.Amani

.Amani
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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Day at Preston Bailey's Office~

Thursday was the day I finally went to see celebrity designer Preston Bailey. The whole night before I was freaking out, with "What am I going to wear???" "How am I going to do my hair???" "ohmahgaw what am I going to say??? What am I going to ask him???" "How do I keep myself from gawking and foaming at the mouth??? ShouldIBringOneOfHisBooksForHimToSignForMe???"

It's kind of like this... when you meet someone who has influenced and inspired you so much through their work, that gave you dreams on top of dreams on top of dreams, it's so hard to keep your composure. I have met actor/music celebrities before and they make you feel a certain way seeing their personalities through their music and influencing you emotionally, but with artistic stuff I think it's a bit different. Rather than seeing a hot stud with a velvet voice, I think with an artist is more like seeing a brain. A huge living brain, where there are colorful currents glowing throughout it in many different colors... (disco brain?)

It kind of gets all scientific because you want to know what they're thinking, what they can get from your personality from the moment you walk in. If you were mentally able to (read: not gawking and foaming at the mouth), you want to sort of put their skills to the test just to see how they're like. You want to soak up whatever they to give to you in hopes that you would leave their presence being twice as good as you went in there.

So I was very excited. In the morning I wore something super cute but warm (because I'm still on my consecration... so no super cutesy, ruffly outfit for me :c) and it was 95 degrees but since that was the only outfit that kind of displayed my personality, I went with it. Put on one of my cute wigs, and headed out the door...


When I was approaching the front door, I was just imagining what the studio must look like. Would it be some huge square showroom? How many employees would be there? How huge must their design center be? What Preston's office door must look like? The building must be one with a front lobby with a security guard, right?




As I went in, I realized it was nothing like that. Haha. Preston Bailey's office takes up about three floors of the building. The studios were long, but spacious, and the first floor was broken up between Preston's Office, the showroom and the design team's space. The second floor was like actual organizational stuff-- where all the actual data entry and things happen, where the course and the projects for the LWPI courses are actually looked over. Third floor was storage, and where the actual construction of the props happen.

When the elevators open on the first floor, the showroom is right in front of you. At the time it wasn't completely set up, the curtains were pulled back, there was a table with different vases and different napkin designs and everything. I was led to Preston's office and just gawked at everything. There were cabinets stacked with design books, past designs and everything. In one corner there was a small tea table with fresh fruits and a bowl of pistachios. There were these chandeliers changing from the ceiling that they had made, with hundreds of glass spheres hanging by fiber optic cords. When they were lit up, the fiber optics that were curled inside the little balls gave this contemporary whimsical look. Then, there was a huge clear table in the center with flowers arranged inside of it. At first I thought they were real, but then I looked closer to see they were all silk flowers. Whaaaattttttt

I met Xoua who is the CEO of the company and I was told that Preston was not in the office for personal reasons, which I was okay with because stuff happens~ from then on he took me on a tour of the office. I didn't bother to ask if it was okay to take pictures, I'll try and see next time.

But. It. was. freaking. amazing. I was like a kid in a candy store. I had the serious cake face on. I got to touch centerpieces, see all sorts of designs on the design board. I went in the fridge and saw the hydrangeas they had sitting in there... all the boxes of different embellishments piled on the shelves along the walls... I met the lady who looks over the LWPI stuff, the guy who does the number-crunching, the design team, so now the only person that's missing is Preston.

Which will happen in a future meeting. I can't wait.
/gasm

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