The evolution of the Evolution Fashion Show 2012

For the last two weekends I put shoots and blog posts hold as I've been immersed in following and documenting the City Fashion Festival in photos.  There has been something of interest on most days, and on the days when there has only been rehearsals I've been attending those too.

This blog post is a summary from my perspective of everything Evolution, from when it started with the Casting Calls way back in March, through model boot camps, show rehearsals, the fashion festival and then culminating with the final event, the Evolution Fashion Show, on Saturday July 7th.




I never really understood the meaning of the title of the show, "Evolution", until I started writing this post, now I can see that each and every model, even those that came with experience, has evolved in one way or another whether it be in confidence, poise, walk, respect for one another or their personal aspirations.



March 2012 - Casting Calls

There were two casting call events one on a Thursday and one on the following Saturday.
There were about 225 entries, ranging in age from about 3 years old up to the 30's (and maybe older).  There were also quite a few submissions emailed in, mostly from students that were off island.  It was a pretty good attendance and great to see some new faces, several of which I'd like to shoot for this blog.

Here are a some of pics taken at the casting calls.

After the Casting Call there were 150 models selected.  This included a mixture of males, females, children and also models that wouldn't be in the main show but would participate in other events during the City Fashion Festival week. 

April 2012 - Boot Camp

The first couple of meetings involved all the models, although children and adults met at different times, and was classed as Boot Camp.   Lamont and Amon ran the boot camps and put the models through their paces.


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 APRIL - JULY 2012 - Twice weekly Rehearsals

After the boot camp was over models who were in the Evolution show were placed into groups, 4 female groups and 2 male groups, children also had their own groups.   There were 18 collections in the adult show, so each group would be allocated to several collections.  Some collections would include both a female and male group.

Pics from one of the earlier rehearsals.

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 July 1st 2012 - Model Workshop with Wilhelmina Model Agency

The fashion festival kicked off on Sunday with a 4 hour model workshop with guest presenter Paul Nelson (Agent) and Darius Dio (Model), also presenting was local make up artist Christopher Vee.
Paul and Darius explained what its like to be a professional model in the fashion industry and how best to enter the industry/occupation.  The workshop concluded with some runway coaching by Paul Nelson.

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 July 2nd 2012 - Manikin Monday

The first public presentation was Manikin Monday, which ran from 11am - 2pm and involved models posing in store windows amongst the real manikins.  Quite a few pedestrians walked right by without evening noticing, their loss.

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 July 4th 2012 - Hair and Beauty Show @ Harbour nights

The second public event was the Hair and Beauty show, where local make up artists, hair stylists and body painters had a chance to show off their creativity.  Since it was July 4th there was a big USA influence to a lot of the creations.

Here are a few examples

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After the show was over, I asked the models, representing TK Hair stylists, to allow me to shoot them.

July 7th 2012 - Evolution Fashion Show

The city fashion festival ended with the Evolution show.  I've been shooting shows for the last 4 years and other than NY fashion week this was the best show I have attended.  The lighting was adequate, thankfully the runway was white and for the most part the collections were interesting.  The most pleasing thing was to see how well each model performed.   Having followed their progress from the very beginning it was quite remarkable to see how those shy 14 or 15 year olds that walked into the casting call 4 months ago were now strutting their stuff in front of several thousand people.  Not only was there an obvious transformation in their confidence but more apparent was that they looked like the models they aspired to be, and several years older than they really are.   I can imagine that's quite frightening if you are the parent. LOL.

I took 10,000 images on the night,  here is a very small selection:

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