Me + DC3 = My Freelance Life

Maybe its just me being dramatic but my life has turned into one gargantuan twenty something cliche of sorts. Especially when it comes to my career. I feel like I have lived every scene of The Devil Wears Prada at some point or another and have had my fair share of Sex and the City moments. I have had bathroom breakdowns at work, been prematurely dismissed from plenty of conversations, and have unintentionally upgraded the fuck out of my coffee (and overall life) choices based on my new “lifestyle”. Don’t worry, Im rolling my eyes too.

And most of my industry peeps have shared the same kinds of experiences.

Working in fashion is hard. Living in New York is hard. Being an entrepreneur is hard. Especially when you’re not rich, not connected and not a beautiful blonde gay man. You already know this shit. But when you find yourself actually in the thick of things, you easily forget that and just wonder why YOU specifically can’t seem to get your shit together. This is why I love that I have amazing people in my life who live no where near NYC and have nothing to do with fashion. These are the folks who theoretically slap me back into reality. Whether its my sister telling me how she would’ve let *insert any super important person who’s been an ass to me* have it or my dad simply reminding me that he’s proud of me for not having to ask him for any money- I need those moments.

You need an amazing support system to sustain in this world. I can’t help you with all that but I CAN assure you the holy trinity that is Destinys Child is pretty much all you need to navigate this life. There is a DC3 cure for every fashion industry illness. Heres a few of my faves that both narrate my career and help me keep shit in perspective. Hope you enjoy.

Bills Bills Bills
This a great place to start. Unless you are doing commercial, celebrity or film work REGULARLY, you are broke. I’m talking about the kids at my level. Im talking about the full time freelancers with no side salon, wedding, weaving, glam squad kind of hustle. Those of us who chose a life of editorial pursuits usually start off making peanuts. Hell, I can still barely afford a Berry Powerful at Liquiteria. Im on my sisters phone plan because thats a guarantee my phone will never get disconnected. Sure every month, she’s like “..when the bill comes / all of a sudden you be actin dumb/ don’t know where all these calls come from/ when your mama’s numbers here more than once”.

I am indeed, a trifling, good for nothing type of brother, I guess. Welcome to my world.

Lose My Breath
I mean this quite literally. When you have freak fear of elevators in the city of NY, you find yourself in a pickle damn near daily. I am always huffing myself and my son (aka my hair kit) up tons of flights of stairs. I’ve done all kinds of creep shit that I am not proud of to avoid getting into those metal death traps. Aside from that, this whole hair doing thing is taxing as fuck on your stamina. And you have to be able to hang with the big dogs- the vegans, the caffe-fiends, the gym-lifers, all that and without complaint. Those vegans alone are like Team Too Much when it comes to energy levels. If I can ever part ways with real pizza Im going full force vegan. But also, Lose My Breath is a great instant energy boost itself. If you ever see me on set, I may not speak one excess word the entire shoot but if there’s music, you’re definitely gonna catch me busting a move at some point.

Survivor
When you’re a not-skinny Black girl with obnoxious hair, a septum ring and a little bit of social anxiety, you have TONS of hurdles/ barriers you have to deal with on a daily. Yeah, it sucks, but on the bright side after you’ve experienced them once or twice you can easily identify what kind of situation you have gotten yourself into and can respond accordingly. Whether its the producer who greets every one else with a cheerful smile and assumes you’re a messenger or assistant, or the photographer who thinks that you are going to slather Blue Magic all over the model’s head because you obviously do Hype Hair kind of hair. There’s always some random jab I get from somewhere. It, too, has become a cliche. Like, really, dude? Ok, I guess someone just found me at Bon Qui Qui’s Beauty Parlor and invited me up to do this here shoot for all this money. BUT the greatest glory is when I have done a good job, by MY OWN standard, and the team is impressed/ happy.

Hold up, Im not done with this one.

Also, working fashion week is a bitch. A beautiful, gratifying bitch but a bitch nonetheless. There are always too many cooks in the kitchen. This is also not the time for you to fuck up ON ANYTHING. You WILL be put on blast. One thing you don’t want to have happen is for the key artist to have to disassemble your work and start fresh. Basically says you couldn’t do it, you’re incompetent, you’re an idiot, go die. I have had that happen to me PLENTY of times on shows. Well, Im exaggerating. I’ve had it happen once in a very memorable fashion. (Other times, I have had it happen but not by the key- by other cooks in the kitch and almost always it turns out that I had it right to begin with, I just refuse to give another artist the satisfaction of making myself look like an ass so they can be all “LOOK, she’s not a team player and blah blah blah). The one time that sticks out in my head about my hairstyle being destroyed and restarted by a key artist’s right hand I shall keep to myself because Im saving it. But this person showed me the proper way to do the ponytail style and I watched attentively and appreciatively because his vibe was good and I knew he wasn’t being malicious. At the end of it, he gave me a bunch of kind words about how he wants to see me at the top. That was YEARS ago. Would you know that now, I am working a lot with the agency he is signed with? I am forever grateful to this guy who schooled, inspired and encouraged me all at the same time. If I ever write a book I swear this story may be what its based around. I put myself in a self taught ponytail bootcamp for months after that experience and now I am very often applauded for my pony slayage. True Story.

