

so turns out, it’s a pretty freakin’ awesome 3-day festival that “a celebration of all things music, solar & sustainable during labor day weekend in sunny tucson, AZ- home to one of the best indie music scenes in the states.”
(aw! thanks hocofest website! i think tucson has one of the best “indie music scenes in the states” as well!)

emilie, half of the preen-ownership duo. um, was this dress MADE for her, or are you going to be
stubborn and argue with the obvious?

so everyone’s favorite vintage shop in tucson, preen, would be getting involved, obviously.
how so? by combining with the also-fabulous buffalo exchange to create a ”sustainable fashion show.”

um, hi world! did you say that the show involved all things thrifted and vintage?
huh… i suppose we could work within those parameters.

pre-show. we (and by “we” i mean emilie,) did a fantastic job with the theme, no?

so the theme was “glam rock,” something which i personally have never embraced as a style choice. it turned out to be a lot of fun to work with though, actually.

amber and i spent way too many hours combing through photos of david bowie, lamenting over our lack of one armed/one legged psychedelic jumpsuits, and listening to all things sparkly and amazing in our itunes. we styled some really amazing catwalk outfits, which were immediately tossed out the door the minute we set foot in preen and realized we had some serious options to work with.

me, amber and evee, wearing more makeup, leopard print and hairspray than we will for
the entire rest of the year combined.

so preen had eight models total, and buffalo exchange had somewhere around 30, but we totally managed to kill it anyway. the missing 8th model from the group picture at the top? this handsome looking fellow, abraham:

abraham, one of the only men i know who can totally rock pleather pants and a sequined bomber.

something else amazing? tuani’s vintage gold fringe skirt, docs, and one glove:
seriously emilie, how do you pull this off?!?!

ok, so she’s glove-less here, but i promise one came on for the show…

so enough “behind the scenes” already, right?!?! you’re ready for some actual show-action!!
well, that’s “behind the scenes” too. (hey, best spot in the house. and a change of scenery…)

so… some of us had never actually walked the the runway before and were actually a wee bit terrified. i won’t say who this “someone” is, because i’d be embarrassed. (hey! i’m not a model, i’m a designer and a stylist! being stared at is terrifying!)

this photo does the situation no justice – we’re all on the runway at this point – which i’m cool with. but how does a girl with absolutely no catwalk experience pull it off when it’s her turn alone down the runway? well, if you’re ever in the same situation, i’ll give you a little hint: do your most ridiculous dance and pretend everyone is eating it up.

there’s no terror in large groups…

and not to save the best for last, but the show-stopper of the evening? i don’t think anyone can argue with this:

evee, in her cage-dress/vintage lingerie/black velvet little-boy blazer number, with the most amazing hair ever…

AND

um, yeah. an amazing trash can ball gown erin bradley, the other half of the preen
magnificence created by hand.
yeah, i said it. BY HAND.

and in case all that wasn’t enough, the Meat Puppets played immediately after our part of the show. the meat puppets! stop and think about that for a minute or two. seriously, how awesome are the 90s?!?!

The Want this Weak: Christian Siriano, FF09

amber — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:27:53 +0000

Diana and I were giddy with anticipation when we heard that Christian Siriano of Project Runway fame would be showing his Fall Collection at a chic cocktail party just in time for our very first blogger convergence. We arrived at the loft space via freight elevator and feasted our eyes on the gold, turquoise, and brown concoctions floating around the room on racks and statuesque models. It took us a great many pink drinks to get up the balls to talk to the pint-sized talent, who revealed that his sky-high footwear would be available at Payless soon! Can you say GLEE??

Christian complimented my little jacket-y thingy (one of those things I’ve had sitting in the back of my closet for ages and now can’t get enough of, see previous) and we were so excited to meet the stunning and endlessly sweet Karen of wheredidugetthat (who has a much more in-depth post here) and the lovely and hilarious Tamar of MTV’s Buzzworthy who apparently REALLY loves ponies. We also got to meet the gorgeous Justin Tranter, jewelry designer and lead singer of Semi-Precious Weapons.

Thanks so much to Christian and Lindsay Brown for the invite, we had a FABULOUS time.

check me out: tap-dancing sign girl

amber — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:13:47 +0000

I am usually down to respond to any request that presupposes the fact that I have no shame. So when my fashion designer friend Jamaica sent out a cry for help – needing someone who could wear all white (fashion suicide!) and tap-dance themselves and several signs across the front of the stage of the biggest nightclub venue in Downtown Sacramento – I was SO THERE. Nevermind the fact that I haven’t officially tap-danced since I was, well, 7 years old. That’s beside the point.

