~Stylish Ever After~
So, in honor of Fashion Night Out, Disney held a "Stylish Ever After" event.
I was debating the day before if I should go because we were getting drenched with rain and it was supposed to pour that day. But, when I woke up and saw the sun shining and the weather was gorgeous, I knew it was a sign. So I threw on my Jasmine shirt (thank you eBay) and headed out the door.
I got there promptly at 4. The store was actually not that crowded. I was stunned. Then I remembered it was Thursday and still early.
Charm building was in the middle of the first floor. It was a bunch of the Kidada charms, Belle, Cinderella, Tiana and Snow, maybe $2 cheaper.
So I, of course, went over to whine about ask why there was no Jasmine and they pointed me in the direction of the soon to be released (in 2 weeks?) Jasmine, Ariel, Alice and Tinkerbell Wish-A-Littles. They happen to include cute necklaces. Like the Pixie Dust perfumes/lotions/roll-ons, these were also conveniently on sale. I promptly bought Ariel and Jas.
Apologies to the owners of the backsides that included in my pictures.
The ladies were telling me that there's going to be a 3rd release of these cuties, and if I follow the trend, I should be able to guess who will be in the follow-up batch... (Rapunzel, Mulan, Pocahontas and Aurora, I'm guessing)
PR people were floating about the store offering samples of the new fragrance "Pixie Dust." It's a little strong for me, but I don't usually deal with scents very well because of allergies. I did take home a few samples and a flower sprayed with it.
Next to the charms station was the display with the designer dolls. They had everyone but Ariel, who was sold out to the point in which even her display doll was gone. People would walk by, give them a glance, and wander off to other shiny things. I went up close, got touchy-touchy and started taking pictures. They really are a gorgeous set. In front of them was a display of the shirts (love them) and scarves (silky and pretty!). On the side and below were the journals, nail polishes and make-up. The mugs were sold out. :( Supposedly they are getting more today.
Rumor time - I heard that Mulan is going to be released this Monday.
So I headed upstairs and passed the the Lion King Diamond Edition merchandise area. By the way, did you know the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out? Because the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out. And you can pre-order the Lion King Diamond Edition, like today. And there's lots of cute stuff to celebrate the release of the Lion King Diamond Edition. Oh and if you pre-order the Lion King Diamond Edition, you'll get a shiny lithograph. So don't forget, the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out. I was tempted to ask the lady who was pitching this to me if she got a commission.
Manicures were upstairs. There's a little "event section" near the princess area where they corralled in 3 ladies to do manicures with the designer princess nail polish colors. I put my name on the waiting list. It wasn't even 4:30 and the first available appointment was 7pm. Nice.
Next to the event section was...
STEVE THOMPSON!!
Former Disney animator, now designer of merchandise. He is the artist who drew the designer line up. And there he sat, signing pictures (or dolls or journals) of his artwork.
I'm sure you can guess where I spent most of my time.
After buying a ton of stuff to get those lithographs for him to sign ($50/picture), I then proceeded to badger him with questions at various points over the next few hours.
What I learned:
He went into art school when Beauty and the Beast came out, so the film holds a special place in his heart. Belle is his favorite princess (although, that was a hard pick) and he finds Ariel to be a lot of fun to draw. He joined Disney as an animator for the Hunchback. He was mostly involved with secondary-tertiary characters as a clean-up animator, but he was called in to do big characters, like a scene with Quasimodo. In later films, he moved onto mostly big sidekick characters like Kronk, Pain and Panic and Porter or Terk. This is an excellent excuse to rewatch Disney films and play spot-the-name in the credits (what, you can't just fast-forward through the movie...). He said the character he did before leaving was Maggie from Home on the Range. When he left, he went to Toon Disney as a product designer and now is a manager (according to his FB).
He mostly does designs for "3D" things - snowglobes, bookends, Christmas ornaments, etc (although, he's not involved in WDCC stuff and agrees that a lot of the faces aren't cute enough). Here's a quick few examples of some of the stuff he has drawn/designed:
-TLM III DVD cover
-Art for the Save the Oceans campaign
-Various Princess & the Frog Merchandise
-This snow globe collection
In terms of drawing the Designer line (Steve said he's old school and not techno-savvy because he still draws with a paper and pen. I think I told him I love him for it), he said he didn't look at other people's drawings, he looked at a lot of 50's-60's dresses and imagined the princesses playing dress-up. He was working on a bunch of them at once and perfected Snow White first and decided that was "the look" he wanted and worked on getting the rest of them to look like "they matched" the time period. He said because he was doing them together he didn't notice right away that Rapunzel and Mulan's dresses have similar bodices, but he says the dresses are still different enough that he is satisfied. As for his favorite of the line-up, it depends on the day of the week. This is also the first time his sketches have been turned into dolls and he's happy with the translation. It sounded like it was a bit of a "rush job," so they used the old face moldings for the characters. Which I think explains Mulan's face a bit. In regards to the huge eyelash thing, his theory is it was a "thing" for those limited edition collector DVD dolls (Rapunzel, Belle, etc), so he figures they just carried over into the making of these dolls. I asked if they would consider making these outfits into Halloween costumes and he said the costume designer would not be a happy camper if they had to replicate these sketches.
