How did we get here?

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the blog. I hope you all had a great week and I hope you’re enjoying the start of this journey. So, this week we are going to talk about how we got to NY. There is so much fun content to share from my time in NY so I want to start you guys off with how we even got there in the first place. 

It’s kind of crazy and surreal actually. This was my first year where I could actually take a step back & acknowledge with myself where I was and that it was my hard work that got me there. When I first started doing nails I met a woman from Milwaukee who was a fashion designer- Elena Velez. I met her in April 2021 and she was debuting at fashion week that following September. When we were talking she asked me if I had ever been to fashion week and if I ever wanted to go. I didn’t know if this lady was just delusional or if people actually could just “go to fashion week”. She then asked if I wanted to work on her show with her and do nails and I was like I mean duh… like how do I say no?? But this also didn’t even seem real. At this time I was super into press ons so I was like wow this is so dope, I’ll make her press ons, cool cool cool.

The months go by and Elena and I are in touch, have some FaceTime calls, she drops some material for me to use. I say material because if you know EV, you know her fashion isn’t just all frilly pretty. This first season we had literal hardware nails embedded into the fingernails. But that’s off topic haha. So Elena and I talk for a little bit, she introduces me to her stylist- the one and only Joe Van O. The three of us work together to come up with the sickest nails I’ve made that far. Also mind you- I’m still just a fresh little baby nail tech. Faking it and making itttt!!! 

We come up with three styles for this show. 1) the hardware nail like I mentioned and 2) the concrete nail. Girl. I literally had concrete powder, traveling through TSA. And 3) the iron nail. Elena got me some legit black iron shavings that I built this nail with some acrylic. To be honest, I had no idea how to do this or how I was going to do this but I just let the creativity flow & boom. We made it. 

So, things are sounding cute. Estevan comes with me to NY. (Estevan is my fiancé, bf at the time). We met so many cool people. We went to like the night before the show ‘meeting thing’ and I’m like okay wow. This is legit. This is about to be a real show. Cole- one of the photographers asked if Estevan was my assistant and I was like ooooohh, you think I have an assistant?? People here have assistants???? Day of show… I make like 15 sets of nails ON SET, day of, on the spot 😂 this was chaos. But, I fell in love. 

I didn’t do Feb22, because no one reached out :/ But Sep23 I reached out to Elena and asked if she wanted to collab together again & we stayed together after that. This year we all knew what to expect a little more, I asked my nail beastie Andrea to come with me to help, we prepped all the nails before hand and we were readdyyyy!

This show was real cute. Very chaotic BTS, but as always v memorable. 

Fast forward to the next season in FEB, I talked to Andrea and we’re like yeah no we’re in this, we’re reaching out. I start doing some research into other brands, nail artists, how does someone actually do nails at fashion week? So we get there, do Elena’s show. Have another great show. We stayed in NY for one more day after the show to sight see. And the next day I get a dm from Elena that says “hey idk if you saw this but my friend needs help with his show tomorrow if you’re still in town” So we reach out. Get in contact with this assistant lady from this brand and then we get a phone call from this random number & it’s the designer. Jackson Wiederhoeft himself from WIEDERHOEFT. We end up doing his show. He just wanted reg polish painted on the nails. We had to go to Duane Reade the morning of to get like base and top coat and stuff cause we were not prepared for this. I threw up inside the Duane Reade… nerves. But if you haven’t seen Wiederhoeft you need to right now. It is STUNNNINGGG. And that was pivotal for us. We knew we could do more than one show and I knew I had to get to work. 

This past season was The Season. I led two shows, with the sickest designers that we haven’t worked 

with before, and joined a team and worked three additional shows. 

Next week I’m going to talk about the research and the relationships that you need to build in order to keep this sustainable. I just don’t want this to be too long haha. But this is, in detail how we got to NY. Where we were, and how we stayed. 

This is all just kind of back story, we’ll get into all the fun stuff next week ☺️ I just want to thank you guys. For sticking with me. I get asked so much how I started fashion week so here it is for you. 

I love you all, have a great weekend. I’ll see you soon 🤍🤍