End Of A Crazy Week!

By: Shane Terenzi

So Fashion Week is over (finished Thursday) and now I can actually have some time to write and reflect on the week. As it was my first Fashion Week, there was a lot to take in. From “The Tent”, to the parties, to the lines, and the schedule of shows – it all was very overwhelming. I have to say how much I loved it though. When I think of what a fashion show is, I think of the stereotypes: skinny models, techno music, gorgeous clothes, etc. And what Fashion Week is, are the stereotypes and more. The atmosphere of when the lights change from the seating lighting to show lighting, or when the gorgeous “wow” piece comes out and you hear everyone around you gasp, or even, the thrill of seeing your favorite model or designer walk the runway, it was all so much fun.

I saw a total of 10 shows that included Tim Hamilton Redux Men, Frank Tell, Cynthia Rowley, Althea Harper, Vaute Couture, Araks show, Toni Maticevski, Ecliptica, Edition by Georges Chakra, and The Red Dress Collection. Wow! No two shows were similar and the point of view of the designers varied so much- some felt like they were showing spring/summer collections and others felt that they were depressed in the dead of winter.

Outside of the shows that I got to see, The Fashion Journal threw its Winter 2010 issue launch party on Tuesday night at HK Lounge. The event went so well with a packed party, celebrities, and friends to celebrate the issue. We put a lot of work into the party with finding over 20 sponsors, making amazing gift bags, and most importantly, getting the word out about the magazine. I think after this Fashion Week, we are on a roll and need to keep going with it. Carol Hannah Whitfield from Project Runway was our guest of honor as she was our cover model and seemed really happy with the event. She brought fellow Project Runway friends including Logan, Epperson, and Althea. Kristin Alderson from One Life To Live was also sweet enough to stop in for a bit.

So overall, very excited, feel like there is momentum that I want to keep going with, and feel relieved I got through my first Fashion Week. So my two big goals by the next fashion week: hopefully have signed with an agent or successfully teamed up to be someone’s personal makeup artist and have two more successful issues of TFJ published. Wish me luck!

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Photo Credit: Personal

Edition Collection by Georges Chakra FW '10

By: Shane Terenzi

I just sat for the Edition Collection by Georges Chakra at the Promenade Tent, and the show was great. It was a massive collection of forty-two listed looks with several of them being separates. The overall theme of the collection was tailored and structured. He took masculine ideas and made them feminine. On every look that he had, he played with the back of the dress. Sometimes their were cut outs, in other looks there were specific detailing, etc.

The stand out piece for me was his one shoulder gold lame gown with a beaded butterfly detail on the back. This gown when the model turned for her walk just struck the audience. I could see this immediately on the red carpet for the Oscars. What I like about Chakra is that his clothes are wearable. They are sophisticated, elegant, and look expensive, but simple. Nothing outrageous to draw attention, the attention is drawn because of the subtleties. Another theme in his collection was the tuxedo jacket. Of course the tuxedo jacket has been done before, but Chakra played with it. Usually worn backwards, the jackets neckline created a plunging back V that became very sexy. He had one dress that was a fun black crepe reversed tuxedo cocktail dress. For more of an evening look had a mink silk faille reversed tuxedo gown. So, he played with the orientation of the jacket, the length, the fabric, etc. It really worked in his collection.

The only complaint I had was the middle section of his show where his looks all had this Chantilly lace overlay. Although the lace itself was gorgeous, he used either too much of it in the case of his black gabardine strapless cocktail dress but then layered it in a longer version of Chantilly lace. It was unnecessary and distracted the viewer from the actual cocktail dress.

Overall- a gorgeous collection that will do very well in FW 2010. I haven’t paid much attention to Chakra before this and now will be looking to see what he will be doing in future collections.

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Photo Credit: Kristian Dowling

Red Dress Collection 2010 for NY Fashion Week

By: Shane Terenzi

So my first fashion show at “The Tent” for NY Fashion Week was absolutely remarkable. I know I was completely spoiled by The Fashion Journal and the show that I got to see was The Red Dress Collection 2010. To those who do not know what that is- The Heart Truth organization celebrates the designers and celebrities who help bring the Red Dress symbol to life in this annual event to raise awareness of women’s heart disease. Tonight, the celebrities and designers that were featured were: Bethenny Frankel in Isabella Oliver, Elisabeth Hasselbeck in Donna Karan, Felicity Huffman in Oscar de la Renta, Dara Torres in Rachel Roy, Estelle in Zac Posen, Heidi Klum in John Galliano, Joan Collins in Stephane Rolland, Jordin Sparks in Badgley Mischka, Kim Kardashian in Marchesa, Kimora Lee in Kouture by Kimora, Kristin Chenoweth in Daniel Swarovski, Mamie Gummer in Michael Kors, Pauley Perrette in Rebecca Taylor, Raven-Symone in Tadashi Shoji, Regina King in Tracy Reese, Robin Roberts in J. Crew Collection, and Valerie Harper in Pamella Roland. It's a long list of celebrities in an equally as long and desirable list of designers.

