Feeling The Love

September 12, 2023…….I felt the love.

I recently mentioned that I was asked by the darling woman who runs a very high end boutique to assist at a charity fashion show. I guess, it was more like me asking and her gladly accepting my offer. Toni is Cleveland’s Coco Chanel and the kindest person you could ever meet! And she is my friend and I am one of her employees!

Here is her website: http://toniinstyle.com/. To say I cannot afford anything she sells is an understatement. But I now officially (as she said, not me) am one of the girls! This was one of my greatest honors since I became the woman I am.

Why an honor? One, we did great work for University Hospital’s Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. Great cause, yes. Also the reason we have our oldest daughter. One thing I neglected to state in a recent post of all the hurdles I have overcome, both of our daughter’s could have passed away in separate issues in their childhood. Our oldest almost didn’t make it to her first birthday, I won’t bore you with details, but suffice as to say, we were lucky and Rainbow was an enormous part of that.

Two, working for Toni is a dream job! She is so kind. She is a fashion queen. She loves me. What more needs to be said.

Three, each and every model (and these ladies are amazing, beautiful and kind), thanked me and accepted me as one of them. Finally, the outfits…..

This was not my best photo session simply because the day started very early, the weather did not cooperate and I had an argument with one of the biggest a-holes walking the planet who happens to be one of my apparel “bosses”, on the phone. If I said the sky was blue, he berated me that it was yellow. If I said grass was green, I was an idiot for thinking it wasn’t orange. A stone age moron. The stupidest thing he said was back when he started in the industry, they didn’t have the internet. I lean heavily on e-mails. I can hit a thousand people in minutes and since I am on commission, I don’t exactly have much of an expense account. I play the percentages, the more emails I send, the more likely I will hit on one or two. Hey, maybe a-hole thinks I should be making calls on a rotary phone…. I digress.

I met my peers at about 9:00AM. We loaded up Toni’s car and headed to The Shorby Club, a yacht club on Lake Erie. Wendy, one of my associates, rode with me and we had a delightful conversation. It still, to this day, amazes me that I am simply accepted with very little question. We got the clothes into the changing area and had some down time (time enough to argue with Mr. Stone Age).

My job, and one I am quite good at, was to feed the models to the choreographer in order, on time. I also made sure there were no mistakes with each model, like a tag sticking out or a zipper or button missed. I just fell into my completely feminine version of Kandi, the “sweethearts” and “honeys”, the compliments on a piece or a necklace, my softer voice without thought.

Beside the argument mentioned, I got up very early to run. I have been very sporadic with my running of late. I’m fat, my back is bothering me and I am busy and lazy. But I find I am better early, at dusk with cooler temperatures. Since this girl had to get herself to work early, I ran at 5AM. Pitch dark. So, of course, I tripped. If you have every tripped when running (not jogging or trotting, I mean running), you go flying. You have less than a second to protect yourself. I was able to mostly stem off too much damage, but part of the body must make contact with the sidewalk. This time, my right knee. Not pretty, which required my wearing tights. I’ll miss that skin.

What a day though! Toni made it very clear, I will remain very involved in all of her shows. She mistakenly thought I was in my late 30’s (I should have bet her…). I am the youngest woman working for her, even at my correct age, and they all appreciated my muscle with all the goes with doing a fashion show on the road. Oh yeah, I also nailed the outfit, just sayin’. Fashion show chic. Thrift store cheap. That’s me!

PS Toni said she has some clothes she doesn’t need anymore. Would I be interested? You get three guesses and the first two don’t count, what do you think I said? One item worn during the fashion show (and I saw all the price tags on the items the ladies walked) would equal a big chunk of my entire wardrobe.