Saturday, March 20, 2010

We Have.....A Guest Blogger!!!

Like Dressing With The Lights Off


Sup everybody, glad to be here. I'm Greg from Klean Up Your Act, or as I personally like to call it, "the best blog ever." I'm 22 and currently living in LA, working freelance in short-form video production (commercials, music videos, etc).  All of my education and training has been strictly in production, which makes the fact that I currently work as a regular assistant to two Hollywood wardrobe designers/stylists as surprising to you as it is to me. Not that I'm complaining, it pays the bills and involves clothes, which I have a slight obsession with. Besides, the job involves no actual creative input on my part, and is much more a matter of me just making their lives easier any way I can. Stiil, I've always thought at least a basic knowledge of how to dress to occasion is essential, and now more than ever it applies to my life.

For anyone who doesn't read my blog (translation: all of you), I really just write about the less-intelligent things other people do that make me laugh. So when what I'm about to tell you actually happened, I instantly thought of the girls here at Brunch at Barneys. To be fair, there really is a lesson in this too, but the main theme here is ignorance. My favorite.

My job recently brought me to a photo shoot with the cast members of the Fox TV show Glee. I don't watch the show myself, but this was apparently a huge deal to all the theatre kids I still know back at Emerson College. What made this particular project tricky was that it wasn't a shoot for the show, but instead was a magazine piece on the actors as a collective. Because of this, instead of there being one public relations rep for the cast, each actor had their own. This meant ten different people wanting ten different directions, all in one shoot. You can imagine what kind of mayhem this can cause, and before long the two designers I work for were swamped, as I just tried to keep our stock organized by actor/actress and retrieve any accessory they needed.

Like I said, my job is just to be an extra pair of hands. I've been able to pick up some basic principles of coordination to this point, but I have no business directly dressing talent for a shoot whatsoever. But, since I'm writing this story, that's obviously what happened.

This can be blamed on two things. The first is that two reps assumed I was also a stylist myself, dragged me to the pull rack and instructed me to dress their clients. I can partially forgive this one, since logic would lend you to believe someone in my position as assistant probably came from a school like FIT, but we all know what happens when we assume. What's ENTIRELY unforgivable is that neither of them had ANY idea what I was talking about whatsoever.

Now, I'm not trying to brag, but I killed it. (Note: In the good way.)  Both outfits actually got greenlit by the designers to go live, which I think is both hilarious and awesome. But as I was walking each actor through the coordination process, these reps had the blankest stares you can imagine. In all honesty, I have no doubt that I could have suggested any color combination at all, and they would have bought it. Cut, fit, tone and compliment were entirely lost on them. The only time they really seemed to chime in was when they recognized a designer, but the only ones they recognized were the ones we're spoon fed (Gucci, Prada, etc.). I really just felt bad for them, seeing as though its their job to protect the image of their client. It's hard to do that with zero knowledge of fashion whatsoever. Otherwise, comically awful things can happen, such as having your nationally known client get dressed by an aspiring music video director.

The lesson here: Educate yourselves people!

If you ever need a laugh, check me out at http://kleanupyouract.blogspot.com. But seeing as though I read these girls regularly, you may not need one after you're done reading Brunch.

- Greg

2 comments:

Mango said...

haha. cute guest post!

Myra said...

great guest post! and i'm lovin Greg's blogspot too :)

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