Well. My first day at
Jesselle PR. Where on earth do I start? Perhaps I could begin with what I wore - but I kind of already blew the lid on that yesterday. What can I say? I couldn't help myself!
9:30am and I'm ontime for my first day at Jesselle. Pulling up to
Lightspace Studios I was greeted with architecture that is so out of its place in the back streets of Fortitude Valley that excitement got the better me. Dad could tell and tried to use his soothing words to settle me down. I jumped out of the car, gave dad a quick kiss goodbye and drew a deep breath of the crisp morning air before checking out my reflection in the car window as he drove away. Typical.
So this was it. Here I was, staring into the huge glass window, peering into the world I so desperately want to be a part of. I mean, there were high heels decorating the window sill.
Hello! Where else could I possibly want to be!
After I met the girls (Jessica and Jessica) and got a run down of their clients and their philosophy on brand building, I wrote a few press releases, flicked through a few (read: more than a few) magazines, drank a tonne of coffee and caught up on some much needed fashion reading I have otherwise been neglecting due to uni.
I just found out that an old acquantience of mine, Benjamin Ringuet, has recently been picked up by Jesselle for representation. I've been tracking his development for a few years now and couldn't wait to get my hands on his unreleased collection. I could see myself in literally every single one of his pieces - and was lucky enough to be wearing one later that evening! (That's a whole other story in itself, and for those of you who haven't yet stopped reading, I will treat you with now).
So basically they had a full lookbook shoot planned for one of their jewellery labels. Going through the garments the girls had collected I pulled together a few looks and who would have known - their colour palette was nudes and whites. Heaven! Anyway the model and hair and makeup girl couldn't make it due to a few re-arrangements so I jumped on facebook and started harassing every model friend I had. Then one of the Jess' tells me they just found a girl available for the shoot. Annie Dwyer. I thought to myself "that sounds suspiciously similiar to my friend's name, Anne Dyer". Turns out Jess got it wrong and it WAS my friend. How stoked was I?!
Anyway 6pm rolls around and we've prepped everything for the shoot at the studio (props, garments, looks, insipration etc) and now it's time to head on over to the Courier Mail studios where the magic is set to happen. Just before we leave, I find out I have been volunteered to model for the lookbook along side Anne. How does
this keep happening to me! Lucky I had that champagne earlier...
So Anne and I head over to the studio and we're beside ourself with laughter in the car at how ridicilous this whole situation is (considering neither of us are actually models) and that we were about to both shoot the official campaign for an international brand.
We get to the studios, slather on as much makeup as humanly possible and attempt to curl my hair with a ghd. Considering it's dead straight and impossible to style, this proved to be a challenge but we managed. Nothing a bit of persistance and a whole can of hair spray can't fix. The second we were ready we ran to the table where there was FOOD. We were STARVING. I swear the designers, photographer and PR girls were all casting funny looks our way because they've probably never seen 'models' eat so much in their lifes. Anne and I couldn't help but chuckle.
Now before you start to think that photoshoots are as glamarous as they seem on FTV - don't be fooled. There's tonnes of waiting around and I quickly learnt the philosophy of "fake it until you make it". We had about five garments between us. Five garments with two girls and six looks to create. As you can imagine, a whole lot of substituting and bull clipping went on and I ended up manipulating a mens shirt into a boobtube... don't ask.
Oh! I forgot to mention the Benjamin Ringuet dress. I suppose this shoot was where I got to wear it! By the end of the night at around 10:30pm, Anne and I were losing our shit with the giggles and we all decided to call it a wrap.
All in all, as far as a first day at an internship goes, I really can't complain. Thirteen hours, a photoshoot and a million press releases later, I cannot wait for next weeks adventure with Jesselle PR.
the shoot
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