Evangeline Travels

All of my hard work over the past few months to put this show together has really paid off!

The show was a great success, beyond what I could have hoped or imagined. I had estimated that we would be lucky to have 100 people show up. It turned out to be closer to 300 people. The show went on without a hitch, the models were all beautiful and fun and confident, there was a lot of celebration and dancing throughout the evening, and rave reviews after the show… I could not have asked for more. DJ Kyle Long, who is the premier DJ in Indy for international music, did a fantastic job creating the soundtrack and general mood of the show, flawlessly mixing music from India, Peru, Morocco, Iran, and Thailand, among others. The audience and the models alike all had a great time, and a few bloggers and journalists who attended told me that it was better than some of the professional fashion shows they have seen in Indianapolis. What a huge compliment, especially when I had absolutely no experience with this sort of event… And best of all, we were able to raise over $450 for the Ghanaian charity! I suppose I just should stop gushing and show you photos (taken by Dharma Syamim Fikri).

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I’ve been working on putting together a charity event for the past few months. I never realized what a royal pain it would be to organize such an event, but I am beyond excited about it all coming together this Friday. The IUPUI International Fashion Show features models from 18 different countries, representing Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. Couldn’t find an Australian at IUPUI but I think we did pretty well on diversity otherwise. All donations we collect at the event will go towards a rural school I visited during my trip to Ghana last summer (see: blogs from May and June 2011), Purity Prep School in Akuapem. We received a last minute grant, the International Programming Grant, just a week before the show, so I have been scrambling to organize everything with the funding–catering from a Thai restaurant, the best international DJ in the city Kyle Long, decorations and supplies, advertisements, etc etc. We have been getting some great publicity around campus and around the city, so I have a really good feeling about it. I have had a wonderful (though often stressful) past few months working with our lovely international models–from Indonesia, Morocco, Peru, Egypt, DR Congo, Bosnia, France, Germany, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Somaliland, Honduras, USA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, The Philippines, and Thailand. They have some spectacular garments from their home country (and I myself will be modeling a few Ghanaian dresses in the show, I just couldn’t resist).

I’ve been spending a lot of time on iMovie lately making videos for the show. The first is a promo with headshots I took of the female models (minus a few), and the second is an informational video about the charity cause we are supporting.