Behind the glove shoot

When I first started with Zazou I was initiated as a hand model. Not because my hands are particularly beautiful, graceful or even always properly moisturized. My hands were handy and we needed to send glove packaging art out that day.

Plus, my immediate competition had limited range.

Well, let me tell you. Hand modeling is a lot more trouble than it seems. A "natural" pose? Forget it. Whenever I splayed my fingers, I might as well have been playing shadow puppets.

Soon the pose got its own name: "the rooster." As in, Vickie, stop doing the rooster!

Which did not build my confidence. But luckily, my modeling days were short - one terrifying half hour.

(I hear this is the norm with modeling careers anyway. Maybe I'll write a tell-all book on my time as a hand model. How about, "Gripped: The Vickie DeHamer Story." It could work - they'll publish anything these days.)

(Actual Tell All book)

Fast forward a few months and catalog time rolled around (see complete coverage in my previous post, "A Fashion Shoot Story.") We secured our regular and much better hand model, the lovely Miss Lila.

This is Lila.

And here are Lila's hands, fresh from the manicurist and ready for their close ups.

As she's just in high school, she volunteers her services for the cost of the manicure. And she's part of Zazou's extended family, having literally toddled around our Berkeley offices in diapers.

As she grew up (and up! she's nearly 6 feet) we snagged her with a nod from mom and dad. Not coincidentally, we think, our Fingerless Glove Line began to take off.

Some examples of her work:

In Zebra Stripe Fingerless Gloves, available into Fall 10 - act fast.

Giving a much less pronounced "rooster" pose (aka the "bunny" pose) with our wildly popular Button Fingerless Glove. (Also available immediately in several stunning colors.)

I am in love with this glove. Have you ever seen one like it before? Only at Zazou, I tell you. In fact, I've submitted it to Oprah and I'm really hoping she just tries it on.

I have a feeling she'll fall in love with them, and me, and soon we'll be romping together with her cocker spaniels on her vast estate. In our fingerless gloves, so I can deftly pooper scoop for her.

She'd be so grateful!

But back to Lila. Watching her mini photo shoot in our office, it seemed so effortless. There was a lot of glamour happening even though it looked like there was NO glamour happening.

It starts out looking like a strange sort of mug shot:

But ends up looking like this:

(By the way, we still have these sequined fingerless gloves in white, so, you know what to do. What a chic way to honor Michael Jackson's memory, I say.)

Of course, Lila also got a little help from our catalog designer, Mara Murray. Mara also subs when necessary as a photographer, friend, therapist - you name it.

By the end of the shoot, we had photographed about 15 gloves. They all look great in our Fall 2010 catalog, which is going to be hot off the presses any day now.

And Lila? Her day was not over. After the photo shoot, she had to go back to school for a play. Did you know she's also an aspiring actress?

Come to think of it, maybe I won't need Oprah after all. I'll just call People magazine in five years and create publicity as the person who knew the famous Lila back when she was a struggling hand model.

Sort of like the days I used to work with Martha Stewart when she was a swimsuit model.

Now I get individual lemon meringue pies in hand blown glass for life. Honest.

A Fashion Shoot Story

Last month we had our big photo shoot for our Fall Catalog. For those of you who've never been to a photo shoot, I have one thing to say.

I have never been to one either.

Of course, I am not completely without experience with such things. I have, for example, seen every season of "America's Next Top Model."

(Do you think they sedated this sheep? I watched the episode with mounting disappointment, sort of hoping for a surprise goring.)

Luckily, the prep for OUR photo shoot didn't involve livestock. We just had to get our Fall line of scarves, gloves and hats to a big loft in San Francisco. Hire a model. Choose set decorations. Christopher Carroll, our designer, had all these jobs under control.

But despite all of our organizing, things got hectic as the shoot drew close.

For example, this is what our design studio looked like at the beginning of the process:

Here's what it looked like a few days before the show:

Chris and Jason Dickerson, our stylist, insisted these piles had meaning and were not be moved!

The day of the shoot finally arrived. I found the studio by following the sound of blaring music.

It sounded exactly how I pictured a fashion shoot to sound - jazzy, rocky, bluesy, techno-lounge-classical music all in one. It emanated from this mysterious iPod in the corner. I never found out who owned this iPod, but I was certain we could be best friends. That's how good the music was.

Our beautiful model, Arielle Olson, was already in full hair and make-up and just modeling up a storm.

Note that this picture is blurry. It's because I took it.

Our real photographer, the great Rico Schwartzberg - who has been working with Zazou for years - takes GOOD pictures that look like this.

All throughout the shoot, they come up on a computer monitor instantly, like magic. Then everyone gathers around to see.

It reminded me of safari animals gathering around a watering hole. And if you watch them too long, they get skittish.

The shoot was a real operation. We had about 50 pieces to iron, put on the model, style and shoot - all before 5 p.m. Everyone had a job.

This is Enyonam Senyo-Mensa, our packer and shoot assistant. She ironed all the scarves and put everything in order, using two chairs as staging areas.

I started to think of them as the photo shoot waiting room.

I wish they were holding magazines.

Chris and Jason (our aforementioned pile makers and the guys who ran the shoot) made sure everything on the list got photographed and looked "hot."

That's Chris on the left and Jason on the right. They also got skittish when photographed too often.

Everything was humming along quite business-like until Zazou owner and mischief-instigator Claudia Koch arrived. She marched around meeting and greeting and ordering various people around in the charming way that only Claudia can pull off.

