My First

Yesterday i did a photoshoot on the Upper East Side. That alone is a mouthful.

So anyways, i had met this photography named Adam Regan and explained that i was looking to build my portfolio as a hair stylist (because there are literally a trillion makeup artists in NYC and they are ALL pretty bad ass) and he asked me if id like to do a shoot with him. i said yah, duh.

it was for a modeling agency called Prestigous Models (which exclusively represents Asian talent) and a designer collective in the East Village. the shoot took place on the 21st floor in the actual agency office. the view of the city was amazing.









ps i made an online portfolio for myself... and it actually looks decent! check it out and give me some feedback :)
http://www.wix.com/pistolsandpetals/Andrita-Renee

More pics from FNO

This is some of the hair that I did for the Shop Addicts Fashion Night Out Fashion Show. I worked with a designer by the name of Mary, and her label gla.MAR.ous as well as another designer by the name of Benjamin Jett. For the first designer, the look was loose waves and curls and the second designer wanted slick angled ponytails. I enjoyed working with them both, as well as a group of students at the Aveda school in SoHo. I cant wait to do more work like this

Fashions Night Out 2010

just in case you've been living under a rock and, consequently, do not know what Fashions Night Out is.....

basically its like Black Friday but with parties, celebs, freebies etc. its an economic stimulus plan for the fashion industry as a result of Anna Wintour's intelligent being. thats probably thee lamest explanation of the most exciting night in fashion but, well, im operating on four hours of sleep right now so sorry. just take my word. its fucking fetch.

i was supremely excited to be in New York during this fashion season. even though im like piss poor these days (and sooo NOT complaining about it), i planned on hitting up a few of the events that were going on that night. To be honest, there was so much shit going on all over the city I wouldnt have been able to keep up. it was like a citywide block party full of beautifully dressed folks.

..............

moral of the story? i got to do hair for one of those events. TOUCH lounge/club hosted a fashion show that was put on by an organization called Shop Addicts. The show featured a few VERY talented up and coming new york city designers. i was a bit skeptical at first because you never know what youre gonna get with these upcoming designer showcase thingys but this one was good.

i did hair for a line called gla.Mar.ous; the designers name was Mary and she inspired me. Her pieces were soooo well crafted and unique. i just kept thinking, 'this little girl did ALLLLLLL of this?!?! let me get my ass a sewing kit quickfast'. I can easily picture her spring collection in someones boutique (check it out at http://shopglamarous.com/collection)

her models were fun. there was this blonde whos hair i was obsessed with. she looked like she could be Taylor Swifts big sister. her hair curled soooo beautifully.



Mary wanted her models to have loose waves and curls to compliment the hippy feel of her garments but at the same time NOT overpower the headpieces that each model had been assigned.


then there was another designer. i believe his name was Benjamin Jett. he was so cute i forgot his name (and he was straight too). i wasnt smart enough to take pictures of the work i did with his girls but it was pretty chic. Hair was slicked down into one 'diagonal ponytail'. i had to do this one models hair and....whew. i got a little nerrrrrvous. her hair was soooo stupid long and really really thick. i just new i wouldnt be able to find a rubber band to contain that mane! but then...i had a beauty school moment. we used to HATEhateHATE when the teachers made us watch these ancient ass Martin Parsons videos (he only did updos and intricate bridal shit). i was never a fan of his finished looks but you could always count on picking up some stupid ass technique that will make your job a hell of alot easier.

case in point, this here model lady i was dealing with. i remembered seeing the old guy making one ponytail out of a bunch of ponytails (vague, i know..sleeps waiting on me). i did that shit on her and BAM! i was rolling. knocked them bitches out in like 10 minutes and if youve ever had the pleasure (or displeasure) of being in my chair, you know i am slower than molasses.




i had gotten there (with my good ol Caddy Bag) at about 4pm and by the time the show started at 10, i was exhausted. the other hairstylists i was working with left, and so did i. later i found out that Snooki and Sammi from Jersey Shore showed up. Oh well.