‘Twas The Beatles’ White Album Show at Harlow’s: Sixteen bands covering the entire album, and me, traipsing my little ass back and forth around the stage with a sign announcing each band’s name.

Here’s what I wore (spoiler: I cheated and wore cream with black accents).

eyelet minidress: $20 at Winners
knit tights: $3 at some cheezy mall hole
heeled brogues: borrowed from my sister (thrifted)
black knit beret: a Belgian souvenir from Eve

Jamaica’s fashion show from her line, Sapphire Cordial featured an opulent parade of serene models in alabaster sixties-inspired dresses, wielding refreshingly innocuous protest signs. I couldn’t find many good photos, but believe me, it was lovely.

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electroshock fashion show: pretty cheeky

amber — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:10:18 +0000

Another fashion show! Lucky me. This time it was at a mustache party for my favorite local designer boutique, Cuffs Urban Apparel. Lacadia is the sweetest and most talented girl!
My hair was pretty insane at first, but thanks to the mercifully taming wind it ended up a tad bit more demure and went well with my awesome secretary outfit (with handpainted indianhead screenprint by Pretty Trashy). Later on in the evening, we all got accosted by an overzealous blush brush.

Photos by Eve and others:

Photos by Nick Avey:

It was a really fun night- the tunes were bumpy and the DRINKS WERE STIFF.
More cool shots and bar scene photos here.

SACRAMENTANS:
If you like things like, I dunno, dancing your face off and drinking bubbly and/or burny things which improve your dance moves, and if you are someone who is anyone, then you must attend HELL WEEK. It’s pretty much a citywide summer kick-off party which will melt your mind and it starts TODAY.
See you there.

check me out: Schizo night on J St.

amber — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:15:36 +0000

Here it is, hands down our most colorful post to date…

I got to do another fashion show for a neon-themed party at Momo Lounge on Thursday night. The clothes were provided by a rad vintage shop called Bows & Arrows (L &17th) and included the most kitsch late 80′s / early 90′s flourescent confections I’d ever laid eyes on. The outfits were styled by the Trisha Rhomberg- designer of local reconstructed vintage line, the amazing Pretty Trashy (15% discount with code PAINFULLYHIP). Our hair and makeup was donated by GS Hair and was inspired by early 90′s rave. We looked a bit crazygonuts and the blacklights made us all glowy.

Afterwards, the ferocious HOTTUB brought things to a nice rolling boil:

photo credits: Nick Avey

However, I missed them this time because I had tickets to see one of my favorite folk rock bands, Vetiver, right downstairs from the party- where things were rather sedate but also equally mesmerizing albeit in a much more subtle, close your eyes and soak up the ridiculous acoustics kinda way. So even though there were all of 40 people in attendance, the stunning melodies were not wasted on us. Wow, what a show…

Which made for an incredibly schizophrenic night all in all, but at least I got to show Andy Cabic (um, starstruck! that VOICE) what a crazy person looks like!

… And then proceed to go back upstairs to dance my face off… or try to anyway; I think turpentine finally did the trick with all that makeup.

hazardous runways (aka: models eating it)

amber — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:27:19 +0000

nothing makes me feel better on a rainy day than watching The Perfect Ones eat runway. repeatedly and thoroughly. but seriously though, modelling is HARD. here’s a great video of the entertaining humiliation from my favorite canadian fashion reporter, Jeanne Beker and her show, FT Fashion Television!

well, i shouldn’t say NOTHING makes me feel better than model humiliation. a good DISCOUNT is right up there:

the gorgeous Fabricio over there at Waterloo is offering all of you beautiful hipsters a 10% discount (coupon code: PAINFULLYHIP) AND a buy 3, get one FREE offer on his badass t-shirts and shortshorts! Hallelujah!

i’m loving these Pet Sounds shorts:

HAWT.
now if only it’d stop raining…

also, happy birthday to ambika! everybody take advantage of her new age AND her talent by purchasing her already sensationally-priced pretty things on Etsy for 15% off (today only) with coupon code BIRTHDAY!

ah! i think i see a sucker hole forming in the sky already!