A Month In My Shoes {#BBxCM}

Every now and then, in the all-consuming sea of assignments I’m flooded with each year, I’ll find one that truly touches my heart. One that is completely different from anything I’ve ever done before, throws me out of my comfort zone, helps me grow, teaches me things I never knew before and allows me to throw caution to the wind creatively. This year, I was lucky enough to be blessed with two such projects – teaching a course in fashion writing at a university and curating a clothing line for one of my favourite stores, Collezioni Moda.

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In one action-packed month, we managed to curate the line, undertake a massive photo shoot, come up with marketing strategies, conceptualize, write, style and design our own magazine and plan our launch event. Needless to say, it was not only incredibly fun, but equipped me with new skills I can use in the future, as well as sharpening existing skills I didn’t even know I had. Here’s a brief look at my journey and everything I learned along the way:

Development Meetings and Conceptualization

When Mohnish, Creative Director at Collezioni Moda called and asked if I would like to curate a line for them, I was incredibly excited and arranged a meeting with him the very next day to discuss the possibilities.

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When I reached the Collezioni Moda HQ, I was like a child in a candy store! Everywhere I looked, there were delicious candy colours and poppy prints I needed to own immediately. Within a short span of a few hours, we had picked out almost double the amount of pieces we had originally planned on having, ranging from skirts, tops, and jackets to dresses of various lengths and styles to jumpsuits and trousers.

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A few meetings down the road, we had decided on inspirations, sizes and price points. The clothes were inspired by my personal style, of course. But my followers had a huge role to play in it as well. I went through the Instagram profiles of some of my most loyal followers to see what clothes they picked and chose for themselves, to deliver a collection that was the best of both worlds – theirs and mine. As for sizes, we made sure every single piece in the collection was available up to an XL so normal girls with curves, like you and I, don’t feel excluded. The price points were tailored to young women still young in their professions, and so, everything was in the very affordable Rs. 1500-3500 range, with an odd piece here or there going up to Rs. 4500.

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Shortly after, we began planning our ‘look-zine’. We put together a rough idea of the stories we wanted so we could plan our photo shoot accordingly. Once the basic framework was in place, we set about getting in touch with photographers, makeup artists and hair stylists willing to come on board and work on the look-zine with us.

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What I learned in this phase:

1. How to balance high end and high street while curating a collection

2. How to put myself in another woman’s shoes

3. You can find amazing, talented people on Twitter and Instagram, like our makeup artist, Khushboo!

Photo Shoot

This was probably the most hectic, intense shoot of my life because I was the model and the stylist. I had 11 outfit changes and 4 hair and makeup changes and my feet were killing me from posing in heels all day! Also, the shoot was challenging because not only was it my first in-studio shoot, but I tried things I had never really experimented with before – wearing sleeveless, midnight blue eyeshadow, hair extensions and an eyelash curler!
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The shoot was divided into two halves – a day story and a night story. The day story was called ‘Queen Of The Streets‘ and was inspired by Bombay and London’s unique street style themes. The makeup looks were fresh and the hair was laid-back and wavy. The night story was called ‘Downtown Diva’, featuring party pieces from the collection, with dramatic hair and makeup to match.

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The team was very young, fun, positive and encouraging, which is why I managed to keep my cool all day, even though I fell down before we began and hurt my hand quite badly. The whole day was very fun with McDonald’s and Starbucks breaks, dancing to Britney and JLO and throwing in a couple of random pieces into the mix, that weren’t originally part of the collection, but we fell in love with them anyway.

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What I learned in this phase:

1. Always keep a first-aid kit on set at a shoot

2. No matter how much you plan, spontaneity rules over rigidity at a shoot each time

3. Make your shoot playlist in advance and pack it with peppy numbers to keep everyone’s spirits high all day

 Look-zine Development and Event Planning

Once we got the pictures from the shoot from our lovely photographer, Mehi, they were immediately sent to the Collezioni Moda art department to be cleaned up and put into the magazine layout, while I wrote the articles and planned the stories. One of our closest friends, Rohan, designed the look-zine cover and we finally scrutinized the whole layout and copy a day before it went to print, to make sure there weren’t any minor errors we may have missed.

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Simultaneously, we were also prepping for our event that week. We set up a guest list, wrote a press release, designed an invite, decided on the menu and goodie bag contents and set about obtaining a liquor permit for the wine.

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What I learned in this phase:

1. I’m a lot better at Photoshop than I thought!

2. How to write a press release

3. Have someone else give your work a once-over before you hand it in / send it to print. You’d be surprised at the little mistakes you missed because you’re so used to looking at the text and reading it out loud in a particular way in your head.

 The Event

The day of the event was incredibly hectic, as one would imagine. Mohnish was at the store all day, prepping it for the arrival of our guests. He put up a massive banner of the cover of our look-zine in the window of the store and big Bombay Bubble banners inside the store and dressed the store mannequin in pieces from the collection.

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I, on the other hand, was running around like a headless chicken having my hair and makeup done, collecting last minute food orders, co-ordinating with guests who needed directions and hitting party stores looking for disposable wine glasses for our guests.

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I was especially happy when my mum decided to stop by the event to offer support and helped us pack the goody bags with a copy of the look-zine, Collezioni Moda gift cards and a delicious chocolate cookie each from House Of Cookies!

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Soon our guests started arriving and I jumped into hostess mode walking them through all the pieces and silhouettes in the collection, our inspirations and the concept of our look-zine while they snacked on mini-quiches, cheese balls and brownies.

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We had such a great time meeting bog readers, friends, family and supporters, that we didn’t even realize how time flew by and that we were still at the store an hour after we were meant to close!

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What I learned during this phase:

1. Make sure you have plenty of non-alcoholic beverages and water around for your guests

2. If you’re only having 2-3 food items, make sure they’re all vegetarian to be on the safe side

3. Make sure your serving staff is just the right number so your guests feel attended to, without them crowding the floor

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I’m so thankful to Collezioni Moda, Mohnish in particular, for believing in me and making me such an active part of the team on this project. I truly loved being involved in every little aspect of the process and feel so honoured that he trusted my creative vision and let me run free. Can’t wait to work with them again!

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The collection is available at the Collezioni Moda stores at Juhu and Andheri (W), but I am also very excited to announce that it is now available online on the spanking new website, StyleSnazz.com! Head on over to start shopping!