Bootylicious
To piggyback off all those hurdles I spoke of above, you have to be really in tune with your Star Player to not be swallowed up by the superficialness of NYC and the fashion world. If you haven’t the slightest clue what Im talking about here, go google Katt Williams Star Player. Ok, yeah right. Its basically your inner Beyonce. You have to be A-OK with who you are or people will successfully push their paleo-gluten free bullshit on you. No judgement. Just saying. People will try to make YOU feel some kind of way based on THEIR life decisions. They will try to convince you that you need to change *insert anything about yourself*. As long as you are continuing to book jobs, don’t change shit. I find that most people hire me for me. And I have waaaaay more awesome experiences than bad ones because of that. I am very transparent in everything I do so people know what they’re getting ahead of time- a quiet girl who works hard as fuck and wears questionable accessories. Point is, own whatever it is that you are serving. The girls will never be ready, but slay on, queen.

Girl
Sometimes I just need a minute to come sit down and tell you whats been happening. Girl. Literally. The way people in this business behave or the behavior that is promoted/ preferred really fucks me up sometimes. Mostly, because I know I will never be able to assimilate. So when I see other people doing it and moving up the ladder I often feel defeated. Hopeless. Like, How the fuck does anyone else not see this bullshit? These are long distance phone call and merlot moments. On the flip side, Im also always in Kelly mode trying to defend this business and many of the people I meet to my folks outside of the industry who are always giving me the side eye.

Independent Women
Im at a weird point in my career where Im still very much a newbie (at six years in the game) but Im not “new”. Im starting to get more amazing opportunities than ever before and Im trying stay in the mind of ‘Yay’ and not ‘Why”. Dude, I went shopping at TopShop a week ago. You cannot tell me Im not rich…..until I have to pay rent again. And, like, a job recently sent me my own personal Uber XL to transport me to and fro. Granted, this is the kind of thing that only a Level One-r gets excited about but I live for those few moments I get to feel like a BAWSE. Question?

Free
At the end of the day, no matter how shitty a job is, I am ALWAYS grateful to be able to work for myself…in NYC…full-time …in fashion… and get paid for it. I could easily still be working bullshit retail or schooling or just still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I cannot begin to explain the amount of joy and fulfillment I get from freelancing. I am eternally spoiled. Aint no feeling like being free.

Honorable Mentions:

No, No, No
For all the times I bitch and moan about how Im not gonna accept a certain gig but then I end up taking it anyways.

Bug A Boo

For anyone trying to force any kind of work related commitment out of me whatsoever

Say My Name

When fools act like they can’t credit the hair stylist lol!

So Good

Because if you’re an awesome person, theres someone somewhere that just doesn’t want to let you be great

Transformation Through Art Exhibit: Yassss

Every once in a while, a group of girls with various different talents, experiences and ideas can come together completely without compromising their own vision and end up with something amazing. Thats what happened here.

Stylist Julia Morris approached photographer Emily Soto, makeup artist Alyssa Lorraine and myself earlier this summer with an idea to create some headpieces reminiscent of those women in her country used to wear. She was to create them by hand, shoot them and exhibit them. I can honestly say that none of us really ‘got’ it, but we were all down for the project. See, thats what can sometimes happen when you trust your creative tribe. I don’t know the first thing about ancient headpieces but I trust Julia’s vision. And Emily Soto’s portraiture is dope as fuck. Im not so sure about Alyssa’s makeup skills tho. Just kidding. I know she’s probably reading this so I had to throw that one in there. Who loves ya, boo!

Anyways. All of us were able to bring our on vibe to the shoot. Contribute what we felt the images needed from our respective departments, ya know? There were no mood boards, no ‘the hair should look like this thing that so and so did for their shoot like this’. There was no pressure, just positive energy and I think thats why I am personally so proud of this body of work. I got to really step outside of the box on this shoot. I tried shit that didn’t even make since to me without anyone breathing down my neck demanding to know every brushstroke I had planned for each look.  And it worked.