Heres more pics.











p.s. i saw this fancy, Fashion Week stylist using some Martin Parsons techniques too, with these french braids that left some of the braid hanging loosly from the scalp (dont ask). He MURDERED it. i just sat and watched in awe.




i <3 NY ;)

Its Barbie, BITCH!..more from FAO

I think i blacked out when i got to this part of the store. last week when i got excited about seeing the ferris wheel INSIDE of the Toys R Us in Times Square, my sister called me Willy Wonka...she may have been on to something.

Truth be told, i played with Barbies faithfully until i got to middle school. when my real life Barbie buddy, tenesha, outgrew them so did i consequentially. i was devastated at the time, but little did i know, she had done me a huge favor

More 5th Ave, but specifically, F.A.O Schwarz

This is like little kid heaven. this.right here. is my... little.kid.swag :)

More 5th Ave

I.Died.

5th Ave Part One

This quickly cured me of my homesickness

...Closer to my dreams

Sometime around three a.m. this morning i was awakened by a butt-dialed phone call from one of my friends back home. before i had answered the call i was dead ass sleep, but figured it HAD to be an emergency for this person to be calling me at this time; when i realized it was a mistake, i got to thinking. i started thinking about this small little thing that has been bothering so much so that i had to commence to writing :/

Since Friday, i have been experiencing this weirdo pseudo-homesick shit. I blame it partially on the fact that I have no friends here and partially on my normal bipolarism. either way, i've been sorta feeling like i wanna go home. im missing folks. my friends, especially.

I started comparing my detroit life to my new york city life (which is kind of absurd, i know, being as i have no new york city life at this point lol), specifically this whole missing-my-friends/oh-everyones-having-fun-without-out-me drama queen stuff im going through. this morning, in attempt to shake off these blues, i went on Fifth Ave for a few hours. Ah.Maze.Ing. (more to come on that later).after that, i met up with my aunt out in queens and she asked me what would i be doing today (saturday) if i were in detroit. i thought about it, and basically, i wouldve been doing the exact same thing. going somewhere by myself, shopping or hanging out with someone forty years my senior (detroit:dad, nyc:aunt).

Im still not sure whether this realization made me feel better or pissed me the hell off. more than likely, it was both....but slightly leaning more towards
pissed off' especially after the 3 a.m. butt call. i went from feeling bad about having left so abruptly and missing everyone to being very much a fuck-everyone-im-happy-im-amillion-miles-away-from-you-assholes, in like two minutes flat.

I didnt mean it. i was just...um...jealous?? hurt?? dare i say it, lonely? ive been gone just one week and some of my close friendships have been flipped upside down. people who i rarely got to see/hang out with while i was back home have been constantly rooting me on and checking on me, etc. people who i saw/talked to OBSESSIVELY have replaced me with a newer model (sorry for the dramatics. im venting) or just moved on with life. really? really.

so enough with all this girly emotional shit (i promise im not PMSing). im in the city that never sleeps. clearly, that isnt just some bullshit they put on travel brochures cuz it sounds good. its 5 a.m in the fucking morning and im up with THIS nonsense lol....

*sigh* i wish i knew how to write songs like Drake. in fact, im quite sure he already has a few songs that could explain how im feeling right now better than i ever could. thank you, drake. u just may be my only true friend in life (kidding).

good night/good morning

Betsey Johnson (and along with with it, my heart) has gone BROKE!

This makes me sad.

I just read on Fashionista that she's super broke and, get this, STEVE MADDEN is bailing her out. So, long story short, is she doesnt pay him back in like two years then he basically owns the Betsey Johnson empire. Fucking Steve Madden.

i wonder how she ended up like that

So...

Musically, its been a relatively boring summer. Im looking forward to fall since it seems to be the most popular time for musicians to release their new albums. There are a few gems out there right now that i am currently obsessed with:

Nicki Minajs' verse on Kanye's "Monster" featuring Jay-Z, etc


Fabolous' oldie but goodie "Stay"



Big Seans' "Almost Wrote You A Love Song"



Lil Wayne's "Ground Zero"...especially the video.


i think its his best one and he aint even in it. i really like shanel aka S-N mutha****n L. i like 90% of all the music ive heard of hers. i was a bit skeptical of the trashy long black nails but theyre growing on me.

