For years, I\u2019ve been shooting my own editorials at home, playing the complicated role of both the photographer and the model<\/a>. \u00a0I dream up fantasies of the world around me and retell those stories through editorials. I enjoy planning through all the fine details: the scene, the look<\/a>, the mood\u2014 they are all important in storytelling (which you might find I\u2019m a huge fan of once you start reading below).<\/p>\n What\u2019s different about this editorial from the others I\u2019ve created is that I also designed the dress! I\u2019ve long been inspired by the power of clothes to tell a story and mood of a place, people, and era. The clothes have always been the most important component of all my editorials.<\/p>\n My latest editorial fairytale takes place in the warm streets of Cuba. Well not exactly, but that\u2019s where I was transported to when I visited the Afro-Latino restaurant in Accra aptly named Little Havana<\/a>. It was a charming, vintage looking, Havana inspired restaurant with lots of character in its decor. Special thanks to my amazing friends and family for your tremendous support in bringing my crazy imaginations to life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read below about the crazy adventure that went into creating this editorial. From sketching the dresses for the story to picking the right colors and even shooting the editorial twice after the first one backfired.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [column size=one_half position=first ]<\/p>\n I had only 5 days to pull off my crazy idea. At this point, I did not even know what the dress would look like or how I\u2019d make them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you talk to your friend Sarah?\u201d My mom had asked.<\/p>\n Sarah Christian<\/a> is a super talented fashion designer in Ghana. She also happens to be one of my best friends! She was the perfect person to work with on this project.<\/p>\n I contact Sarah. She\u2019s on board! We plan to go looking for fabrics the next day.<\/p>\n Later that evening, I look through my Pinterest board to get an idea of the woman I want to create for my story: A bold, sexy, hopeless romantic that frolics the streets of Havana with an air of mystery and charm. I name her \u201cCarmen.\u201d<\/p>\n I sketch her clothes\u2026 there\u2019s a jumpsuit, a short tier dress made of colorful ruffles, and a long off-the-shoulder, two-toned red & blue dress\u2026<\/p>\n These are my final three.<\/p>\n I stop briefly to imagine my character, Carmen, wearing her colorful ruffles as she walks into the eclectic Cuban restaurant.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to remember to call the restaurant to get permission for the shoot!\u201d I remind myself.<\/p>\n There is a mix-up and Sarah and I are not able to\u00a0go shopping for the fabrics. She suggests going to the market on Thursday. The shoot is on Friday by the way!<\/em><\/p>\n I sit in silence for a bit. On one hand, it seemed obvious that my crazy idea was not going to work anyway, but I couldn\u2019t help but feel crushed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can go on Thursday\u00a0to buy the fabric. That\u2019s the next time I\u2019m free to go.\u201d Sarah cuts through the silence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shoot is\u00a0Friday,\u201d I remind her quietly.\u00a0I remember again that I still haven\u2019t called the restaurant to ask if I can shoot. Sarah assures me that she can sew up my outfit in time for the shoot.<\/p>\n I\u2019m at Sarah\u2019s studio showing her my designs. We select the long off-the-shoulder dress for my costume. I decide that I no longer want it two-toned. One bold color like yellow or red will do.<\/p>\n We take a look at the Cuban flag for reference and pick the color red for my dress.\u00a0\u201cI want a blood-red color!\u201d<\/p>\n I stop by Sarah\u2019s briefly to show her a blouse I want my dress modeled after. We talk about fabrics. Sarah suggests satin.[\/column]<\/p>\n [column size=one_half position=first ]<\/p>\n I am at my internship job as early as\u00a06:30 am after not sleeping until 2 am.<\/p>\n In the afternoon, I meet Sarah at Makola market \u2014 a super busy marketplace in the center of Accra\u00a0\u2014 to look for the fabric for my dress.<\/p>\n Our friend, Nicholina, joins us.<\/p>\n I\u2019m getting nervous.\u00a0\u201cWhich red is the right red for the look?\u201d \u201cIs satin the right fabric?\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah is busy looking for an off-white lace fabric for a wedding dress she is making for another client.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich red?!\u201d<\/p>\n We start looking for my fabric and my stomach turns. We see some reds, but it\u2019s not the shade of red we talked about\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s more burgundy than red.\u201d Sarah corrects me when I point at the red satin sitting in the pile of fabrics.<\/p>\n I think I see the one I want. \u201cThat\u2019s not satin,\u201d Sarah reminds me.<\/p>\n We are at another shop now. \u201cDo you want this one?\u201d Sarah asks.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I say half sure.