I used hair extensions for this shoot. All of the looks are braided variations of the same extensions, black with a few [invisible] specks of gray. I pinned, sewed, and clipped the pieces into shapes inspired by the headpieces they’d be accentuating. I only used Amika’s Touchable Hold hairspray for the entire shoot. No irons, no dryers, no nothing.

I waited patiently for the preview of the images ahead of the planned exhibit, held at Beautique in Manhattan. When I finally saw them, I was ecstatic. Some of us creative folks are our own biggest haters. I often despise my work. I only see the flaws and opportunities for improvement. With this shoot, I couldn’t hate. This bitch really came through and did the damn thing. Bravo, Andrita. You got this one.

But the real MVP, or MVP’s, is the team. Julia, Alyssa, and Emily. Plus Vic, the only dude allowed in this girl squad.

Music Inspo:

I Want to be Your Dog, the Stooges

Eve

Class Is In Session: Emily Soto NYC Workshop 2015

In case you missed the memo, I love me some Emily Soto. She is a world traveling, super talented and sweet photographer based in NYC. She has quite the fan base and audience of young photographers that she offers workshops to to assist in their creative development. For the second time in a row, she brought me and the homies Alyssa Lorraine (mua) and Julia Morris (stylist, first timer) on to help with the glam portion of the workshop.

The models were awesome and I basically just made them look like baby dolls. Victorian, porcelain,slightly off, doll babies.

I had a blast working with and meeting the tons of photogs who attending the shop in Chelsea last month and am forever grateful to all the tagging they’ve done to me on Insta. Not even being sarcastic. They were good and I enjoyed it completely. Its pretty damn cool to see how your work translates through a bunch of different lenses, literally.

Hey, Can I Be 17 again?

Woo Hoo!!

I love it when I get to work cool gigs with cool girls!

On this episode, I got to do some commercial work for Jovani’s JVN collection in Brooklyn. I broke out my fave medium Italian boar bristle brush from Spornette, a flexible hold hair spray from Amika and some hair extensions from Irresistible Me to help me out for this one in conjunction with my usual Hot Tools irons.
We had four models over two days and it was pretty intense. Fun, but intense. I went in with a plan and stuck to it. We blew out each girl for natural shine, volume and smoothness first. By now you may already know that I don’t like to over do it with the products so I opted for a hairspray that could easily be restyled and would not weigh down the hair- especially since I’d be working with extensions that I didn’t want to get too stickyclumpystiffugly. Amika’s Touchable Hairspray did the trick as I iron set the hair with Kira, who agreed to assist me for the job :).

I used dense 18″ clip in extensions to the blonde model for length and a bit of low light action. I like using my Irresistible Me’s because they’re really well constructed and the coloring is pretty true to natural shades. Also, their thickness is the truth.

The results were amaze and Im proud of the team for killing it.

Question: DIY Dye Job

Anonymous asked: I need your advice! I dyed my hair black from light blue and it went this gross moss green colour!! I want to go a caramel/blonde. What do I do? What will that take and what damage will be done to my hair?

Sounds about right. When you lighten your hair, you’re essentially stripping it of all the various hues that together make up your natural hair color. When you decide to go darker, you must fill those colors back in to get a color that won’t fade within the first two washes. *Sigh* This is a long one. And I understand that aint nobody got time fa’ that so, in short, go to https://www.youtube.com/user/salonfreeTV/videos for the cliff notes answer to this Q. Watch all 6 billion videos and you’ll def do a better job at coloring your own hair than whomever you’ve already conned into helping you with this project. The one girl in the Salon Free videos, Tommy, is the best damn hair colorist on earth. Fuck what you heard. She was my color teacher in beauty school and if she could get a slow poke such as myself to understand hair color I KNOW she can probs do wonders for you. Now heres my take. Say your hair was dark brown and you went platinum. According to the hair color wheel, you stripped out all the red and orange tones in your hair to get to Frozen status. So the next month when you decide you’re over it and want to go raven, you have to use a color formula that includes shades from the red family to replace those original natural shades you depleted when you went all Level 10 (blonde). Lets say you decide thats too much work or too stupid complicated and you just dump a jar of jet black Manic Panic on top of your blonde and call it a day. That color fades and has nothing under it but that blonde (yellow). Black + Yellow? That is how you get unintended green hair. I’d say, if you’re kind of DIY-ing it, go for a color remover. I thought they were bullshit until I tried one. I liked L’Oreal’s Effasol Color Remover. Its easy to get a hold of, affordable and idiot-proof. This should remove all of the murky semi permanent shit you may have used in a process thats WAAAYY easier and less scary than the legit way to color-correct (which is bleaching/lightening). Read and follow the directions carefully. Don’t watch Netflix while this shit is on your hair. Pay close attention to the process. If your hair starts to feel/look a little squishy, straw like or just weird before the recommended duration has come to pass, ABORT MISSION! Wash it out immediately. Assuming you successfully remove the artificial color with the color remover, your hair should be back in the blonde family after this process and ready for re-coloring. You seriously need to give your hair a breather in between all of this but if you have things to do, AT LEAST throw on a really good deep conditioning treatment or mask before the next color process. Im loving Amika’s Triple RX Mask these days but I am also a hardcore believer in the moisturizing powers of raw coconut oil for the hair. Don’t skip this part or your hair will shrivel up and die. As far as your new hue goals, the caramel blonde color should be easily achievable with a demi permanent hair color from this point. That’s all I got kid. God Speed!

