Kajan Padraig and Westerfeld House in SF

Our morning begins with the previous evening, where I set my iPhone alarm to 5.30am, knowing that I will probably wake up around 6am, so that I can leave home around 7am and head to San Francisco orange. salon for hair and makeup at 8am before an editorial photoshoot I was asked to model for by the lovely designers of Kajan Padraig.

Unfortunately, life had other plans...

I awoke from my phone ringing, and immediately answered it to find my mother on the other end asking "ready to go?" Now, my stepfather was to drive me to SF that morning, as the trains were not to run until 8am, which would have made me late. It was nice of them to offer, so we agreed I would be ready by 7am. This is where I whipped my head around to look at my iHome alarm clock, which is just an inconvenient length from my bed for me not to use it just to see a glowing 7:09AM "FUUUU-----CK" I replied, and jumped out of bed.

Now, the evening before, we were told not to wash our hair on the day of, nor do our makeup, so I did not have to worry about that, so I dressed myself in the dark, ran into the kitchen, where my mother was making me a piece of toast I could take in the car and a cup of coffee. Thanking her, I grabbed the noms and out I went.

I ended up being on time with no problems at all, and arrived the first out of the bunch at the salon. Even when I am late - I am early. That's a fucking skill! Which I should give my mom and stepfather (epic driving) credit for this time, hehe.

I got to the orange. salon [835 divisadero st] with enough time to go grab a cup of coffee. Mmm...coffee...

When I returned with my cup of awake-juice, I found the hair and makeup artists setting up at their stations. One of the designers and another model was there already. There were to be three of us in total. Both of the artists' names were Paul. It made my barely-awake self slightly confused, but it passed:

The place was quite small, with only two work stations and nothing in the back but the bathroom [which also housed cupboards with locks, full of supplies, I assume], however, it was pretty well decorated. A few pieces of art, none of that over-tacky sh*t. Just look at this awesome chair:

Then arrived the rest of the crew: the third model, the second designer and her husband and soon the first designer's husband. After a game of chairs between two hair and makeup stations and three models, we finally found our way to the "mansion" we were to have the shoot in. Honestly, I had no idea it was going to be so professional. I finally felt wide awake...or maybe that was my morning-juice talking. We got to the mansion, or the Westerfeld House, and it was goddamn beautiful. I had never been there, nor had I ever heard of it, and I now wondered why. Why has nobody told me this place exists? And how was I lucky enough to find myself having a photoshoot here?

That's the inside portion of the door that greeted us upon entrance. The stained glass is a theme throughout the whole house and looks wonderful if it gets lucky enough for sun to reach it. See? More stained glass, just a lift of your head away from the door:

Speaking of stairs, however. This place has way too many. Too many and too steep, I say. Living in this mansion is like constant exercise, yo. I have a feeling my mind is playing tricks on me, but I am pretty sure that I had to climb at least three flights of these babies to get one shoot location:

Up and down...up and down...in 5 inch stilettos and pencil skirts or evening gowns. B*tch, please. That's nothing to us! And now for some more architecture pr0n:

Now, yes, people actually live in this house, it seems. It was cold as fuck, though. If not for my being prepared for San Francisco weather and being all bundly in my sweatshirt and leather jacket in between outfits, I would have frozen my pretty little butt over. Brr. Also, blow fish:

That is all.

I absolutely forgot: What does a proper model do during down time in between outfits? Goes and barfs in the bathroom to loose that piece of cracker she had earlier for lunch? Eff that. She eats peanut butter pretzels and plays Pokémon. F'yeah!

Now, remember those stairs we were talking about earlier? Well, those b*tches came back to haunt us. That is, more walking up four flights of those torture devices to get to the loft-tower thing. But it was definitely worth it! a 360 view of San Francisco from a loft that has four windows on each of four walls? And when wind blows, one of the windows rattles like crazy. It's beautiful! Oh, not to mention this ash tray following the view:

Not to be a lame-o-saurus or anything, but it is no secret that I am a big fan of leopard print. As a matter of fact, as I am typing this, I have leopard-print (Sally Hansen "Kitty Kitty" nail strips) on my fingernails. So of course, I could not resist this:

Now, the only thing that is sad about this is the fact that I do not own this. I want this to be on my floor and I want to put my feet on it *silly face*

And now that I have bombarded you with lots of photos [there are definitely more and I will post more, especially when I get the editorial shoot photos from the photographer, but this is it for tonight, as I am exhausted], I am probably going to bore you with more talk. However, I have not done any interesting talking in quite a while, so I feel like I owe you peeps.

The shoot took about 10 hours, including hair/makeup and the 30 min break we had for snacks. It was long, exhausting and cold. And it was wonderful. I do regret not starting doing this more often, as I have met quite a few talented people today, it was amazing. I definitely loved working with Patrick and Cake [creators and owners of Kajan Padraig], they are pretty amazing and their garments are beautifully and flawlessly made. I kind of felt like sneaking away wearing one of them ;P

Kidding. But honestly - go check them out. I get absolutely no gain from advertising for them, but I do get to introduce more of you lovely people to a label that actually creates wonderful pieces by hand and care very much about their clientele.

I guess I can close with the snapshots of my hair I got to get after I stumbled back into my room, falling off my feet from how tired I am. Consider these a very lame teaser for what is to come in the future posts:

 

Also, I need to have a conversation with my face. "Dear face, please stop getting oily, even after the MUA used a mattifier on you. Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated. All my love, Frowne."

And now I am going to legitimately pass out. I have done my duty of blogging for the day [although I think next time I will brink a notebook for...notes...for what I'd like to write about. That would be quite helpful. Indeed.]

Oh, and I don't know if you'd noticed, but I got a new camera. Nikon S6100. I am still trying to figure it out, but it seems that either the camera or the SD card tends to damage some images, so some wonderful shots were lost because of that. I so hope it is the SD card. Please let it be the SD card...If not, I guess back to Amazon you go, camera. You are lucky I did not name you, yet...But I do like you so far. Let's just make sure you don't break anything else, ja?

Well, my lovelies, cheers to you all and you all have a great rest of your weekend (however short it may be - 10 min to go for me...)