The Monique Lhuillier Meltdown
Brad dishes on the stress of nearly missing the Monique Lhullier show.
Thank you for watching Season 2 of It's a Brad, Brad World! As you can see, a lot has changed since last season: business is booming and I have two new styling assistants, Thomas and Hannah. Lindsay is now the Queen Bee of my business! Absolutely everyone and everything goes through her. She has become more than an assistant; she is part of my family. Thomas is the first assistant I ever used when I went out on my own, but at the time I couldn’t hire him full time and he was looking for full time work. The minute I was able to hire him, I gave him a call and he accepted the position. It's been almost two years. Hannah started out as an intern. She had no experience in fashion, but she was willing to learn and absorbed everything very quickly. She has a great eye, an incredible sense of style, and she makes me laugh, so once we started getting really busy, I hired her full time. I love my team! They work really hard and we have fun doing it...most of the time.
I feel so lucky to get to work with Kate Spade New York as their brand stylist. One of my responsibilities is styling their presentations for New York Fashion week. My first job is to edit down the racks and racks of product to pull out the pieces I feel are the strongest and work together to communicate the inspiration and the story of the collection that Deborah Lloyd, the Creative Director of Kate Spade New York, has come up with. For three days, Deborah and I work very closely to put the looks together, fit them on the models, and put the finishing touches on them. We discuss what the hair, makeup, and nails will be and do a test to make sure it is the look we want. Then we decide where the models will be positioned based on which outfits we feel are the most important or have the most impact. All of the top editors are invited to come see the collection with the hope that they will see outfits and accessories that they will want to feature in photo shoots in their magazines. This particular collection was a big hit with editors. It has been featured in Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, and Elle, which says to me that we did a great job.
Working with Minka Kelly has been an absolute joy. It was so much fun getting to fit her for the Jenny Packham show. We tried on about eight dresses and ultimately decided on the red dress that Minka was not sure about at first, but she trusts me, so she went with it. Jenny seemed to be the most excited about this dress too, and you ALWAYS want the designer to be happy with your selection. Just as I suspected, the dress was a huge hit. The photographers went crazy when Minka walked out on to the runway, and she ended up on many best dressed lists. YAY!Getting to the Monique Lhuillier show was more stressful than putting thirty looks together for the Kate Spade New York presentation. I have never been stuck in worse traffic, and Gary and I were freaking out so hard. At one point, we hit a curb and went up on the side walk. We both felt bad for the driver, because he made a bad decision that almost cost us making the show. Monique and her team were so sweet to hold the show for us. It was nuts once we got there, because everyone was already seated so there was no way to go except down the runway. It was so next level! I have always wanted to walk down the runway at Lincoln Center, and I finally got my chance.
