Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

The Coveted’s Candid Camera

by

Gorgeous blogger Jennine of The Coveted and I are recovering from a whirlwind New York City weekend. Jennine flew out from Chicago and stayed at my apartment while she did a photography job for my designing friend Christian Francis Roth, who was working on the look book for the Spring 2010 collection of his Francis line on Friday. Jennine’s assignment was to capture the backstage action. She was shooting the shoot!

For about nine hours, the studio was packed with the designer, two photographers, a makeup artist, two hair stylists working in shifts, Clementine, a model, an intern and me. I think a couple of other people might have wandered in and out while nearly 50 different looks were shot, including dresses, tops, skirts and pants.

Just to give you a feel for the day, this is my amateur-looking photo of what was going on in front of the professional camera: the model posing in a Francis dress in front of a white backdrop.

francismodel

This is a colorful version of my silvery-gray sample dress. Click the photo to see mine.

And here is one of Jennine’s photos of what was happening on the other side of the camera. This photo is not destined for the look book or website, but I am obsessed with it. There’s so much going on. Jennine and I think that y’all should think up some captions for this one. If you have an idea, leave it in the comments.

caption_sml

Caption this!

My other obsession of the day was the Xlerator. This is the hand-dryer in the ladies’ room in Christian’s building. It is louder and more powerful than a jet engine. It doesn’t exactly dry your skin. It blows your wet skin off and into another county, so voila! No more wet skin. Or any skin, for that matter.

xcelerator

The words at the bottom read: "Feel the power."

When we weren’t at the studio, feeling the power of the Xlerator or taking pictures of my shoes, Jennine and I spent a lot of quality time with other gorgeous bloggers. On Thursday, we celebrated a momentous occasion with Fabulous Girl. FabGirl just so happened to be wearing her Francis zipper dress.

zipperdress-maryclaire

Click to see me in the same dress.

On Friday, we were with Sister Wolf in spirit, though not in person. Sister Wolf has been feeling poorly, so we struck her forbidden hand-to-face blogger pose in order to get her adrenaline going.

Sister Wolf's anti-hand-to-face posing symbol

Sister Wolf's anti-hand-to-face posing symbol

Twice the face-touching fun.

Twice the face-touching fun.

On Saturday, we had dinner at Gabriel’s with gorgeous bloggers Tina, Alice Olive, Julia and Jordana (after Jordana bought a Francis zipper dress of her own). For some reason, we didn’t take a picture of all of us together. Jennine and I did take a bunch of pictures for a separate project of hers and I had to use her fancy camera to photograph her. Because I didn’t know the first thing about using the camera, she would put me where she planned to pose, set up the shot, and then trade places with me. That led to this picture. We were standing in the street and I was warning Jennine that a car was backing up behind her.

Click to read Jennine's post.

Click to read Jennine's post.

Jennine loves this photo, but I think my expression and glasses make me look like the melting Nazi in Indiana Jones. See the similarity?

Indiana jones and the raiders of the lost arc face melt nazi icon avatar animated gif Pictures, Images and Photos

I really do feel like screaming my face off right now, because I miss having Jennine around 24/7. Come back soon, Jennine!

UPDATED TO ADD RELATED LINKS:

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. So jealous of your adventures with the adorable wonderful fabulous Jennine! And here’s my caption for the photo:

    WendyB: Ummm…Christian? We seem to have booked your evil twin as the photographer today.

    Christian: WHAT? I thought you disposed of him.

    WendyB: Apparently he evaded the sharks.

  3. Wendy, you are nuts for that comparison. Just dreadful.

    I can’t wait to see what Jennine does for Francis and the behind the scenes look book. Sounds cooooooooool.

  5. WOW! Your life is soooo GLAM FABULOUS, if only I could just DREAM of MINE being like that for one sec, I would be on CLOUD NINE!!!:))
    p.s. YOUR soles are solely FABULOUS!
    xoxox,
    Gerri

  6. You are whispering into Christian’s ear

    “make out that we are discussing whether or not Kate can style the next look book and then she won’t notice that I’m wearing the Sonia Rykiel later in this post, thereby saving her serious top envy, go on make with the hand to face post quick!”

    Mmmm…

    PS reflected about blogger post ‘homage’ and dumped the offending blog off my list.

