Answer: lunchtime at the Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony in the 'headliners' area completely star struck and feeling surreal.

This adventure started a couple of months ago when I worked in a studio with the team mentioned and, photographer, Nick Knight, for an Olympic fashion story for British Vogue. We were all sworn to secrecy and spent 2 days with 9 super models and some creations from some of the best British fashion has to offer. The first public result of this was a series of images in the September issue of Vogue all with a gold theme. http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2012/08/03/vogue-olympic-fashion-shoot—closing-ceremony/gallery

The second result involved a high security visit to the Olympic Park with all the team, extra assistants and the 9 models. All of this was to prepare them in the same look as in Vogue for their part in 'the greatest show on earth' aka the Closing Ceremony where they shared the Union Jack stage with Olympians, performers, music legends and younger 'big names' from the music, dance and performance industries.

Our kits had been collected and delivered to the Olympic Park a few days earlier for security reasons and we were all collected in a fancy coach from central London and transported east. My kit was packed with my usual Roo equipment plus some gold Minx's and polishes that I had used on the shoot (CND, Chanel, Nails Inc, Ciate) and my ever present Sisley Hand Cream.

As soon as we arrived we were shown to a fabulous prep area and 'green room' that had red, white and blue sofas, a table tennis table, a Wii, games, cards and giant Union Jack bean bags. We were sharing a smart 3 story secure prefabricated house with all the headline acts! Bags dumped and working areas 'bagged' we went to the posh restaurant for lunch and that is where this story starts!! 

I had enlisted the help of David Barton and Shephanie Staunton and we spent the afternoon wandering about, star spotting and watching the rehearsals. The stadium was awe inspiring and the organisation of 10,000 who were taking part phenominal! I watched Jessie J, Queen and the Spice Girls rehearse. We had about 8 hours before the models had to be ready so there was plenty of time for everything! Even Stephanie 'dancing' on the Wii (to the amusement of Taio Cruz!), her giving David Gandy a quick game of Mario Cart and David giving him a game of ping pong!! Oh the glamour!

It was soon time to start getting the girls and boy ready for their 'moment'. Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Karen Elson, Georgia May Jagger, Stella Tennant, Jourdan Dunn, Lilly Donaldson, Lilly Cole and David Gandy were given the necessary attention while they had beautiful make up applied by Val Garland and her team and gorgeous hair created by Sam McKnight and his team.

http://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/2012/08/13/olympics-closing-ceremony-models—val-garland-make-up

For the 'nail people', Naomi had a nude colour on her fingers and gold Minx on toes (covering a red Shellac!); Kate had a Ciate gold on fingers and toes; Georgia May had a CND bronze; Karen had Chanel Goldfingers; Jourdan had gold Minx on her fingers; Lilly D NI nude with gold glitter; Lilly C had Chanel; Stella a Lumos Top Coat and David had a buff!  

There was still time for dinner so we sat with, my friend, Ben Canares, who was dressing the Spice Girls on behalf of Cathy Casterine after standing alongside Brian May to choose what to have! There was then a very busy time for Lucinda and her team getting the models dressed and Sam and Val doing touch ups. This was followed by loads of pictures and lots of "Ahhhh's" as they all looked so beautiful. When they were ready to go, I went down to watch the show with the wonderful Gareth Pugh and his partner, Carson where the bar had now opened!

The show was spectacular and made even better by most of the headliners coming straight back to watch too! Too surreal again. We went up to the roof to watch the fireworks and then it was over. Really quite sad.

We collected our kits ready to get on the coach again and had some last minute delights: a hug from Darcy Bussell (who I've met before) and a "Hi" from Brian May who was passing by with his wife, Anita Dobson. Then on the coach were 2 coach loads squashed into 1 along with some champagne and singing to go off into the night after one of the most amazing experiences of my career.

Thank you David and Stephanie for helping me. Thank you Nick Knight for always including me in your team. Thank you Lucinda Chambers for inviting me. And, of course, thank you to Val Garland and Sam McKnight for being a great team where everyone works so well together.

The 'golden tribe' played a small part of an extravaganza that showed the world the best of British!

http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2012/08/13/london-2012-closing-ceremony/gallery/1

Posh travel with some of the hair and make up team

Brian May rehearsing

Gareth Pugh and Carson MacCall (with Del Boy's Robin before it got blown up!)

David Barton and me by the 'cauldron'

Georgia May Jagger (in her VB dress) nearly ready

Jourdan Dunn looking divine (in Jonathan Saunders) with Minxy fingers

Naomi Campbell (in McQueen) Don't think I like standing next to a supermodel when she's ready to 'walk'!!!