So for my favorites…my top three would be Heidi Klum, Felicity Huffman, and Jordin Sparks. Heidi Klum was in a simple John Galliano. It has a clean elegance that looked like you could wear it on a red carpet (no pun intended J) or casually at dinner. Klum doesn’t need something over the top, if she is wearing your clothes, she will make it look fantastic. Felicity Huffman was in an outstanding Oscar de la Renta. It was so clearly Oscar de la Renta, too. With immaculate fit on the torso to a gorgeous full gown on the bottom, Huffman had grace, style, and fun all in the same dress. For my all time favorite, and maybe because I am a fan of her, but Jordin Sparks rocked her Badgley Mischka dress tonight. This dress had a great fit, moved well on the runway, and was totally age appropriate. It was refreshing to see Jordin and Raven-Symone on the runway, representing real women. Especially since that is what this event wants to provoke awareness to, women around the world.

Tonight was amazing in my book. This show varied so much in design and was so interesting comparing designers side by side. You had Michael Kors next to Oscar de la Renta, next to Rebecca Taylor. It was nice to see the common thread was awareness for such an important cause…

(Pun intended J)

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Photo Credits: Zimbio

Toni Maticevski Fall/Winter 2010 Fashion Show for NY Fashion Week

By: Shane Terenzi

I just went to the Toni Maticevski Fall/Winter 2010 Fashion Show at the Altman Building for New York Fashion Week. What a great show. Maticevski used a lot of light and sheer fabrics, surprisingly for a fall/winter collection. He played with a lot of asymmetry and broke down a lot of the pieces. His opening piece, a silk tulle and organza skirt with Silk sunray pleat overlay, was something out of a snow princesses wardrobe. It moved very well and the silhouette was new and interesting. I think that his overall collection flowed very well with some stand out pieces that drew the attention from the white and muted color palette. An example of this was his thirteenth look- a polka dot chiffon top with sequin silk drape skirt, or his eleventh look- an old gold satin drape bias top with pencil leg stripe pant and crop boot. This look was trendy, wearable, and season appropriate. One look that I did not like was his twentieth look- a one shoulder black tube dress with sleeve detail and black boots. This look looked like it was a Jersey girl going to a club and she somehow got pushed onto the runway. It took down the overall class of the collection and did not seem coherent. I really enjoyed his work. He puts a lot of detailing into his pieces which makes the individual look very expensive and like its one of a kind.

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Women'sDay Red Dress Awards 2010

By: Shane Terenzi

Last night I got to work the Red Dress Awards as the makeup artist for the event. It was a lot of work but so much fun. I had the opportunity to do makeup for such inspirational women that have had to go through such challenging obstacles. The Red Dress Awards were created 7 years ago to honor those who are leading the fight against heart disease, the number one killer of women. To listen to some of the stories these women told was truly humbling. I am so proud to be a part of this event.

The makeup for the evening was all about a bolder eye than lip. I got to have a little more fun with the makeup for Anna Trebunskaya, from Dancing With The Stars. When she walked in she knew exactly what she wanted - a clean eye that stood out and a red gloss lip. It is so helpful for a makeup artist to know what the client wants - I took what she said and then applied my design with what I thought would make her look the best. She looked great! For her eye, I started with a brownish gold on the outer edge and worked my way in. Taking a pinkish skin tone color, blended the brown into the pink so at the bridge of her nose, it was the lightest. To add a little accent of reddish/orange to the eye to tie it in with the dress, I did a light dusting of an orange eye shadow over the brown. I finished off the eye with a pair of false lashes and a black eye liner.

At the after party of the event, I got a little dose of this season of Project Runway. First of all, I was able to talk to Ping Wu, a designer from this season. Ping talked about the challenges of Project Runway stating how with such design restrictions (aka making a dress out of a potato sack for instance) is not the way she designs, she is very organic from within. Also, Ping is going to show in the final level of a competition at arts fair in Baltimore at the end of February. I also go to see the dress that won last weeks challenge on the television show (to be featured at The Red Dress Awards last night). It was absolutely stunning. Amy Sarabi, the designer, commented on that it was a very hard challenge for two reasons, one they had to make the dress fit a real women, not a model and secondly they were effecting someone with there dress. This dress was for a woman that has been tragically affected by Heart Disease and she wanted to make her happy to be in the outfit.

