I wanted to wait until I got all of the professional shots before posting pics, but considering the fashion show was in October and I still haven't received them, I decided to just post what I have since I have received so many requests to see photos. For those of you who aren't familiar, The New York Chocolate Show is a 4-day event every October at the Metropolitan Pavilion. It kicks off with a fashion show which benefits different charities each year; this year benefiting City Harvest. Clothing designers and pastry chefs are chosen to create an outfit and decorate it with chocolate. I was lucky that the designer I worked with, Renee Masoomian, and I came as a team. Not only are we dear friends, but we have worked together before on an outfit for Sweet Charity. We like a lot of the same things and work really well together so it was a lot of fun! It was really an honor to be chosen for this especially since they usually select chocolatiers or pastry chefs who are known for doing a lot of chocolate work. I haven't been a pastry chef since 2000 when I decided to leave it behind to focus solely on cakes. Anyhow, on to the photos!

It all started with the idea based on a style of Japanese street fashion that's very Victorian doll looking. Below is the sketch Renee did. Her first idea was to have a heart-shaped purse, but I like cupcakes sooo....



I wish I had photos of the work in progress, but we worked into the night until the next morning and no one was around to take photos. :(
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Here's the finished product!


Our lovely model, Jade, on the runway. It was so nice of Jade to volunteer her time, especially since she had to catch a 6 am flight the next morning for photo shoots in Los Angeles!

The hat, ruffles on the back (pic of that below), lace, and parasol were painted with chocolate. The strawberries were sculpted from chocolate plastique, (a chocolate clay and in this case white chocolate plastique which was tinted red and green for the leaves). The cupcake purse was made from white and dark plastique.

Exciting highlights of the evening:
*Photographers from magazines and newspapers taking photos of us and our outfit.
*While in the dressing room, The Discovery Channel was filming me putting the finishing touches on the parasol! Of course I hadn't changed yet, so I was in jeans and a t-shirt, my hair was in a messy ponytail, and I wasn't wearing makeup! >: [
*NHK, a Japanese network, saw a sketch of our outfit and requested our model for their live broadcast to Japan!
*An Arabic network, Al-Jazeera, interviewed us for their viewers in Europe and Dubai!
*Senses Magazine was there and really liked our outfit and later interviewed us for their next issue!
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Getting ready to hit the runway!

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Jade and Renee's business partner, Dean Troxell, also of Blood Orchid Agency (my ♥PR agent & friend for life♥). If it wasn't for Dean, none of this would have happened!
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After the fashion show, we had to transfer our outfit to a mannequin to be on display for the weekend.


Renee and yours truly dressing the mannequin. We were on two hours of sleep. I'm surprised we were still even standing!
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After all the models walked down the runway, they did a second run with their designer and pastry chef. I had seen photos of previous shows and the chefs just wear their chef uniforms. How unglamorous. I did that for Sweet Charity, but I wasn't doing it again, especially not for a show of this caliber. I wore a Betsey Johnson skirt, patent mary janes, and a chef jacket Renee deconstructed for me with stylish ruffles on the back! Just before I walked on stage, KEEGAN GERHARD!!! happened to be standing right there looked my outfit up and down and said, "I really like your chef jacket!"


The only shot I have of my ruffles.
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Back of our outfit. All of those ruffles are covered in white chocolate.
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Here's a close-up of the parasol. It had so much chocolate painted on and it weighed A TON. We didn't want to set it down until the show was over in fear of smooshing the strawberries. So we all had to take turns carrying it.

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Our display sign.
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My silly friend, Bill Muir. He's now living in Massachusetts going to vegan culinary school. He drove down to be my minion assistant for the evening. Bill lived in Tokyo for 7 years and saw this style of street fashion many-a-time, but never one decorated with chocolate!
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Mr. Lotus Cake Studio got some video footage of the evening. Once I get that all together, I'll upload it to YouTube and post the link here, but in the mean time, here's a CBS segment I found on the fashion show. Our outfit was on for a full second- second 58 going into 59!





Renee and I are now working on a new outfit for Sweet Charity 2008 on May 5th at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC. If you'll be in the area, it's an event you won't want to miss!