MY EXPERIENCE ON FIDE FASHION WEEK

GREETINGS TO MY FELLOW INTERNET FRIENDS!

How have you been? Sorry I've been real busy. Now with the new kitty, I'm even busier hehe. Will share about the qtipie with y'all soon :-) If you've been following me on Instagram, you should know I was involved with........ yes, FIDE FASHION WEEK hehe. 

I announced way earlier, that I booked only one show and was hoping to book more subsequently. To my most pleasant surprise, wish did come true! I'll be forever grateful; to be handpicked and recognized by the designers themselves, it's truly an honour.

Actually I had it all planned on how I wanted to share this experience. But it's true, it's hard to be managing two professions: model + blogger, hence this entry didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be in a vlog form. If I were to document everything interesting in my life, I think I would lose the essence of indulging and living in it, isn't it? I wish my eyes could be my camera, so that everything I saw could be recorded and shared.

Most of you have known me as the Runway Bandits model, but the truth is I am a runway model first before a blog shop model. So some of you may not be used to the look, I carried for these haute couture brands. The thing about being a model is that, one must be a chamelon; be whatever the client wishes you to be/embody. Werrrrk it~ 

1. CASTING

Casting is basically like job interview. Clients meet you, take a good look or maybe just a glance at you, look at your book, judge your walk, maybe fit the clothes and then decide if they wanna book you. For this Fashion Week, my very first casting was for Love Bonito. All the other castings were done during the fashion week itself, when the designers had just flown in Singapore except Love Bonito since it's local. Blessed was I, I got the job and I thought that was it. That's all. Because of school, I haven't had a chance to participate in past years' fw so I didn't want to be too ambitious or greedy. One was good enough, really, I thought to myself.

2. STEPHANE ROLLAND

And since the JFxLB casting, I wasn't called down for any other castings till 12th October for Stephane Rolland. I, till today, still am ignorant towards the high fashion/luxurious brands. I have never really paid attention to them, unless it's the mainstream ones like Prada, Gucci, LV etc. I know those are huge, but when it comes to couture brands, I honestly had no idea so I like I've confessed earlier, I didn't know Stephane Rolland was hugeeeeee.  

Coincidentally that day, G-Dragon was gonna perform. I.... am not a fan of GD. I have never been into the entire K-pop thing. But if given a choice, I'd rather meet Taeyang hehehehe. Yingying, my friend, she's obsessed with GD. She's so into it, I'm convinced seeing GD could possibly be one of her lifelong dreams. 

It's cool to be in the same backstage area as him, watching him rehearse while the fans waited outside hahaha. And, the models were really fortunate to watch the performance for free. And, I heard the tickets were reallllllllly expensive, almost a thousand? My god.

During rehearsal. We weren't allowed to snap pictures actually. This was a stealth shot haha.

So basically the entire time, both rehearsal and the actual performance, he had this cap/hat thingy going on. I couldn't see his face at all. I was really curious, I mean what's the hype with him? And because he's so mysterious, I simply couldn't judge if he's cute or not. So yeah but the fans were super cray cray. 

Let's get back to Stephane Rolland. 

Yingying and I and the rest of the models, waited for at least 6 hours. Some less some more. I've heard of some 8 hours. I was convinced from the start that I wouldn't get the job cause, c'monnnnnnnnn competing with international models ain't easy and also Caucasians often stand out more than a dull Asian like me. Plus, I honestly didn't think I'm very experienced to begin with, how am I to compete with the rest of them. So after waiting for almost 6 hours, I stood up and was ready to leave. Yingying went, "Why not stay for GD's concert!!! It's starting anyway!!!!"  I agreed, put my bag down, and headed to watch the performance. 

A few minutes into the performance, the backstage crew came to get me and said, "IRINA! IT'S YOUR TURN!!! HURRRRYYYYY!!!" I was in a state of shock. I wasn't ready. I wasn't wearing my heels. My hair was in crazy mess, I was doing the hairflip thingy before that; dancing like a mad women and shit. So yeah, whatever right, I went for it. I entered the room, met Stephane Rolland in real life. He looked like a hot Jesus, really. I tried on his beautiful garment and walked. French being french, I love how they're so generous with the compliments and their language is simply so attractive. By the end of my walk, he went, "Perfecto."

That's how I booked the job. 

So this was what I wore.

