Semester in Chicago

This is my public journal while I'm in Chicago until May. I look forward to sharing the details of all of my new experiences while I'm in this fantastic city!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Les Photos






Picture (1) Matthew..the head stylist guy for MOD. Most expressive person I've ever met. He hit us with Magnum right before the last show.
(2) Some of us hanging out outside our prep area before a show. We got to know each other really well after only two days because everyone was so darn friendly!
(3) The guys martial arts/breakdance segment
(4) The night girls
(5) One of the modern segment guys. Really friendly, nice teeth.

My weekend AS A MODEL!!

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday all seem like a blur. A long, wonderful blur. I loved almost every minute of it--except for the burning eyebrows when they bleached them! I got my hair cut and colored for free, and I was one of 13 presentation models for the American Crew/MOD booth at the Chicago Midwest Beauty Show. What an experience!

First of all, I HAVE to mention that as I was walking on Monday morning, I saw Nick Arrojo from the TLC show "What not to Wear" we saw each other in passing and he smiled and I said hi! Isn't that cool!!! I was totally nonchalant about it though, like he was an old buddy. It made my weekend.

I went to bed before midnight every night over the long weekend, and woke up hours earlier than I normally would, and the days were packed. I met so many new people, and the other presentation models all clicked. Nobody was catty or mean at all, but very friendly and open to the fun weekend.

Saturday was prep day for the hair show. Most of us had color done and we all had hair cuts by the numerous stylists and colorists working in the American Crew model prep area. We also were fitted for presentation clothing.

Every day started with us waiting around, filling out paperwork, eating breakfast (which was provided) and waking up a little bit. We had to be there at 9 on the first day, but on show days we had to be there around 7:15 to make sure we were ready for the show at 10. There were not only us 13 girls in the presentation. There were three mens segments--the martial arts/breakdancing segment, modern assymetric segment, and finally the wrestling crew cut segment :) They were all fabulous. Each time we had a show, two stylists would also be on stage to cut the hair of two demo models as well, so the stage was full and exciting!

I'll show you before and after pictures here of what they did to my hair...they made it look like silky wheat. Kind of. Matthew, the head stylist, called it "Children of the Corn" and had to have my eyebrows the exact same color. Yikes. I found out tonight that when I work out, my eyebrows and hair stand out...the bad way. I look like a tomato with white/yellowish hairy mold growing above my eyes.

The Shows we did were catwalk style. There were two girls segments: Day look, and Night look. The day girls wore tweed and lighter trendy colors. Us evening girls wore darker colors and had "edgier" hair, make up and color. It stands out a little more than a day look. We had our stage ques and places to stand while the stylist, usually Matthew, explained our haircuts and how they fit our face shape, type of hair, and color. There is a lot of technical stuff that goes into the haircut and color that I never even though of before. All the stylist jargon...maximal and minimal sides, cutting at a 40 and 90 angle, blending, assymetrical, etc. And i thought I knew a little bit of how to do hair...well, I was humbled this weekend. Especially when I watched the guys' segment and watched the stylists do the hair demonstrations on stage. I have so many more ideas for haircuts now!!


I should get to bed, but here are some pictures as I close this chapter of my week. I was asked to go to the casting call for another show, but I just don't really want my hair cut again. I guess I could because they asked me, and now I at least have some experience, but I don't want to take days off of work to do this. We'll see. I spread the word around with some of the CS Students, and encouraged them to go to the casting call. It' s good money...when it comes in 4 weeks!