La Moss (in McQueen)

 They are ready!

The 'Golden Tribe'

I've worked on fashion shows for many years. In fact my very first show was in 1997 and was for Givenchy Haute Couture when Alexander McQueen was the designer (more about that in another post). I had honour of working on McQueen shows many times in both London and Paris, all of them memorable. The very special show that will stay in a lot of people's minds was the spring/summer collection shown in October 2009. To everyone's great sadness, it was Alexander McQueen's last show.

For me, it all started when Nick Knight was shooting a film that would be the backdrop of the Paris show. It featured the beautiful Raquel Zimmerman and included lots of snakes!

For the film, I applied natural looking tips on Raquel that were left quite long as this added to the 'drama'. It was an extraordinary day and we all witnessed the absolute delight of Alexander McQueen when he started to see the results.

Raquel Zimmerman with her curls and nails

Here is the link to the film on Showstudio

http://showstudio.com/project/platos_atlantis#fashion_film

Some weeks later I attended a show meeting with him and the hairdresser (Guido) and make up artist (Peter Phillips). McQueen explained the concept and showed all his references. It was clear he wanted a progression of 'creatures' from the earth returning to the sea. He wanted the usual shapes e.g. Face, hair and nails, to be altered in some way.

The show was to be sponsored by Minx so, between us, we decided to use the amazing range of fabric designs and reproduce them on Minx. The nails at the show would begin short at the start of the show and get longer towards the finale. We were sent, confidentially, all the fabric designs and Janice Jordan from Minx worked her magic and picked out details from each design. As usual, each design was scaled to fit the various sizes of fingers and the Minx metallic and holographic technique (that was so new at the time) could create nails that looked 3D! There were 30-40 different designs!

Dawn Lynch-Goodwin (co-founder of Minx) came to the UK with the Minx's and, between her, some of my team (David Barton and Adam Slee) and I, we  made 1000 nails for the various sections for McQueen and his stylist, Camilla Nickerson, to choose from!!!

 I laid them out (14 sizes each) on a 'Minx mat' so they could be selected then removed for application on the specific model.

I and my show team (Adam Slee, David Barton, Helen Lisle-Taylor, Luck Galsworthy, Mirka Poikkeus, Janice Jordan and Dawn Lynch-Goodwin) arrived backstage at the show and I unrolled the Minx mat. Everyone crowded around and were quite astonished at the number of nails and how amazing they looked! We got to work on the 50 models while they were having their hair and make up done. The whole show was incredibly complicated with prosthetics being applied to the face and hair plaited with pieces being added to create the 'creatures' of Alexander McQueen's truly unique imagination!

 While the girls were waiting in line for the show, we were on hand to replace any missing nails (the girls can't help but fiddle with false nails!)

McQueen gave a very inspiring little speech to the girls about their 'tribes' and, due to the 'extreme' shoe design, not to worry too much if they fell. The show was ready to go!

The show was a totally unique experience for all who witnessed it! It had robotic cameras that captured the girls, the audience and the Plato's Atlantis film that was the back drop of  the runway. The show was being live streamed  (the first time ever for a fashion show) by Showstudio. But we were all in for another amazing experience! At the finale there was a sudden burst of astonishing sound! It was the 'anthem' of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Heard for the first time in the world, it was played at the show! The sound of it amazed everyone!  Lady Gaga had tweeted to her followers that it was playing and, unfortunately, the vast amount of people opening the live stream crashed it!! We were the lucky ones as we were there.

It was a very emotional show that reached new heights of fashion and showmanship that is all Alexander McQueen. It proved to be even more important than anyone knew as it was to be his last show. Alexander McQueen took his own life a few months later.

Some of the great experiences of my career have been witnessing the genius of the man. I don't pretend to have known him but I have worked on many projects with him that have always been highlights for me.

Here is a link to the full show. It is truly worth watching! It is followed by a link to a memorial film by Nick Knight that I also had the honour to work on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVN4WUKIzjA  

http://showstudio.com/project/to_lee_with_love_nick

The show was produced by Gainsbury and Whiting

The video was shot in the countryside of Omaha with its vast cornfields and beautiful wooden barns. It was also 40deg and humid!! I took a vast suitcase full of 'stuff' and a few ideas in my head. I had the help of a great local nail technician, Judi Wendt and we arrived at a trailer 'village' in the middle of a cornfield and got stuck in!!

The result was a fantasy story created by Lady Gaga and her rich imagination and she acted out a love story of loss and determination and eventual happiness that overcame all adversity!!

