Long time no see! Here’s a quick rundown of where I’ve been lately. Over the past couple of weeks, I was focused on preparing for the 10th year of Baker Motor Company’s Charleston Fashion Week. During the week of March 15- 20th, @MissTaraBelle and I attended the shows under the tents in downtown Charleston. You all are probably wondering why so much time has passed between Fashion Week and my recap of the week, right? If you follow me along on social media, then you know that I went from a jam packed Fashion Week to starting a new job, the day after Fashion Week ended. Starting a new job, settling in, and attempting to recover from lack of sleep, kept me busy and away from writing. I have finally finished the recaps for all 6 days of Fashion week and am excited to share my experience.
Opening Day started early with a 7 am call time. Tara and I wanted to be stylish, but comfortable at the same time since we would be running around all day right up until the tents opened. We put on our “go-see” outfits consisting of jeans and white shirts, then hoped in the car and headed to grab some liquid energy. I had to make sure that I got coffee into Tara’s system as soon as possible or it was going to be a rough day for everyone involved (haha).
As a part of our first day, we teamed up with Charleston Fashion Week to take over the official Instagram account for the day, @ChasFashWeek. Of course, teaming up with the coffee shot master herself, we had to start our takeover with the perfect, “Morning Coffee Shot.”
So, what makes the perfect “Morning Coffee Shot?” Tara quickly taught me the basics. We needed a coffee shop with lots of white (nothing but marble would do), lots of natural lighting, and lots of good coffee options that created those cool designs in a mug. For this occasion we picked “The Rise” at the newly renovated Restoration Hotel on Wentworth Street in downtown Charleston.
The Rise was gracious enough to host us every morning of Fashion Week for our daily morning coffee and a quick read of the morning news (in some places also known as our Instagram feeds 😉 ). The Rise offers a variety of hot and cold beverages, light snacks or pastries, a great atmosphere, and great service. We popped in every morning and we were able to get in and out fairly quickly. It’s a great place to drop by for your morning fuel, especially if you are short on time. I highly recommend their large chocolate chunk cookies. Of course, like you all probably guessed, we made time for a mini photo-shoot before jetting off to our next destination. Before you ask…yes, we are on the floor, they’re marble floors so it was acceptable…right? haha
For our next destination, we packed up the car (Baby Maverick and all) and headed over the Arthur Ravenel Bridge to Mount Pleasant. Once over the bridge, we found ourselves inside the Bits of Lace store. Our last minute fitting with them was the first of the day as we prepared for their opening night show that was in collaboration with Taxidermy and Shoes on King. This stop was more for Tara to decide and pick up the pieces she would be wearing from them. While the store is mainly focused on catering to their women clientele, they do offer SAXX Underwear for us guys. As you all know, this brand is one of my favorite underwear brands due to their fit and feeling. We had fun talking to Mckenzie and the staff about the show that would be occurring later in the evening. She also managed to capture this shot for us. Tara decided on an awesome green lace up number to pair with her outfit for the evening. More details on her outfit and mine will be available in our next post.
Afterwards, we headed back over the bridge and to @charlestonplace to check in and pick up some bling. We pulled up to Charleston Place in Tara’s complimentary vehicle, a Red 2016 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 4-Door Coupe by Baker Motor Company. This particular vehicle came from the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Mount Pleasant. A big thank you to AJ, the General Manager and Emily & Lauren from Momentum Marketing for the complimentary vehicle during fashion week.
Now, lets talk about the goods on the cart. We may not have had hot sauce in our swag bags like Beyonce, but @coutureclosets of downtown Spartanburg, SC is a luxury consignment store. The store also offers various other services including a white glove delivery service and a personal stylist. Through their white glove service, Couture closets delivered us complementary luggage and bags. The personal stylist service came in handy as we tried to match bags to our every day looks, looks for the shows, and of course, the pieces that would look best on camera.
The Couture Closets store is owned by, Amy Zimmer, who also owns a luxury line of jewelry. We teamed up with her line, @colibricollections, for lots of sparkly items to wear throughout the week. They debuted their Dubai Collection during a fashion week trunk show and we were the first to wear the pieces!
Next, we ate a light lunch and headed back to the car to run around for some final touches to our looks of the night. We were able to stay hydrated throughout the day and the entire week thanks to @VossWorld. The Norwegian water company was the official water sponsor of #CHSFW10. The glass jarred Sparkling Water was always by my side as the larger portion stayed cool with added ice and on occasion, lemon.
After running around for a few more hours, we were finally able to head back for some glam and to change into our outfits for the evening. I had my hair styled every day during fashion week by my talented hairstylist, Christine, of Allure Salon on King Street. They helped me through hair color transition and made sure my hair had a different look every night. Meanwhile, Tara had the Paul Mitchell School get her hair & make up right under the tents.
Before changing into our outfits for the evening, we headed to the tents to pick up our media credential and to get my credentials for the Snapchat takeover that I would be doing for the week. The street style photographers were already on premises and they snapped a couple images of our #InstaFamily, still in our go-see outfits haha
Once we had the okay from the Glam Team, it was finally time to get in the car and pull up to the tents. Our #TheBelleandTheBow collaboration went public the moment we opened our car doors and our feet touched the ground leading to the tents. Here’s your first look at our outfits for the evening. Come back tomorrow to hear more about our adventures walking to the show, our outfit details, and all the incredible looks that came down the runway.
A huge thank you to Charleston Fashion Week and the team for the opportunity to work with them! We had a blast and can not wait to come up with something bigger and better for next year! #CHSFW10