<\/p>\n The vendor pulls out the fabric from the roll and starts counting for six yards of fabric.<\/p>\n He pulls a roll out from one arm and pins it to join the others tucked underneath his chin, \u201cthree\u2026four\u2026\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n \u201cSix yards!\u201d and then he starts to cut.<\/p>\n Inside me, I\u2019m screaming \u201cwaaaaait!\u201d \u00a0Sarah is staring at me. I don\u2019t say anything. Nicholina is biting her nails, lost in her own thoughts somewhere.<\/p>\n The vendor cuts the fabric. I want to ask Sarah again if this was the right color, but I keep quiet because I\u2019m sure she can already hear my thoughts.<\/p>\n He hands the fabric to us, and, for some reason, I feel a calming sense of relief.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to remember to call the restaurant,\u201d I note again quietly.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t think straight.<\/p>\n My stomach is turning again. I think to record this moment on Snapchat, but I\u2019m too nervous to do it.<\/p>\n I try to reach Sarah to check if my dress was ready. No response.<\/p>\n [\/column] [column size=one_half position=first ]I distract myself at work.\u00a0I\u2019m sitting through a long team meeting.<\/p>\n At long last, Sarah calls. The dress is ready! Whew!<\/em><\/p>\n I finally call the restaurant to ask if I can shoot there. I also admit to myself, for the first time, that I was putting off calling because I wanted to make sure everything was going to work out first.<\/p>\n The voice on the phone interrupts my thoughts. \u201cCome in at 5. We will be open by then and the proprietor will be around.\u201d I plan to arrive earlier to catch a\u00a0better light and an empty space.<\/p>\n I finally ask to be excused after sitting a while longer through the meeting at work. Nicholina and the driver have been waiting outside for an hour.<\/p>\n I am anxious when I arrive at Sarah\u2019s to see my dress. She hands it over to me casually, unbeknown to her how crucial that moment was for me. I\u2019m still not sure about the shade of red. I\u2019m also nervous about if Sarah got my vision right. <\/em>I close my eyes as I pull the dress up my legs, saying a silent prayer as the zipper goes up.<\/p>\n I open my eyes\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019m in love!<\/p>\n \u201cI did it!\u201d I say, almost jumping. \u201cMy crazy idea! I did it. Thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah makes some adjustments to the dress while I do my hair and makeup.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n —<\/p>\n My stomach is full of butterflies as I get close to the location and it takes a lot of a courage and a really deep breath to get out of the car and walk down to the restaurant.<\/p>\n Once I\u2019m inside, I speak to the owner of the restaurant over the phone. My friends Jude and Nicholina are on set to assist me.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry it might not be possible to shoot today. We open at 5 pm\u2026 that\u2019s in 15 minutes. You can try back\u00a0on Tuesday,\u201d the owner says.<\/p>\n my heart sinks…<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is he saying,\u201d Jude mouths.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pacing the room while on the phone, in a long off-the-shoulder red dress that suddenly feels over the top.<\/p>\n We talk a little while longer and he eventually lets me shoot, \u201cI need you to finish up by 5 pm.\u201d<\/p>\n I look at my team, \u201cWe have 10 minutes to shoot!\u201d I yell across the room.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The shoot wraps up after 45 minutes and everyone including the restaurant staff is in really great spirits. I make calls to my mom to tell her of the great news. Nicholina is on the side giving away free hugs.<\/p>\n I finally meet Marcus, the owner of Little Havana. \u201c45 minutes later,\u201d he jokes. We talk a little about our respective businesses and I immediately connect with his passion for his work. I am grateful for fellow creatives like him who bring funk and creativity to the Ghanaian social scene.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/column]<\/p>\n [column size=one_half position=last ]When I get home and take a look at the pictures, I am gravely disappointed. A lot of them are out of focus. The makeup I did in Sarah\u2019s dimly lit changing room looked awful. I didn\u2019t catch a lot of these things because the shoot was a huge rush. We kept going, snap after snap, and no one noticed the blurred leg in one shot or the weird angle of my arm in another. \u201cI should have checked each time.\u201d I kicked myself for not being able to be so many things at once even though it was a tight shoot schedule<\/p>\n Fortunately, my travel date got extended, and as soon as something opened up in my schedule,\u00a0 I called Marcus to ask if I could shoot that day.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t find any set assistants to help me shoot at the last-minute except Jude who promised to stop by briefly.