He also gave me some insight into the workings of Disney product production. He said they don't usually plan "too far" ahead for things that require lots of approval from various people (e.g. Genie - paperwork takes a good 9 months & Tarzan), so that's why we don't get a lot of stuff for certain characters. And this might be part of the reason why the Disney Heroes line (Tarzan) isn't really around anymore. It's also why getting new Nightmare stuff takes a while. Lots of people to go through. But lots of collaboration too, which he says is great (he was part of the making of the latest Nightmare stuff, too).
He is aware (from my whining, if nothing else) that there is interest in a Heroine line, but it depends on whether or not there is approval from the higher-ups for it. Even if designs are rejected today, they might be approved later on, so no idea is always a "failure." He also said Disney (finally!) realizes there is a need (read: market) for all of the princesses, so there is going to be more stuff celebrating the 10 of them. Something new is coming out soon that he is very excited about. I figure it'll hit in time for the holidays (cha-ching!).
In between badgering Steve, I proceeded to march downstairs (the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out!) and rearrange the designer doll order as I yanked them off the shelves to take pictures. I'm sure someone was itching to slap me, but they were too polite to say so.
Ridiculously large file my pictures of the dolls plus random extras.
At some point before 7, since they were moving quickly, I had my manicure (the Lion King Diamond Edition!!). Jasmine color, of course. The lady offered to put "glitter" over it, which turned out to be putting Cinderella color on top. It actually came out really cute. And the Jasmine color matched the color used on her hair in my shirt, so that made me really happy.
I felt so bad for those manicure ladies. They were being tortured with serenaded by some pop version of "A Dream is a Wish." Except the song was on repeat. The poor lady doing my nails was like "I've been listening to this song for 3 hours. I'm going crazy...." When she was done, I asked the store salesladies if they could change the song for the poor manicurists. They said they were sick of it as well and had tried. Oh man, I do not fancy listening to that song for 7 hours, I was sick of it after 2 plays.
So eventually (around 8), I thanked Steve for talking to me, warned him I'd be friending him on FB (*woot* he accepted!!) and headed out.
While leaving, I spotted the people in charge of the PR again and asked them to do more shit like this. Hopefully, someone is listening....
Of course, because my life is never boring, on the train ride home was a girl wearing in a goth dress, fishnet tights with no shoes (the tights had holes in the feet from the ground), vampire fangs, and she had a big white rat that she let root around in the boob area of her dress. Oh NYC, never change.
P.S. The Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out soon.
I was debating the day before if I should go because we were getting drenched with rain and it was supposed to pour that day. But, when I woke up and saw the sun shining and the weather was gorgeous, I knew it was a sign. So I threw on my Jasmine shirt (thank you eBay) and headed out the door.
I got there promptly at 4. The store was actually not that crowded. I was stunned. Then I remembered it was Thursday and still early.
Charm building was in the middle of the first floor. It was a bunch of the Kidada charms, Belle, Cinderella, Tiana and Snow, maybe $2 cheaper.
So I, of course, went over to whine about ask why there was no Jasmine and they pointed me in the direction of the soon to be released (in 2 weeks?) Jasmine, Ariel, Alice and Tinkerbell Wish-A-Littles. They happen to include cute necklaces. Like the Pixie Dust perfumes/lotions/roll-ons, these were also conveniently on sale. I promptly bought Ariel and Jas.
Apologies to the owners of the backsides that included in my pictures.
The ladies were telling me that there's going to be a 3rd release of these cuties, and if I follow the trend, I should be able to guess who will be in the follow-up batch... (Rapunzel, Mulan, Pocahontas and Aurora, I'm guessing)
PR people were floating about the store offering samples of the new fragrance "Pixie Dust." It's a little strong for me, but I don't usually deal with scents very well because of allergies. I did take home a few samples and a flower sprayed with it.
Next to the charms station was the display with the designer dolls. They had everyone but Ariel, who was sold out to the point in which even her display doll was gone. People would walk by, give them a glance, and wander off to other shiny things. I went up close, got touchy-touchy and started taking pictures. They really are a gorgeous set. In front of them was a display of the shirts (love them) and scarves (silky and pretty!). On the side and below were the journals, nail polishes and make-up. The mugs were sold out. :( Supposedly they are getting more today.
Rumor time - I heard that Mulan is going to be released this Monday.
So I headed upstairs and passed the the Lion King Diamond Edition merchandise area. By the way, did you know the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out? Because the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out. And you can pre-order the Lion King Diamond Edition, like today. And there's lots of cute stuff to celebrate the release of the Lion King Diamond Edition. Oh and if you pre-order the Lion King Diamond Edition, you'll get a shiny lithograph. So don't forget, the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out. I was tempted to ask the lady who was pitching this to me if she got a commission.
Manicures were upstairs. There's a little "event section" near the princess area where they corralled in 3 ladies to do manicures with the designer princess nail polish colors. I put my name on the waiting list. It wasn't even 4:30 and the first available appointment was 7pm. Nice.
