DKNY PR Girl Comes Out

Of course, after I had just posted how excited I was to meet this anonymously amazing PR Girl she comes out of hiding with this amazing video. Can't wait to meet her!

Learning Lessons

Sometimes something unpredictable happens... we must accept it and understand what it is trying to tell us. Everything is a lesson. - Diane Von Furstenburg

Yet Another Chance of a Lifetime!

Hello everyone! I had an amazing day at my internship today. It seems the best days on the job are the days when I get the chance to help out in a different department other than marketing and meet new and interesting people. Well today I got the chance to help out in the human resources department. I was going through a stack of a thousand papers and paper-clipping, removing staples, etc. while talking to the woman who is in charge of the entire internship program. We got to chatting and she was asking where i'm from, why I chose Donna Karan, what I want to do someday, etc. When I told her about how i'm becoming more interested in the PR aspect of fashion and event planning she gave me an amazing offer. But before you can understand the offer is, i'll give you some background information. 

DKNY has a woman in their PR department that is in charge of their Twitter account and also writes a blog for them on a daily basis. Her tweets are so interesting, funny, fashion-conscious, and note-worthy that she now has 361,036 followers and counting. After a few years of tweeting she got a Tumblr account and she even has her own section on DKNY.com of her favorite pieces! Now the super interesting part of all this is that she is anonymous. Her pictures are always animated pictures that an in-house designer sketches for her and no one has an idea who she is. When I first started following her online I tried for well over an hour before I finally gave up trying to find this elusive mystery woman. Since starting my internship at DKNY i've learned her name but have yet to actually see her (at least to my knowledge).

Well as i'm sure you've inferred by this point, the human resources woman I was talking to said "I'll have to  get you a meeting with -----" I was shocked. I just smiled and casually said "That would be great" but inside I was freaking out almost as much as the night I met Donna Karan herself. What an amazing opportunity sit down and talk with a woman who is literally at the top of the fashion PR food chain. She's to fashion PR what Rachel Zoe is to styling. And the fact that she's anonymous just makes it that much cooler. 

I plan on asking her a lot of questions about how to get started in PR, upcoming events I could volunteer for in the city, and tips for writing a successful blog. I would love any suggestions on questions I should ask when I get my meeting with her so please either email me (jmanjory@gmail.com), comment on this post, write on my Facebook wall, or Tweet me @jmanjory

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of

So I just got home from my third concert since i've been in NYC. I love this city. The fact that i've seen three concerts in the last month without making a single 1.5 hour drive to STL amazes me. Tonight I saw one of my favorite singers, Jay Brannan. I'll talk about that more in a bit but first let's catch up on what's been going on since my last post!

Took this photo from the 28th floor of an apartment building on Upper East Side

First i'll update you on what i've been doing at DKNY. In the marketing department, the Direct Marketing Coordinator (my supervisor) and I have been working on the 4th quarter sweepstakes. At all of the DKNY stores in the US there are ballot boxes (which I ordered and sent) where you put your information on a piece of paper and drop it in for a chance to win a $500 shopping spree. I'm sure that you all have entered a sweepstakes like this at one point or another. Well now that we've started getting entries it's my job (again) to enter every single entry into an Excel spreadsheet. Groundbreaking and exciting stuff--let me tell you. To give you an idea of how many of these I will be doing, the last sweepstakes they had received 13,000 entries. I was lucky enough when I first started the internship to enter a good majority of those and now i'm back at it again... If my enthusiasm isn't dripping from these words I sincerely apologize. Oh and please, the next time you fill out a sweepstakes entry like this, make sure you write legibly. There is most likely a small-town intern somewhere in Manhattan entering each into a spreadsheet like me and it makes our lives much easier if you know basic hadwriting. There's no excuse for this lack of penmanship unless you're a pre-schooler or a doctor. Oh but one cool thing I should mention is that my supervisor was on a plan from Chicago to New York on Monday morning and was sitting with Snookie from Jersey Shore in first class. I was pretty excited. My supervisor on the other hand was not impressed and said "she was as much of a mess as you'd expect her to be."

The other night I was walking down the street, talking on the phone when I rean across this. I was pretty excited about it.

Donna Karan's step on the fashion walk of fame

This past Wednesday I had the chance to see Deadmau5 live at the Roseland Ballroom. He's a very popular dubstep (techno) DJ that travels worldwide. He's one of my favorite DJ's so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him live. It was a great show--very high energy, sold out screaming crowd, and everyone was dancing. I had the time of my life. My friend John went with me and we ended up going out afterwards and made one hell of a night out of it. Pics below:

For some reason since i've moved to New York I have become somewhat of a bookworm. I don't ever watch TV anymore and have already read five books since i've been here. This is has been unintentional and I hope that it doesn't make me sound conceited. The point in mentioning it though is that books are expensive! iBooks are about $10 a pop and buying a physical copy is just as bad, if not worse. I decided that this was a good time to get my first ever library card. And what better place than the New York Public Library?! If you're a fan of Sex & The City you know that the New York Public Library is where Carrie and Big were supposed to get married before he chickened out and "couldn't just get out of the car". Well let me tell you I found a HUGE discrepancy with that movie. In the film, Carrie decided to have her wedding in the building that "houses all of the great love stories" when she is returning some books and sees how beautiful the library is. Turns out you can't rent library books from there!!! This sounds ridiculous, I know, and I was as shocked as you are. Believe me. I signed up for my library card, looked up the book I wanted, and waited while they found it and "checked it out" for me. Well apparently at the NYPL when you "check out" a book it means you can sit there and read it. That's it. I imagine if I had tried to take the book out of the building I would have been pummeled to the ground by a few minimum wage security guards. I had to go across the street to a "branch library" to actually take some home. Oh and here's the list of books i've read in case you're interested. I highly recommend all of them.

