Number 7

A Dream is Love...and elbow grease. 


As Napoleon and I walked around Battery Park, I couldn't stop thinking about our guest speaker in my Publicity Workshop class.
She's an amazing woman and reminded me that a dream-is love- and it takes a lot of elbow grease to make it into a reality, but only stop once you've obtained it.


A little bio about this lady:
Her name is Deanna she's probably around her late 50s
She graduated with flying colors from Parsons
Lived in Paris for about 10 years
Designed and sold for Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus and she and Betsey Johnson are best friends.
After many successful years as a fashion designer/buyer she wants to go into the jewelry business.


What I learned/re learned...through her words and story.
After many years in the fashion industry and even her best friend being one of the top designers today, she still to this day (after 6 years) is having a hard time launching her business.
To think she had all the connections and her jewelry is actually pretty unique, beautiful, with amazing quality and definitely beautifully vintage giving it that "one of a kind, super special feel".
Her bracelets have graced many fashion magazines, maybe not a direct shot, but it was there, and credit was in the back of the magazine.
Her bracelet was featured in a book written by a good author friend of hers.
Her bracelets graced the cover of 3 very important fashion newspapers over the holidays.
And still she couldn't get the plane off the ground so to speak.
She invested in hiring someone to get her website together and started writing a blog.
After creating a website and dishing out money she learned that in creating a website, you have to enter codes, and do things a certain way for GOOGLE to pick it up. Her font, of course is not Arial or Times and so when you google her she shows up on the 10th page or something rather. Who really goes beyond the 2nd page max in a google search? But she didn't want to change her font, her website is very her and very perfect for her jewelry. And she didn't want to pay extra for the extra html this and the codes that etc.
So as always, in the creative field, everything is a double edge sword. Now out of money, where to turn to?
This is where a publicist would do his/her magic work, but then again, that needs money.
So she returned to passing out business cards, self-promotion (wearing her jewelry everywhere), and getting back in touch with people she knew.
She admitted herself, it was disheartening at some points, to get voicemails and then not knowing who to turn to with the recession, the shitty economy everyone in the industry had been shuffled around or laid off.
So where is she now? She finally got a break (hopefully)when out of nowhere her old friend from Paris thought of her and is now putting her on QVC for 2 shows. So hopefully, now she really get the plane off the ground. Fingers crossed.


Her story is like the book "Tipping Point" (great book) IN the sense that
You never know what's going to hit, how it's going to hit and when it's going to hit.


These days it boils down to just plain old persistence and hard work.
It doesn't know matter who you know, what if they can't help you?
What matters is you keep going, every little thing counts.


I've been "officially" trying to get my modeling career for 2 years now.
In these 2 years I've been signed, gotten a few things here and there, met a lot of important people and still, I haven't gotten my "big" break.
Deanna's story and the book reminded me, that even though it may seem like you're not getting anywhere, you actually are.
You can't just meet people and boom, they'll help you out or you can't always be the chosen lucky one and all of the sudden be an over-night sensation.
The point of the matter is that you love what you do, you're doing whatever it takes to do it, so really, there should be no stopping, besides it's the journey not the destination right?