That's Yingying on the right!

I know, we looked totally ghastly here but hey, it's the makeup and camera flash.

I'm actually pretty tanned in real life, as shown below and in vlogs haha.

I love it when I get hair extensions during shows!!! But I hate it when they load us with lots of hair products. You think we models had it easy; look at the amount of gel and hair mousse and whatnots used on our hair, by the end of the day, you've no idea the amount of dead hair trapped inside.

3. ALEXIS MABILLE 

We got up real early for castings and show the entire week. If I was rich enough, I'd have booked a room hiakhiakhiak. Well..... I said if guys. Truly if only.

Finally, got started on this book, which has been sitting too long on my desk and I need to check this off my bucket list by this year so go go go Irina.

 And then I went on tumblr and saw this, so cute hiakhiak

The setup this year was beautiful. I love love it.

Alexis Mabille, pardon my ignorance before this, is also one of the known and huge brands. There were 2-3 rounds of castings for this show and it wasn't nice seeing girls get cut through the rounds. Alexis was really nice and humble guy. Despite being known and international, he would actually kneel down to put on heels for the models and.... he's just really humble and that's heartwarming. I also love how he's super easy to work with. He actually had the simplest choreography for the show haha. 

Yeap there. That's only 1/10th of the hair mousse used. By the time our look was done, the entire bottle was already empty. I'm not even kidding. 

Btw, Alexis was super cool. He instructed to have the areas carpeted or taped or covered because he didn't want his garments to touch the ground. Probably the only designer that did that. So during casting, the models waited for the entire room to be carpeted and "garment-ground-proof" before we could enter and fit the clothes.

Job is always better with friends around.

3. ARI DEIN

After booking Stephane Rolland and Alexis Mabille, Jeffrey the casting director jokingly said, "Don't need to work already la. Go home la. No need to cast for other shows already. Go go!"

 Lulz Jeff, I'm sorry to say I'm greedy. I'd wanna work as much as I can, even maybe till I collapse. Ari Dein was actually a casting I wasn't shortlisted for, yet I went for it thinking, "Hey, never try never know."

So yeah, Nat and I ended up casting for Ari Dein, a luxury inner wear (suuuuuper sexy, I wish I can keep some of the pieces hehehehe), and we booked the job!!!!

We had a lot of time to spare that day because there were no more castings. So we just lepak the entire day and waited for our turn to do hair and makeup. 

You're too cool for us. You can't hang with us.

We tend attempted Hadouken....

After hair and makeup. 

I'd have to say I was delighted that Ari Dein decided on such a natural and lovely look for the models; allowing us to go home without getting weird stares.

The one in black, holding my hand is the lovely Ari Dein herself! :-)

So, last train was sort of part the routine that week

4. JULIEN FOURNIE X LOVE BONITO

It's the last day of fashion week. Everything seemed so relax and chill (notttttttttt). Ari Dein show was on the second last night. It was super chill. There were lesser people at the backstage, no longer in hurry. Everything was steady and good so we naturally assumed that the last day would be even more chill and better but...... totally not hahahaha. 

Ian getting fake tatts in preparation for Frederick Lee's show

Love this picture with Nat before hair and makeup. She just finished her show. So happy to be doing this year's fashion week with her; it's been really fun getting to know her! And now, I definitely feel safe if we were to ever travel in future for modeling gigs hehehhe.

We girls, ready to get our makeup done. Haven't worked with Zianna ever since New Paper New Face 2010. We often meet during castings but it's always for a short while so it was wonderful to work with her again hehe <3 p="">

The show was fabulous. I tried my very best to match up to clients' expectations and needs, and seemed like the hardwork paid off :')  I absolutely love working with Viola cause she's a sweetheart. Worked with her once for SKII and knowing that I got booked for Love Bonito, I was so darn excited to see her again!!!

It's so nice to see so many familiar faces after the show. Wish I was in a much appropriate attire to get pictures with everyone that was there hehe. Nonetheless, thanks to all those who were there and tagged photos of me, sent me messages on ask.fm, email or delivered any other forms of encouragements. I truly appreciated every bit of them.

My video is definitely not as outstanding as what you can find on the net, but A for effort? Hehehe.

I've learnt so much from this Fashion Week. Working with international designers is indeed a very different experience and yes, beauty is also truly subjective.