<\/p>\n I spent that afternoon looking through my notes on what went wrong in the first shoot, creating a shot list and guideline, and applying my makeup in proper lighting (I even got the eye wing liner right, people!<\/em> but not without a thousand angels holding my hand. whew!!!<\/em>).<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n I arrived 20 minutes late for the shoot after sitting through really bad traffic.<\/p>\n When we arrived Marcus was already there, and I was now on my 15th missed call to Jude.<\/p>\n There was no one to help me shoot. And my time was running out!<\/p>\n 20 minutes left to shoot. Enough stalling. I could feel the entire\u00a0room staring at me. I decided I needed to start taking pictures of myself by myself. It\u2019s how I usually shoot anyway, but I didn\u2019t have my tripod with me this time. So, I hurriedly called in the only person I could think of: the driver who had driven me to the location and was still waiting!<\/p>\n I had been trying to cool off my nerves earlier by ranting to him while he helped me unpack my equipment. He had been nodding and shaking his head the entire\u00a0time, listening to my rants about how everything was a disaster!!<\/p>\n \u201cYou might have to take my pictures!\u201d I said. His head shot up. \u201cPlease.\u201d I positioned him where I wanted to shoot and started controlling the camera with a remote from my side. He held still as I made his hands into a \u201chuman tripod\u201d and took pictures of myself.<\/p>\n When I felt like the setup and light were coming out great in camera, I left him to shoot a few of his own, telling him each time to click and then quickly posing for the shot.<\/p>\n Only 15 minutes left! Jude finally joined us with his photographer friend.<\/p>\n Jude\u2019s friend could only stay 2 minutes. He and I quickly shook hands without even exchanging names, and he started shooting. \u201cTake pictures of me walking this way. The light should be behind me.\u201d I directed. 5 snaps later\u2026he had to leave!<\/p>\n Then Jude took over. He took a little over 5 snaps, but he also had to leave as well. Both he and his friend were in the middle of a presentation when they left to come help with the shoot.<\/p>\n Then, another friend of Jude\u2019s came to take over. We were out of time now, but I had to get the window shot.\u00a0I asked if he could go behind the palm tree and shoot me through it. He nailed the shot!<\/p>\n [\/column] & Thank you all, my lovely readers, for patiently waiting, week after week, as I worked hard to get this right, and for all your cheering on along the way.<\/p>\n Read about my crazy fun adventure producing an editorial where I play the role of model, photographer, costume designer and creative director in this Little Havana inspired editorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,49,102,6,8],"tags":[145,1289,48,283,848,137,1290,1291],"class_list":["post-12562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion-editorials","category-feature","category-love-armenyl","category-style","category-travel","tag-accra","tag-cuba","tag-fashion-2","tag-fashion-editorials-2","tag-fashion-journal","tag-ghana","tag-little-havana","tag-sarah-christian-gh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12562"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12671,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12562\/revisions\/12671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-12.jpg\")
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-22.jpg\")
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-17.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nMonday:<\/h1>\n
Tuesday:<\/h1>\n
Later that day:<\/h1>\n
Wednesday:<\/h1>\n
Thursday:<\/h1>\n
Friday:<\/h1>\n
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-24.jpg\")
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA week later:<\/h1>\n
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-25.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Little](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-14-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>![\"Little](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-15-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-19-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-17-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-13.jpg\")
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-11.jpg\")
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-3.jpg\")
It took a village to get this editorial done! I am so grateful to everyone who helped me pull this off! I couldn\u2019t do it without any of you! Thank you\u00a0Marcus of Little Havana<\/strong><\/a>, for your kind accommodation in your beautiful space. Sarah Christian Gh<\/strong><\/a> for being crazy magical and bringing my vision to life.\u00a0My entire team and family<\/strong> for being my biggest cheerleaders throughout the entire process.<\/p>\n![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Carmen-A-self-produced-fashion-editorial-by-Armenyl-10.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armenyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Armenyl-love-and-blessings-II.png\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"