  10. My brain isn’t awake enough for captions yet.

    But how sad is it that I saw that hand dryer and went “Oooh I love those” I also like the Dyson “blade” hand dryers, have you seen those?

    Yes, I am a secret hand dryer geek, sorry.

  11. i mostly prefer backstage shots to those posed professional ones, so much more interesting! i love your top – where is it from?

  13. WendyB you crack me up! Let me stand 20 ft away from the computer, then squint my eyes to see the comparison LOL!

    Hey, I like the first comment above about the evil twin (I vote for that one)

  14. Wow, just reading this post was whirlwind! My hair is blown back.

    I wish I’d been there to see all the action.

  15. Caption: Christian tries very, very hard not to listen to the devil on his shoulder. But she is persistent, and later her horrifying suggestion involving the photographer and the balloons will indeed come to pass.

  16. omg.. i’m feeling about that blue dress pic the way you feel about the ‘getouttatheway’ pic. i can empathize but i still dont see any resemblance to the melty face guy.

    oh vey.

    on another note… I LOVE Winona’s caption…hehhehe evil twin, now that she brings it up….

  17. apparently i spelled oy vey wrong… i think it’s *that* episode of family guy that’s prompting me to integrate more jewish phrases in my otherwise gentile vocabulary.

  18. I think you’re suggesting ordering up some peach sangria. But friend you can never look like a melting nazi. So so funny. I’ve tried those hand dryers. You really can see your skin being pushing back. Now that’s the melting nazi. Can’t wait for the Spring 2010 collection. It look fabulous. Love the colors.

  21. SO. Jennine skipped out on coffee with ME in Chicago to shoot CFR’s lookbook? I guess I’ll forgive her if that’s the case …

  22. Hi there-sounds like you’ve all had a blast this weekend, fabulous pictures and I adore the striped jumper you’re wearing, looking so lovely as usual!!

  27. You all look fabulous. I wish I lived in New York! And I wish I had a zipper dress. Boohiss.

    Oh and “squee!”, my anti spam word was “Duranx2”. Mmmmm….

  30. So much fun! I have encountered a similar hand dryer I believe – scary!!!! Glad you had such fun together. I am trying to plan a trip out.. and maybe a blogger lunch. I will be in touch!!

  31. what an amazing site you have here! thanks for stopping by my blog, I really appreciate it! added you to my blogroll.
    xxx

  34. Melty face I think not! You look so French-adorable!

    The shoes in the Francis behind the scenes pic – who are those by? Love them!

    And speaking of S/S 2010. There was a sketch I saw when I was there – of a turquoise blue chiffon number? Will that be part of the collection?

    XOXO – and when are you free for muah missy??

  36. Oh myyyyy, how fun hanging out with such stylish people! I was cracking up with that hand dryer/skin remover hahaha!! Love your blog as always. And congrats on Ms. Panettiere wearing your jewelry! How exciting =)

    xoxo from Honduras!

  38. My caption is what I believe to be true:

    Wendy says to Christian:
    Fuck. You know who we forgot to invite? That really cute nice random girl from Ohio. Damnit Christian. Next time….

  39. Ohh Wendy B. why oh why can’t I be you for the day!!!! You are living one glamorous fabulous life…and btw, your post below if great , congrats. I designed a ring and three hollywood actresses have it and I would LOVE to see a picture of them wearing it..maybe someday ( I never even think to look at their hands, maybe that would be a good start LOL )
    Bunny

  40. What can I say? This is all so great – fashion, friends, New York, photo shoots. Such glamour (when the stress isn’t torturous :-))! I love it.

  41. My anti-spam word was oliveoyl. OLIVEOYL!

    The snap of you in the studio is hilarious. For some reason I keep hearing Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger saying “Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together.”

  42. As always, it’s great to catch up with your posts, WendyB. Thanks for your commiserating comment about Honk’s sluggishness.

  43. OMG, I wouldn’t have seen the similarity, but now that you mentioned it…ah ha ha. Sounds like an amazing weekend! Were you whispering naughtiness into Christian’s ear?

  44. Really loving the Francis zipper dress! And so great you got to spend some quality time with the lovely Jennine. The Xlerator is fab by the way. I think every bathroom needs one (they should get a blowdryer version out as well… )