Photographed by Mimi Ritzen Crawford
The CEO and founder of social network VFILES — here wearing Tory’s Peggy sunglasses — chronicles her day
during Wednesday’s user-generated New York fashion show, VFILES MADE FASHION 2.
- 6:00 AM
- Wake up, walk our four dogs and then head to SoulCycle — I like to start most of my days there. For me, music and exercise are key to getting set for a great day.
- 8:00 AM
- Get my daughter off to school, which literally means just waving as she gets in the elevator, but I am including it here as an actual activity because if I am not there for the wave, there are serious consequences! :)
- 9:30 AM
- Head down to VFILES. It’s a long drive from Carnegie Hill to Soho. I have timed the subway, taxi and car rides and they all take the same amount of time, so today because we will need my car for transporting stuff to the fashion show, I drive.
- 10:15 AM
- Fashion show bedlam with VFILES MADE FASHION 2, our user-generated fashion show. We run a competition on VFILES offering young designers a chance to show at Fashion Week, and the three winners have been camped out at VFILES doing castings, fittings and everything else that goes along with fashion-show prep. Today’s main task is packing everything up and taking it to Eyebeam.
- 1:00 PM
- Packed and ready to go. We have everything crammed in two SUVs, one of which is mine. No room for designers and the rest of us — we are walking
- 2:00 PM
- Unpack and start doing light and sound checks. It’s the ultimate fashion playground, working with light and sound engineers and DJs to get everything the way we want.
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- 3:00 PM
- Hair and makeup teams arrive. We go through the test images one more time and discuss exactly how it’s going to go…
- 4:00 PM
- Models start to arrive and not arrive…
- 5:00 PM
- We start doing a series of run-throughs to music with 40-plus models practicing the finale. It’s always a challenge when you have multiple designers like we do and we want to give everyone their time in the spotlight.
- 6:00 PM
- Setting up front of house: seat names, flyers, cleaning… The team is doing everything from trash to seat allocation to finding missing models.
- 7:00 PM
- Doors open, start to get nervous. Last-minute sewing and styling changes; successful wrangling of late models; friends and family start to show up and, all of a sudden, it’s a reality. Preston, Lisa, Casey, RJ, Danielle, CJ Kut… all of our extended VFILES family is here.
- 8:00 PM
- Showtime. Do we wait for promised celebs or no? We wait… We are ready.
- 8:30 PM
- Actual showtime.
- 8:45 PM
- Woohoo! Done. Tons of hugs. Crew already packing up and on to the next thing.
- 9:30 PM
- Gather up our team and designers and start walking to party. Later: HOME!