Throughout the night, I saw these amazing women, with such inspirational stories of how they overcome such a devastating disease, reaching out and spreading the word. There was happiness, tears, and every emotion in between but the overlaying emotion was gratefulness; from the celebrities that were able to be a part of the event, to the women that overcame such a large hurtle in their lives.

The makeup I used on Anna was Make Up For Ever’s HD Liquid Foundation, the eye shadow was MUD’s Galaxy, Cashmere, and Dulce de Leche, and her lips had Smashbox’s Legendary with O-Plump to finish them off.

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Photo Credit: Anna- Amy Sussman, B&W pics- MVS Studios, Inc.

The Fashion Journal's Winter 2010 Issue!

By: Shane Terenzi

For the last four months I have been working a lot with a fashion magazine, The Fashion Journal. The Fashion Journal is a quarterly fashion publication dedicated to showcasing emerging designers in the realm of fashion, art, photography, beauty, accessories, etc. Since November I worked on three separate stories for their Winter 2010 Issue. It has been so much work but has been so rewarding. This morning I was checking emails and going to my websites I always check, and when I clicked on The Fashion Journal’s website, I saw the cover of the issue I have been working on! It was so cool to see my work on such a professional site…I felt so proud!

The three stories that I was a part of in this issue was the cover story about Project Runway’s Carol Hannah Whitfield, The American Women fashion editorial, and the Beauty editorial spread. It is so interesting that each of these shoots felt so different, even thought my role was relatively the same. For the cover story, my friend (and amazing makeup artist/ beauty editor of TFJ) Erica Maniscalco, asked me if she thought Carol Hannah might be interested in the idea of a little story on her. I was lucky enough to do Carol Hannah’s makeup for The Emmy’s, so I said I could reach out to her and ask. Carol Hannah wrote back excited about the story and so we had that shoot in the planning stages. Before planning these shoots with Erica, I always thought that there was little to do in the way of planning for a photo shoot. I quickly learned I was soooo wrong! We luckily had the great opportunity to work with photographer Carsten Fleck and he has a studio in Brooklyn. The only thing left for this shoot was a stylist- and the amazing Sarah Shirley joined on the team. This shoot fell together quickly and, in comparison, was pretty easy.

The second story we worked on was The American Girl fashion editorial. Now this is the one in planning sounded fun and simple, but when we started getting the ball rolling, things came up that we had not expected. We held go-sees for models to come in to see if we could find someone that looked like the dolls we were pulling from inspiration. Even after we found two of the four models, we had to plan four separate location photo shoots in the month of December. Since it was a fashion story, we wanted the same photographer and stylist. Reaching out to one of the photographers both Erica and I have worked with before, Damian Sandone joined and through another connection Erica had, we got Rowshana Jackson and Jason Bui to style. The locations that we got for the shoots were so much fun. One of them was McSorley’s Bar in the East Village. Since it is a bar, and to not disrupt business, we were given the bar to shoot in from 1am-9am. The “Molly” shoot was in an incredible airplane hanger at the American Power Museum in Long Island. There were vintage planes all from WWII that we got to use as our backdrop. The third crazy location we shot at was on a beach off the Belt Parkway. Yes, a beach on January 2nd is very very cold and windy. We braved the weather and got amazing shots. The fourth and final shoot was in a studio; it kind of was a treat for the crew after the three previous shoots!

As a makeup artist who has just begun his career, today was a cool day to see my work published for the first time. I am so proud of the work we all accomplished and it gives me motivation for the future. I know I get down if I am not getting as much work as I would like or if a shoot doesn’t go exactly the way I had imagined but when something you work so hard on comes out better than the way you would have ever imagined you just want everyone to see it! So go check it out and let me know what you think!

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Photo Credits: All Pictures- The Fashion Journal

London’s FASHION FRINGE ‘09 winner, JENA.THEO at Bloomingdale’s Soho

By: Shane Terenzi

I know the purpose of this blog is to talk about celebrities and makeup but tonight I got to attend, representing The Fashion Journal, an exhibit of Fashion Fringe at Covent Garden winners JENA.THEO’s winning collection at Bloomingdale’s and want to share what I saw. This event was part of the build up to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2010 and sponsored by Bloomingdale’s in Soho, a new boutique hotel Crosby Street, and Fashion Fringe.