Next to the event section was...
STEVE THOMPSON!!
Former Disney animator, now designer of merchandise. He is the artist who drew the designer line up. And there he sat, signing pictures (or dolls or journals) of his artwork.
I'm sure you can guess where I spent most of my time.
After buying a ton of stuff to get those lithographs for him to sign ($50/picture), I then proceeded to badger him with questions at various points over the next few hours.
What I learned:
He went into art school when Beauty and the Beast came out, so the film holds a special place in his heart. Belle is his favorite princess (although, that was a hard pick) and he finds Ariel to be a lot of fun to draw. He joined Disney as an animator for the Hunchback. He was mostly involved with secondary-tertiary characters as a clean-up animator, but he was called in to do big characters, like a scene with Quasimodo. In later films, he moved onto mostly big sidekick characters like Kronk, Pain and Panic and Porter or Terk. This is an excellent excuse to rewatch Disney films and play spot-the-name in the credits (what, you can't just fast-forward through the movie...). He said the character he did before leaving was Maggie from Home on the Range. When he left, he went to Toon Disney as a product designer and now is a manager (according to his FB).
He mostly does designs for "3D" things - snowglobes, bookends, Christmas ornaments, etc (although, he's not involved in WDCC stuff and agrees that a lot of the faces aren't cute enough). Here's a quick few examples of some of the stuff he has drawn/designed:
-TLM III DVD cover
-Art for the Save the Oceans campaign
-Various Princess & the Frog Merchandise
-This snow globe collection
In terms of drawing the Designer line (Steve said he's old school and not techno-savvy because he still draws with a paper and pen. I think I told him I love him for it), he said he didn't look at other people's drawings, he looked at a lot of 50's-60's dresses and imagined the princesses playing dress-up. He was working on a bunch of them at once and perfected Snow White first and decided that was "the look" he wanted and worked on getting the rest of them to look like "they matched" the time period. He said because he was doing them together he didn't notice right away that Rapunzel and Mulan's dresses have similar bodices, but he says the dresses are still different enough that he is satisfied. As for his favorite of the line-up, it depends on the day of the week. This is also the first time his sketches have been turned into dolls and he's happy with the translation. It sounded like it was a bit of a "rush job," so they used the old face moldings for the characters. Which I think explains Mulan's face a bit. In regards to the huge eyelash thing, his theory is it was a "thing" for those limited edition collector DVD dolls (Rapunzel, Belle, etc), so he figures they just carried over into the making of these dolls. I asked if they would consider making these outfits into Halloween costumes and he said the costume designer would not be a happy camper if they had to replicate these sketches.
He also gave me some insight into the workings of Disney product production. He said they don't usually plan "too far" ahead for things that require lots of approval from various people (e.g. Genie - paperwork takes a good 9 months & Tarzan), so that's why we don't get a lot of stuff for certain characters. And this might be part of the reason why the Disney Heroes line (Tarzan) isn't really around anymore. It's also why getting new Nightmare stuff takes a while. Lots of people to go through. But lots of collaboration too, which he says is great (he was part of the making of the latest Nightmare stuff, too).
He is aware (from my whining, if nothing else) that there is interest in a Heroine line, but it depends on whether or not there is approval from the higher-ups for it. Even if designs are rejected today, they might be approved later on, so no idea is always a "failure." He also said Disney (finally!) realizes there is a need (read: market) for all of the princesses, so there is going to be more stuff celebrating the 10 of them. Something new is coming out soon that he is very excited about. I figure it'll hit in time for the holidays (cha-ching!).
In between badgering Steve, I proceeded to march downstairs (the Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out!) and rearrange the designer doll order as I yanked them off the shelves to take pictures. I'm sure someone was itching to slap me, but they were too polite to say so.
Ridiculously large file my pictures of the dolls plus random extras.
At some point before 7, since they were moving quickly, I had my manicure (the Lion King Diamond Edition!!). Jasmine color, of course. The lady offered to put "glitter" over it, which turned out to be putting Cinderella color on top. It actually came out really cute. And the Jasmine color matched the color used on her hair in my shirt, so that made me really happy.
I felt so bad for those manicure ladies. They were being tortured with serenaded by some pop version of "A Dream is a Wish." Except the song was on repeat. The poor lady doing my nails was like "I've been listening to this song for 3 hours. I'm going crazy...." When she was done, I asked the store salesladies if they could change the song for the poor manicurists. They said they were sick of it as well and had tried. Oh man, I do not fancy listening to that song for 7 hours, I was sick of it after 2 plays.
So eventually (around 8), I thanked Steve for talking to me, warned him I'd be friending him on FB (*woot* he accepted!!) and headed out.
While leaving, I spotted the people in charge of the PR again and asked them to do more shit like this. Hopefully, someone is listening....
Of course, because my life is never boring, on the train ride home was a girl wearing in a goth dress, fishnet tights with no shoes (the tights had holes in the feet from the ground), vampire fangs, and she had a big white rat that she let root around in the boob area of her dress. Oh NYC, never change.
P.S. The Lion King Diamond Edition is coming out soon.