FLYGIRL CHRONICLES: #TBT GOING PLACES FASHION VIDEO

I called this video "Going Places" cause my models literally just walked around downtown Cleveland over and over again looking like they were going all these different places but they stayed right in the same area lol. The concept was inspired by Fellini's 8 1/2, the foreign film that I watched with the volume off (no subtitles smh) and did not completely understand what was going on, but it was shot so beautifully that the images haunted me for weeks until I could get it out of my head. This short film was a result of that. If you have not seen 9 1/2 yourself please watch it!!

The beautiful gowns came from Michelle Pointer of Mchlynne Couture, a young designer I attended fashion school with and I remember how excited I was looking at her work- the fabric, the colors, the movement of the garments, everything was beautifully detailed and finished to perfection. It was easy to choose models that I wanted to work with for this, a few of my faves who had all either modeled for me on the runway or in print- Deanna, Ellie, Chirvatta, Alicia and newcomer (to me) Khadijah. It was very important that I had girls of different shades, ethnicities and body shapes- brown skin Deanna with her hourglass shape is considered jr. plus in many markets, my white girl Ellie with her dancer's body and can do attitude, Chirvatta- South African and fierce with her reddish brown skin, Alicia had JUST HAD A BABY (you definitely could not tell lol) and light skinned Khadijah gave me all types of yoga poses for the photo shoot part of the video. (Yes I did style, film and direct the video and then had the photo shoot in between scenes- very DIY lol). Hairstylists Teresa and Ronnita both did all the ladies hair and made them look so elegant!

The making of the video in itself was quite an adventure. We were in downtown Cleveland inside of the Tower City shopping mall and used that as our meet up spot and got dressed there. Now I had went there the day before and asked management if I could take photos and or shoot a video there and was told NO. F that though cause I had an idea and I would not be able to move on until I got what I wanted. Which was to shoot inside Tower City lol. And I did, guerilla style. I had the girls get dressed and then had them walk around casually (hard to do while dressed in designer gowns with onlookers and passerbyers commenting and getting in the way lol) while I hurried up and filmed and took photos with the flash off.  Well that worked for a cute little minute until security came over and gave me a warning. I was still shooting when he was talking to me lol. I knew I had less than five minutes to finish up before he went to get back up- which he did... umm me and my models got kicked out of Tower City ya'll *hangs head in shame* BUT I GOT EVERYTHING I NEEDED lol!!

We packed up all our stuff and went outside directly in front of Tower City and got footage from there- which again is hard to do when guys are trying to talk to you and your models and photo bomb you. But we managed... We then moved on to the Soldier's Monument, one of my favorite places downtown and shot around the exterior. I was really happy with the results after we were done! And my model's were awesome for putting up with me cause I literally had no idea what I was doing, but I faked it until I made it and well, here are the results below! What do you think?