Toot, Toot…Beep, Beep

When I did Maria’s hair for this, all I kept thinking about was what it mustve been like to party in 1970′s NYC. That pretty much influenced my approach to these looks. Diane Von Furstenburg and her Andy Warhol portraits, Bianca Jagger and her infamous white horse entrance, disco and Donna (Summer) – it all translated into what I call ‘after party’ hair.

Maria (Major Model Management) was serving hot disco fab on a platter last week during a beauty shoot I did in Soho.

The seventies were a huge point of reference this day and the big sexy hair against the red backdrop and red lip proved to be a killer combo. Its always a great great feeling when you work with a team of artists who aren’t afraid to just let the magic happen. 

I used a 1 1/4” iron to curl Maria’s long hair and styled it mostly with my hands. Very little hairspray was used to maintain movement and “flipability”. This was a DVF meets Bianca Jagger meets Andy Warhol moment and I loved every second of it.

 

We’re All Pieces of the Puzzle.

From a test with one of my mua bae’s, Alyssa Lorraine.

On testing.

Someone once told me that putting together a successful photo shoot is a lot like planning an amazing party. There are many small details that play a huge part in setting the tone for the day as well as making it an epic one.

Is there good music that people are visibly enjoying? Have you arranged so that no one suffers from a hangry bitch fit?

You have to make sure you pick the right people for your team, first and foremost. Yes, this is work and aside from the models, most of you will be adults, but you want to bring people on board who are right for the project.  Vision is a huge part of that. You want to work with people who are on the same page as you creatively. If thats impossible, then you at least want to work with people who are open to collaboration.

As artists, we feed off our surroundings. And working with other artists whom you trust (and who trust you) can make or break a shoot. We’re all already sensitive about our shit, whether we like to admit it or not, so it helps when a team gives each other space to create their magic. Bouncing ideas off of one another is a part of the collaboration but I am very cautious not to overstep my boundaries with other peoples art. I’m not commenting on a damn thing no one asked me to comment on. You may be thinking, Why the fuck did the stylist choose that? But trust me, don’t do it. 1) Thats not your area of expertise and 2) You’re gonna fuck up the vibes, man. I fully expect that same respect with styling hair. I almost always ask others’ opinions when Im creating a look, but usually once BEFORE I start and again AFTER I’m done. During the process, don’t fuck with me. Im still trying to get into the zone and you’re probably fucking up my mojo. I assume, from observation, that everyone on set feels the same way about their jobs.

Every persons role on a shoot directly affects the end product. You can do the best hair, makeup, styling, lighting, whatever but if the model doesn’t come ready to serve, you all might as well have stayed home. And that can be said of anyones job. Usually on bigger shoots there will be a producer on set that makes sure shits on point and that the team feels comfortable and equipped with everything they need to rock. On smaller shoots, the photographer usually assumes this position. Ultimately, you’d be wise to come to set ready and down for anything.

And as long as everyones showed up on that note, your puzzle will come together just fine.

This isn’t one of the looks from today but I could not resist using my colorful stuff on Jessika for a little mini photo shoot.

This girls gonna be caking. I just know it. She is a gorgeous, fierce, unbothered Brazilian signed to Marilyn and she totally made my day.

Thanks to her I wasn’t left alone singing and dancing on set to cheesy amazing R & B/ Pop hits courtesy of Pandora. 

The beauty story we shot today was the polar opposite of what you see Jessika sporting here. We went a bit ape shit, to say the least. But her hair was so naturally sexy and shiny and hold-y that I had to give it its own moment to just be fab.

Love.

Saturday with yet another redhead. And not this one.
I’m talking about one of my kooky Mua friends- Alyssa Lorraine.

We shot in BK with a red headed Russian for about 20 hours and later washed away the beauty wounds with Shake Shack and laughter.

But back to this gal. 8 full hair and makeup changes. That’s all that needs to be said.
😐