 Gaga had walked many hundreds of miles from New York to Nebraska in her designer clothes to find her first love. Along the way she got damaged and changed and tried her best to repair herself with things she found. The nails I made for her were broken and shattered but repaired with bits of metal. Some were held together with a silver wire and others were riveted so they swivelled. The rivets were just normal rivets from a craft store and the wire was held on by a clear gel but designed to lose bits during her 'journey'

She found her first love and he picked up the damaged Gaga and carried her to his laboratory to try to fix her. he tried everything to make her whole.

 Lady Gaga wore a dress made from cork for this scene that was decorated with pins. For her nails I used bespoke Minx that were wood grain and I pierced them with brass pins.

 Her love saved her and changed her! She was changed to a mermaid! He still loved her though.

For this scene, Gaga wore an amazing mermaid tail and had gills in her neck and cheeks. To follow the fantasy, I used latex tubes as her nails with an idea that they could be an 'alternative breathing apparatus'.

 During her transformation, Gaga remembered the time, when she was younger, when she was with her first love in the corn fields of Omaha. She played and sang for him. In this scene, her 'love' was played by Gaga as her alter ego, Joe Caldarone (a character that I witnessed emerge during a L'Uomo Vogue shoot with Nick Knight and also made a special appearance to collect a Grammie award!).

The nails for this were a bespoke Minx that I had made for the Mugler show in Paris that Lady Gaga 'walked' in.

 It was a music video being made and Gaga is a dancer! This is the dance scene with her dancers in the barn.

Her nails were far more in the usual design Gaga wears. There were a very deep blue with silver studs at the base.

The last scene was her wedding. I made nails that symbolised the whole story but Gaga decided to have natural nails. She wore her Mothers actual wedding dress and he Mother had natural nails so this seemed fitting.

The picture compilations with stills from the video are by Gaga Fashionland with thanks

The day was made even better by the addition of a whole menagerie of baby animals! The studio was full of many "oooh's" and "ahhhh's" and a lot of people going missing while playing with the babies!!

Here are some of the pictures. I'll post more at a later date.

Nails: Minx Gold Lightening on Kiss Tips

 Nails: Chanel Rouge Fatal on Kiss Tips

 Nails: Nails Inc Black Taxi, CND Silver Chrome on Kiss Tips

 Nails: Chanel Attraction on Kiss Tips

 Nails: Chanel Rouge Fatal on Kiss Tips

 Nails: Nails Inc Jewellery on fingers and 'rococo mirror' on thumb with Minx Silver lightening and gold embellishments

I work in different environments every day and my method of working is to have a bag of my central kit that is ready to 'pick up and go' together with a case that holds what is relevant to that day. Over the years I've used so many different methods, bags, cases and this is what works for  me. Ive used the same key kit bag for a while as I haven't found anything to replace it…until now!

The bag is very small and light with a handle, a shoulder strap and even a band on the back to attach to a case or trolley (invaluable as my other kept falling off!)

It is a 'tardis'!                

Just opening the top allows access to the essential tools and products (including a pump with remover and other  tall bottles). The back wall has a series of 10 small net holders for top and base coats, colours or whatever else comes in polish bottle sizes. The  front wall holds tools (I use a lot) and files. This has a tiny 'footprint' and should fit on the smallest of spaces.  

Opening the whole bag allows the front to fall down, either flat or, if space is limited, over the edge of the table, for access to 2 large zipped  pockets for all the extras. The 'body' of the bag holds so much and has side pockets to make sure bottles stay upright. It even has 3 more pockets on the outside!  One that opens up very wide on the side and 2 smaller on the front.

 So far, this bag is giving me what I need: organisation, small, can reach in and find everything.

Thank you Mr Roo (but, for me personally, a plain black would be preferable)
 

Here is the close up of my completed ‘bento box’ and a fabulous little film of the show. Hollie Wakeham was part of my Minx show team so I sent her to apply the nails at the show (pic by Becky Maynes).

Yesterday was day 4 of the Britain’s Got Talent live finals and the 4th of Alesha Dixon's great looks. There was a last minute change of outfit so Michelle the hairdresser, Kim the make up artist and I needed to change our plans. Instead of using the Avon Nailwear Pro silver polish with some embellishments, I used Noir Emerald but made it accessorise the beautiful dress instead of using jewellery.

I've been asked if Alesha's nails are foils. No they are just polish but have 3 shimmery eye shadows gently rubbed in on the sides and centre of the nails before applying top coat. It is a little trick of mine that is quick and effective and can be done by anyone using products from their make up bag!

  Nails on Alesha with a Mary Katranzou dress

Michelle (hair), Fran (make up) Katie (stylist).