Style Me Famous: Holiday Visuals

This quarter I'm in a Visual Technique class where we learn all the ins and outs of being a visual merchandiser. Fortunately everything we had to use for this project I was familiar with from my job as accessories specialist at Forever 21. It was easy and a lot of fun! Our class was divided into groups and each group got a corner of the fourth floor of our school. Our goal was to decorate these corners as a visual merchandiser would do at a store, or boutique, at the mall-in real life. I was excited especially when my teacher told us we would be basing our theme around Holidays. I immediately jumped the gun and took Christmas/Holiday before anyone else because I love Christmas!The twist was that we cant make it look cheesy. No Christmas trees or red and green banners that say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" with lights everywhere. None of that. We had to stay away from anything that screams Christmas while still making it feel like Christmas. Tricky, I know, but it will be fun. I love using my creativity.

My group and I decided we wanted to do a sophisticated, classic, twist to Christmas and use the theme "Christmas in Paris." Perfect. It's time to start shopping and start getting ideas for our display. We headed to: Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Hancock Fabrics, Target, WalMart, Woodfield mall, basically anywhere where we could get ideas and ideally buy some stuff!

Beautiful!

Next up was the outfit for our mannequin. Since the theme is wrapped around the idea of Holiday, or Christmas, in Paris I went to H&M to try on different outfits and explore my options. I found a couple good outfits that were a possible suit for our display but only one dress came out on top:

I thought it was very Carrie Bradshaw in Paris but, it wasn't Holiday enough.

I loved this one-the picture doesn't do it any justice (bad phone quality picture)-but it felt more party holiday instead of sophisticated Parisian Holiday cocktail dress. If it were more structured and fitted it would have been perfect.


Now this is more like it. I love the pattern and the neutral colors on the silk, sheen, fabric. The belt defines the waist but it's too casual for a Holiday in Paris.

Finally found the perfect dress, from my roommates closet (thank you Krystal!), and tied a pearl necklace around the waist give it a little pizazz and some pearls around the neck for a more sophisticated, Holiday look. Mission accomplished.

Having a little fun never hurt anybody. We decided our mannequins name is Belle.

Figuring out the best place to hang our Paris picture. I think we found it!

Sara is working hard cutting out the border of the picture.

Now it's time to hang the background. We decided to go with a suede, tan, fabric; very warm and classic. It reminds me of Christmas, and suede is a winter fabric so it was the most logical choice. I spent time sewing the top to make it more accessible to hanging without showing any hooks.