And if I listen to "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry one more time, someones gonna have to call the authorities because it will be very obvious that i have some sort of mental retardation going on over here.





...i'll dig a little deeper.

Tell meeee whats really goin on?!?

its official. im here. brooklyn, to be exact. not sure how permanent this will be but for the moment, this is what it is. im enjoying it. my spot is niiice. my block is sandwiched between a block that is all arabic, a block that is all chinese and then a few blocks with a bunch of latinas and italians coming from every whichaway. im by the R train. theres this pier thingy a few blocks over by the Verazzano bridge (the bridge that connects you to Staten Island) and i can see the Statue of Liberty from there. thats how close i am to manhattan.

it has been so frickin hot out. why didnt anyone give me a heads up on the heat wave? furthermore, and more importantly, why wasnt i informed that no one besides rich folks have central ac? im not joking. NO ONE in this town has central air. F*ck those little air conditioners that sit in the window! They didnt put this in the brochure lol! i think my skin is having some kind of freak reaction to it. theres like a milion little bumps on my face that you cant actually see, but i can feel them when i rub my face. ew.

So far, i have spent every waking second of my time with my family. My sister came to ny to help me get settled in. soooo thankful. absolutely would not have gotten it done without her. she helped me clean up, organize and unload all my crap. To be such a teeny little place, it was alot that needed to be done.



Still, i did manage to have *some* fun. over in my hood, we found this little cheapie store called Nothing Fits, right? i thought it was going to be like a Rainbow or Simply Fashions or some shit. it.was.not. dont get me wrong, the stuff was definitely cheap but it was soooooooooooooo cute. it was cheap shit that didnt look like cheap shit. i was impressed.

then, we went to soho. i love soho. i love soho so much that I told my sister I was gonna name my first boychild Bleecker (after the street that marc jacobs' store is on). Speaking of which, I actually bought some marc jacobs gloves monday. theyre these black and green freddy kruger-esque fingerless joints. i cant wait for it to be that perfect temperature for me to wear them. we also stopped by the infamous magnolia bakery during our time in soho. delicioso, as Dora would say lol. if u ever come visit me, u will not be allowed to return home without having had a cupcake from here. square bidness.



we walked for literally seven whole hours on monday. we were all over the damn place. we ended up over by 42nd street/times square and i almost had a damn conniption when i saw THEE Forever 21. i had almost forgot that that was the reason i wanted to go to times square to begin with! that F21 is the largest one in the universe (i may be wrong, but let me have that one for this story's sake, k?). I walk in and immediately I whip out my iphone to start snapping away. then this rentacop (in a very nice suit, might i add) was all like "honey, u cant take pictures in here". bumbaclout.


my aunt and my sister were looking at me like i was crazy; they didnt understand. anyways, when u first walk in it appears to be just one-floored store. Decor? all white everything. super sleek. then as u move into the store, u see the escalators. all of the FOUR floors are below the first floor. call me a dork, but i thought that shit was dope. that was pretty much the highlight for me. i saw a trillion and one things that i cant wait to get my pretty little fingers on.

today i went to the main NYC library. u know, the one where carrie almost married Big (i think)? it was gooorrrggeeeooouussss. i can clearly see why it would be wedding material. the nyc library system is boss. im probably a bit biased because they had most of the books that i need for this semesters courses so im happy. i aint buying a *********** thang for fall classes.



anyways, today is actually the first night im staying at my place alone. my mom asked me like forty times if i was scared and i said no each time but idk. my doors are steel. i have bars on all of my windows.


theres more reason for me to be afraid of not being able to get the hell OUT of here than there is for me to be afraid of someone getting in. i cant lie though, i have this fear that im gonna look up and theres gonna be a big, nasty, gangsta ass rat in my place one day and im not gonna know what to do other than grab my keys and gtfoh!


that is all
:)