design: Sofada. photo: Pete Springer
What were you doing at 6 AM last Thursday morning? We’re an hour or three short on beauty sleep, but the ultra crew turned out at 6 to produce a fashion show of work by Portland independent designers for the Portland Oregon Visitors Association annual awards breakfast at the Convention Center. The show was scheduled for 7:46 AM (precisely). Ouch.
design: Elizabeth Dye. photo: Pete Springer
We weren’t the only ones up, 500 members of POVA turned out. The Q6 models (Janessa, Aunah, Megan, Cora, Tineke, Ryan, and Khary) looked startlingly beautiful at that hour and were in great spirits considering. (Melissa had them come with simple hair…pulled back…and makeup; there was no way we were getting there at 5 to do hair and makeup.) DJ Dave Allen was looking sharp considering that a gig at this hour may have been a first for him. We even persuaded our senior photographer, Pete Springer to come! We showed five looks by a diverse group of five Portland designers: Anna Cohen, Sofada, Adam Arnold, Jonny Shultz, and Elizabeth Dye.
design: Jonny Shultz. photo: Pete Springer
We had nerves (please don’t trip), but did our production lead, Melissa Wilson? The recent Art Institute grad was glacier cool, and Patricia No led the army of dressers to make it Work (in the RuPaul sense of the word). Anna Cohen sent an army of interns and compatriots to dress backstage. And our own Will Levin had the forethought to bring his own Adam Arnold suit for one of the men, in case the pants on the look we were going to use were too short for him.
design: Elizabeth Dye. photo: Pete Springer
The whole thing started months earlier when the Portland Oregon Visitor’s Association (the people who encourage tourists to come to town and spend money with members ranging from convention and meeting planners, hotels, downtown businesses, cultural organizations…) decided they wanted to shine the spotlight on Portland independent fashion. Very cool. They asked ultra to do a 10-15 minute fashion show. They would be eating breakfast. They still had memories of a racy OBT excerpt of an Anais Nin ballet. In other words, wow us, but we are eating breakfast here.
design: Sofada. photo: Pete Springer
Melissa, fresh off working the STRUT show backstage, showed up at our first meeting with a laundry list of requirements, questions, to-dos. You know you’re in good hands when the producer you’re working with has a longer list than you do. We knew the kind of show we wanted to produce, but we weren’t sure what we could pull off on the budget. Our main POVA contact, the cultural tourism manager, Laurie Waissman, was totally down and wanted this to be as great as we did. A couple weeks and a meeting or two later, it became clear that we could ask and we would receive: Marie at the Convention Center would give us whatever runway configuration we wanted, Royce Mason from Signature Events would design the backdrop (white please!) and curtain off a backstage for us, and Rose City Sound & Lighting had done this so many times it was old hat. We’d get our wish-list big video screens on either side of the stage, projecting both the designers’ names and video of the models.
design: Adam Arnold. photo: Pete Springer
The models. When we first thought about trying to audition and cast models, it seemed like that would be the biggest difficulty we faced. Runway models are so critical, they can make or break the looks and the show. Pressure on. Luckily we didn’t try to do it all ourselves. We were fortunate to begin working with Q6 Model and Talent, and when they sent a contact sheet of the models they recommended (all runway vets), we were thrilled. Everything was going to be okay. Five girls, two boys (are you sure we only need five girls? will they have time to dress? yes, well okay…). We scheduled fittings at the Jupiter Hotel.
Cora in Adam Arnold. photo: Melissa Wilson
We picked up garments from Adam, Elizabeth, and Sofada. Jonny would be bringing his to the fitting and Anna was sending Mary and Alex with the garments to style her looks. For ultra, Melissa had help from Will Levin and Patricia No. We thought the fittings might take hours. Patricia laid out all of the pieces, then she and Melissa had girls try on different looks, shooting photos the whole time.
Khary in Adam Arnold. photo: Melissa Wilson
One pair of Adam Arnold pants was two inches too short on Khary and the other model wasn’t there. Should we pretend that we were doing a Thom Browne or take a chance that the other model was shorter. And should we do one of the Elizabeth Dye velvet evening dresses, even though they could be read as fall not spring? Melissa and Patricia worked out who’d wear what in record time and took off for Olive Shoes to find shoes that would work.
We’d organized the looks on a backstage rack by model the night before. Melissa had been at home taping the bottoms of all of the shoes from Olive Shoes. At 6 AM, all but one of the models were there (and Tineke’s mom, too!), Patricia was steaming garments while Melissa got the models ready for a runthrough. (Make sure Khary stops and marks before he exits.) Wait! We discovered that you could see a part of backstage we thought we could use to dress from the audience. We moved things over and added a rack. Going to be tight.
Pete Springer. photo: Radon (sorry Pete!)
We were all cooling our heels in the Green Room (quietly) while the guests were getting seated. All of the sudden Melissa looked at her watch. It was 7:30! Pete headed out front. The models dressed in their looks from Anna Cohen, lined up, and waited. The dressers unzipped the backs of dresses and re-checked the order of the garments.
Melissa, Janessa, and Megan
Tineke and Cora waiting to go on.
POVA’s CEO, Jeff Miller, announced the show, Dave kicked into this liquid little French pop tune, and Janessa walked out. Showtime:
design: Anna Cohen. photo: Pete Springer
Either in spite or because of our crossed fingers, the show went off without a hitch. The models owned the runway, the designers’ work looked incredible. AND at 8:00 AM, before many of us would normally even open an eye, we were finished, exhausted, relieved.
WHAT TO DO NOW?