She posed for photos. She sat in a Director's Chair. What can we say? She's the boss. Here's a few pics I snapped of her shenanigans.

Teaching Enyo how to model. Apparently this involves an extreme head tilt.

Styling our model.

Chatting up our male model on the crew's lunch break.

Oh, here's our lunch order.

The cafe downstairs was none-too-pleased that I wanted lunch for 15 people with no notice. But I fought her, staring her down, mumbling nonchalantly that "we're doing a photo shoot upstairs, so...."

I wasn't really sure how to finish that sentence, but I believe she got my point.

Besides, a cafe that sells sandwiches that are only good for three hours shouldn't be so picky about their customers. Chris's sandwich said "Good to 3:30."

After lunch, we all got a little logey. I tried to compensate with stimulants. No, not those kind of stimulants. This was a clean photo shoot, not Studio 54.

I had come prepared with "5-Hour Energy." I bet you've seen the commercials.

Poured in a glass, I was intimidated by its odd, rosy hue.

Of course Claudia, and her French husband Jean-Michel - who subsist solely on fine wine, Perrier and bits of baguette - were horrified that such a product exists.

Enyonam bravely tried it and didn't care for it.

However, we were propelled into a flurry of excitement as we entered the last leg of our shoot. Our male model, the delightful David Davis, posed gallantly alongside Arielle. He helped show off our new line of unisex scarves.

Despite being a few inches shorter.

To be fair, Miss Arielle is an extremely tall young lady - and wearing heels! For most of the day, THESE heels, which look to me like they're 4-inchers.

Any ladies out there know the discipline and pain tolerance involved with wearing these monsters for hours on end.

Insiders Tip: models wear high heels - even when they're not in frame - because it gives them better posture and stance. I wore flats, but in my defense they did have an animal print - which I felt was - as Tyra Banks would say - somewhat fierce.

Our model's height did work against her in one instance. She tried on a short dress that had a slit that - well - let's just say it slit too high in front. Arielle, pro that she is, gamely came out of the dressing room and showed us anyway.

Note the look of concern on Enyonam's face. We all decided to try another dress. Here's our hair and make-up artist David Michaud, giving his look of disapproval.

I'd like to show you all the amazing shots we got for the catalog. But you'll have to wait until we ship it in June!

All told, models Arielle and David were totally amazing, David banged out some incredible make-up and hair (complete with a couple look changes) Chris and Jason combined creative forces to make everyone and everything look chic, Rico was a genius behind the lens - you get the picture.

As for me, it was everything I had hoped it would be. A really glamorous day showcasing our beautiful scarves - which we've been feverishly designing for months and just debuted in New York last weekend at the big gift show.

Of course - it wouldn't be high fashion without a little high drama to end it. Our beautiful Arielle - alas, proving models are real people with real problems! - had trouble starting her car. We all gathered around puzzling at the jumper cables.

Arielle even posed in the midst of her turmoil.

Finally, Chris stepped up and got the car started.

You gotta love a man who can paint, design scarves, run a photo shoot AND jump start a model's car.

Our Chris. More on him later.

Meanwhile, I learned a new skill as well. How to steam clothing without burning myself.

Next time I might just do it in heels.

Model Fashion

In case you've forgotten, it's me, Vickie Jean. Former reporter, fashion business newbie:

A lot has happened at Zazou since my last post. Namely, my boss Claudia has gently explained to me that I need to blog more often if I'm to ever have a following.

By gently, I mean an e-mail saying, "blog more! okay?"

Got it!

In my defense, this is a busy time for fashion folk. Spring isn't over, yet we have all begun thinking of Fall.

Did you know that right now, as we speak, there are workers in lands far away making something you will wear in September?

And me, I'm giving names and scintillating copy for those things! Now I can't post many pictures our new stuff for fear of knock-offs, but let me just tease you with a little preview.

Zazou will be featuring something next season called the Glamour Monster.

Chew on that.

One thing that kept me from blogging was photographing some of our new scarves. This was our model.

I should have warned you she is naked.

And her head. A true professional.

Here she is, being styled by our leader, Miss Claudia.

We have a photo shoot coming up too - my very first! Chris, our designer, runs the entire show, from hiring our model (a real one) to staging the props, choosing wardrobe, the works. He has agreed to let me attend so long as I be quiet. I happily agreed.

Here's a photo from last year.

Doesn't this look like the coolest thing ever? Like being in an episode of "America's Next Top Model."

Pictured are Nichole Hayes, fabulous model and David Michaud, fabulous hair and make-up artist. (I'm learning to use the word fabulous whenever I'm at a loss for an adjective.)

Now Nichole has the BEST EYEBROWS. Those natural ones that are combed upward and still look Brooke-Shields fabulous, but not overly bushy.

Look at them in this picture, featured above our very popular and extremely well-priced PomPoms scarf. What a beauty!

Speaking of the PomPoms scarf, one of our sales reps brought up the fact that no other than Meryl Streep wore something similar in her latest movie, "It's Complicated."

See, it's a little bigger, but is that not the PomPoms? Speaking of good eyebrows, hello Mr. John "cute guy from The Office" Krasinski.

Tune in next week for an evaluation of fashion and food. As in, every time I wear something I really, really want to keep in pristine condition, I spill something on it.

I am concerned, for instance, that our upcoming photo shoot will be catered.

I'm about to leave now for drinks with a girlfriend. Things could get ugly as this is how I open champagne.

Um... fabulous!