By 
Alright as you may know (literally I have probably bombarded everyone’s feed last Thursday night) I walked in a fashion show hosted by a company called Adalinda last week as part of #NYFW. Their mission is to connect consumers with sustainable fashion.
You may be wondering: how did this happen? Was literally asking myself the same thing as I was shaking about to go out onto the runway….
I regularly check Eventbrite for sustainability events. I mean every single week. I’m the kind of psycho person that LOVES adding events to my calendar, things to look forward to, especially in the midst of my job as remote employee. It certainly helps break things up in the week and I mean, I get to talk to people to stay sane.
Back in August I came across a post that said “Open Model Casting Call: Sustainable Fashion” Ummmmm what was this? Had to look. I registered and showed up to the production studio in Astoria. Gave it my best shot. Dressed in tight black clothes as Google said to do and I just winged it. Jack took some photos of me before to create a comp card (resume for models basically). We were hilarious. Kept trying to act natural but it felt the least bit natural to me… Here’s a fave…
SOOO inquisitive am I right?
I connected with the CEO who obviously is passionate about sustainable fashion. We met up for coffee as I genuinely wanted to learn about her company and her inspiration for the fashion show. There is such a need for easy connection to sustainable fashion designers as well. They all seem to be so small, so expensive, so non-accessible for some reason in our day to day as consumers.
She tells me over coffee that I’ll be walking in the show. Woooo-hooooo! Was so pumped to experience modeling in a professional manner for the first time rather than just blog photo shoots that I do kind of by myself with a self timer, haha.
Leading up to the show I missed rehearsal because I was out of town. Was really nervous about that. I mean was excited for the entire thing but definitely nervous!
We get word that we would be doing a “flash mob” in Union Square park days before the show as a promotional effort.
I’m dead sick with a bad sinus infection but I do not want to let the Adalinda team down. I must go. I’m wondering my whole subway trip down to Union Square – am I going to have to dance? What is a flash mob, even? I only think of the movie friends with benefits.
We all gather in the Barnes and Noble cafe. The founder hands me some sustainable clothing to wear from one of the designers. It’s a skirt turned tube dress on me. I freaking love it. We’re told that we’re going to do a pop up RUNWAY show in the middle of the park with trendy, fashion show music blasting. I mean here we go.
This is why I’m living in this city. To experience things I really wouldn’t anywhere else – and this was definitely one of them.
Before I know it, I’m doing my take at a runway walk in the middle of Union Square. People are stopping and staring, even pulling out their phones. I freeze my pose when I’m finished with my walk and the next model goes. It was probably the most exhilarating thing I’ve done since my hip hop dance recitals in 3rd grade. Luckily I didn’t pee my pants on stage like I did back then…
Next thing: The actual fashion show.
We’re told to arrive at 2pm for make up, I’m presuming hair and I also need to get most of the outfits that I’m wearing from designers. I show up to the address. It’s basically a corporate building and we head to the fourth floor. I’m told we’re going with natural make up look and sit down. I feel like Martha hunt instagramming with her make up artist and just cannot wait to see what I look like.
Oh boy it was probably the furthest thing from “natural” I could have imagined. It’s funny when you have something so built up in your head as it’s happening – thinking your hair is going to look a totally different way when it’s being cut and then you see it and you’re like oh $hit I hate it. That’s how I felt about my make up.
I fixed it myself after and got into my first outfit below. It was so funky. I start naturally speaking with the designer, Haley Topp, who is just amazing. She starts telling me about the outfit: she used to work at a hat manufacturing company and they would get rid of all of the excess hat fabric after cutting the brim of the hat and toss it. She started to leverage all of that waste to create this here – isn’t it incredible?
I got so many compliments back stage.
At first I thought “Wow, damn this is a wild outfit you know I’m not so sure I can pull this off” but then I was like “Oh damn, I feel like I have the coolest one!”
I had this impression that models would be really suck up backstage. Like everyone just totally into themselves. And while they were totally into themselves, (I mean that’s why they’re a model, right..I was totally into myself that night!?!?) they couldn’t have been the least bit stuck up.
Everyone = so friendly.
Saying hi = instant hugs.
My new awesome friend Michael below.
I was terrified to walk out. I mean like definitely shaking had no idea what to expect – stage fright. I didn’t want to make eye contact with family and friends that were in the audience because I knew I would smile and that was simply unprofessional in runway modeling as so I was told…
I’m pretty sure I blacked out so hard I didn’t even walk to the end of the runway! Ahhhhh!
The first show finished and you know I just felt like all my nerves were out of me by then. I got the experience, knew where and when I was walking and was pumped for the second show.
Felt SO much more confident. And felt like I was really trying to work my outfits more with this new found confidence.
Crazy that there were people video-taping me and professional photographers – like it really is a weird feeling being the center of room’s attention!?!
But I just kept thinking back to the reason why this made me so excited in the first place as an opportunity. Why all of these people were gathered. Why the company Adalinda was founded.
Sustainable fashion.
One of the designers quoted something that really stuck out to me,
“Sustainable fashion is a state of consciousness that connects you to the creator of the design and its responsibility to use sustainable practices.”
THAT is what made me so proud to be up there!
Thank you to all my friends, boyfriend, boyfriend’s family, cousin and extended family who came to the show and shared their support via social media. I truly felt so special that night, felt like my passion was being celebrated and is why I continue to write about these things on a regular basis.
I know that it matters. And I’m starting to realize that there are so many other people who believe that it matters, too. For our well-being, our children’s lives and so many citizens on this Earth that this affects from the textile industry.