• When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris          (i'm a fan, can you tell?)
• Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  Soon to read/currently reading:
• Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Okay now let me please write about the concert I went to tonight. You may or may not know who Jay Brannan is. He's amazing. I discovered him about six years ago after I saw the movie "Shortbus" that he had a role in. I've been obsessed ever since and even had "meet Jay Brannan" on my bucket list. He's a gay folk singer that writes some of the most amazingly dark, satirical, honest, and heartbreaking songs. The show was held at a venue called Joe's Pub. The place had been recently remodeled and was very nice. This wasn't like the other concerts i've attended in NYC where everyone is standing together like sardines and are all screaming. It was a pretty classy place where you reserve a spot at a table and have a waitress serve you your drinks and food. He started his setlist on time which I appreciated as most musicians make you wait over an hour after the time listed on the ticket. He opened with one of my favorite songs, "Beautifully". 

"It's not that you're not beautiful, you're just not beautiful to me. She said how beautiful do I have to be? When I look in the mirror you're the only one I see and I have loved you beautifully..."

The show was very intimate and he joked with the audience between songs and was very entertaining. He played some of his old songs as well as a plethora of new songs that have yet to be released. After the show I had the chance to meet him in person, shake his hand, take a photo, and chat for a bit. I was ecstatic. Of course I look ridiculous in the picture. I have found out that when I meet someone famous or even semi-famous I always look ridiculous in the picture with them. I will work on this... 

On my schedule coming up i've got..... well.... nothing. Since i've been here it seems i've had some sort of event every week but now I don't have any concerts, fashion shows, or fashion events coming up that I know of yet. Hopefully i'll find enough entertaining things to do so I have something to blog about! Thanks for reading.

My Fashion-Filled Weekend

Since the last time i've posted i've had quite a few things going on. First, concerning the blog, I had hit 400 page views before my last post. Since then, i've somehow managed to jump up to 560 page views and i'm sure I will surpass 600 and get ever closer to the 1000 page view milestone. I know these are small potatoes but i'm still pretty excited. Email the link, tell your friends, repost to Facebook. I'd like to get as many readers as possible before I return to Missouri!

Secondly, I had my job interview at PinkBerry on Friday. It was very quick and apparently was just a pre-screening interview. They said they would call me this week if they wanted to set up a second interview. It's odd to me that slinging froyo requires more than one interview but I guess that's how it works here in NYC.

I also had the opportunity to work some in the DKNY store on Madison Ave. For those that don't know, this store is beautiful. It's got an upper and lower level and even has a cafe in the middle of the store. I didn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff--mainly just hung clothes on racks. But it was still a great opportunity to work closer with the merchandise and also watch how the associates sold and how clients purchased. This store is what is called a full-price store, verses a "company store" that has discounts and sales on a regular basis. So every garment I hung I, of course, looked at the price tag. It was kind of discouraging to hang up shirts that cost $400 while not getting paid but hopefully someday i'll be buying them, not hanging them. That's the goal anyway. While I was there the assistant manager said to help myself at the cafe and it was on her. I was looking forward to ordering a panini or sandwich but when I received the menu I saw that there was nothing but salads and smoothies. Makes sense considering that's what you would have to eat everyday to fit into most of the clothes! I got my salad, and it was delicious. Then I went home and got some pizza.

On Saturday I got to work Brooklyn Fashion Weekend. I was leery about this event as it is not major designers and could have been a huge flop. It exceeded my expectations, but still, I learned a lot about what NOT to do when it comes to organizing a fashion show. Still, it was definitely exciting. My job, as a volunteer, was mainly to make sure all of the fully dressed models were in their correct position in the lineup before going down the runway. This was stressful considering the designers didn't have their model lineup until minutes before showtime. I was running back and forth trying to find models but it ended up going just as planned.

The clothes were varied and interesting. There was a men's collection, a plus size collection, women's wear, and some very avant-garde pieces thrown into the mix. I saw a lot of sequins and gold. There was a lot of skin showing on some of the models (even after they were dressed) and plunging necklines paired with high stiletto heels. The menswear was almost what I would call "Urban Nautical" and each model was carrying a small leather bag that looked like an oversized wallet. Some of the girls had sunglasses that lit up neon and had one lens. I got to see the entire hair and makeup process from start to finish and assisted in the dressing of the models. There were half naked people running everywhere and, at times, I felt underdressed and under toned!

MTV was filming at the event for a show called World of Jenks. I actually love this show and watched the first season back home with my roommate on a pretty regular basis. The basis of the whole show is that this guy, Andrew Jenks, travels all over and will "live a day in someone else's shoes", so to speak. For the filming of the second season he's apparently living the life of someone in fashion (kind of like i'm doing) and so he was there at the show backstage as well. I realized it was Jenks and as I walked past him I said "I'm a huge fan of the show". He stopped and said "Thanks man, how are you?" and shook my hand. Later in the evening, a girl who I befriended backstage and I went and demanded a photo op. With my brain still high on all the fashion I decided the best pose would be a thumbs up and dork smile kind of look. As you can see from this TERRIBLE picture this is why I want to be behind the scenes in fashion, not in front of the camera. Let's just hope I don't look that stupid if I end up on MTV for season 2 ( I signed a release form!)

Towards the end of the show my supervisor let Alexis and I go out front and watch part of the last show. I was so glad because this was my first fashion show ever! It was so cool to watch it and be a part of it and I really hope that I have many more in my future.

 

 

 

 

That pretty much wraps up my weekend! Coming up this week I've got the Deadmau5 concert that I COULD NOT be more excited about. Details on that this weekend--but other than that i'm going to be free to keep exploring the city!