The very talented duo JENA.THEO is comprised of Jenny Holmes and Dimitris Theocharidis. They met in 2002 at The London College of Fashion and decided to collaborate on a collection for The Fashion Fringe competition. Their collection was picked as the best out of 1500 entries, and it is clear why. Full of innovation, creativity, and uniqueness, JENA.THEO celebrate women’s shape, sexual expression, and boldness in their designs. Their work blends a unique mix of Greek and British heritage to modern ideas and attitudes.

I had a chance to talk with JENA.THEO and when asked why this is the collection they put together, they said that obviously they had thousands of ideas but the pieces that ended up in the collection were the pieces that stood out to them- that really made a statement. Through reviewing the collection of about 20 pieces, some dresses, some separates, I saw the client being someone who wanted to feel that they were wearing the most up to date fashion, couture on some occasions, but that was still practical. They love playing with volume and exposure. There was this gorgeous dress that struck me. It had yards and yards of this amazing fine cashmere jersey. Another piece that I loved was a pair of high-wasted gray denim jeans. Using their idea of exposure, their were two cut outs on either hip that made this jean unique. There were several pairs of pants that were made of the cashmere jersey and full of fabric. I asked if she thought any type of women could wear this pant and she said that her friend that was 6’1’’ and a size 14 raves about how great and slimming the pants look on her. As Holmes said, “You don’t have to wear skinny jeans to feel skinny! That’s what we wanted to show.”

I am so excited to see what this designer duo have up their sleeves for their next autumn/winter collection scheduled to show at London Fashion Week on February 19th in the British Fashion Council Tents at Somerset House.

To check out their collection go to their website, jenatheocollection.com

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Photo Credits: JENA.THEO Promotional, Personal Photos

2010 Oscar Nominations

By: Shane Terenzi





Today the Oscar Nominations came out for the 2010 Oscars. There were some expected nominations such as Avatar, Precious, and The Blind Side but some upsets as well (no nom for Brad Pitt or Emily Blunt)...

To read the whole list of nominations go to:

http://oscar.go.com

Who do you think has the best shot at winning?



Photo Credit: yorkblog.com

The Grammy Awards & Two Clear Trends...

By: Shane Terenzi

The Grammys were tonight and as everyone knows, Grammy’s fashion can be from glamorous to just plain ugly, and tonight was no exception. We got to see stars like Taylor Swift walk the red carpet in a stunning Kaufman Franco glitzy gown to Rihanna taking more of a risk and wearing a gown from Elie Saab Haute Couture. It was fun to see the personal styles of these musicians come out in what they wore.

So what were the trends of the stars’ makeup? Looking over the pictures I can see that a soft lip and bolder eye is making a mark on this award season. Beyonce looked flawless (as usual). Her eye shadow drew attention but wasn’t over board. Taking a highly pigmented black, she only shadowed until the natural crease of her eye. In doing this it made the shadow almost an extension of an eyeliner and accentuated the natural shape of her eye. Then with a light skin tone color, she applied from the inner corner of her eye and underneath as a drop shadow. This prevented the black from closing in her eyes and making them appear smaller than they are. It effectively offset the heaviness of the black. Miley Cyrus had a similar makeup look to Beyonce. Instead of the glossed natural lip color, she used a matte nude color that matched her skin tone very well. Her eyes were more of a smoky eye but again, only using the dark colors up to the natural crease and using a small amount of a dark drop shadow. Carrie Underwood and Marissa Miller took it just a little farther with a heavier drop shadow under the eye. This worked for both of them as Underwood had such big, piercing eyes, and Miller had such a light lip the attention to the eyes wasn’t in competition with anything else.

The other major trend I saw happens to be my favorite. The bold pink lip. I love the color pink and I love attention brought with an electric, fun color. Of course Lady Gaga draws attention with anything that she does, but her look for tonight’s red carpet was amazing. Her gown (and not your traditional gown) was designed by Armani and was truly a piece of art. Up to her makeup - she chose a dark eye with a fierce eyebrow and strong lip. This is a hard look to pull off and Gaga did it with ease. Jennifer Hudson’s look was simple. She rocked an all black Victoria Beckham dress, a bumped up natural eye and ended with the splash of color on her lips. I think the color pink on one’s lips just brings out such a personality of the women that wear it. Makeup is supposed to be fun and using a hot pink lipstick is so much fun!

To achieve the looks that the stars wore tonight all you have to do is get the products that they use! MAC Cosmetics have amazing “pigments” for eye shadows. Get either Dark Soul (black) or Rich Life (brown) to made a nice smoky eye. The lipstick that Miley Cyrus was wearing is most likely Dolce & Gabbana’s Classic Cream Lipstick in Nude and if you want to throw a splash of color in your life like Lady Gaga, use NARS Semi-Matte Lipstick in Schiap.

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All Photos: JustJared.com