And Grogin is an attention whore. From the moment Richard introduced her at Faces trying to get a write up int he Bee, she has been an egomaniac herself. Talk about being unavailable. Naima was her cheerful self and usual charmer and open to talk with anyone. Ever heard of not disturbing someone while they focus on getting ready to perform, let alone HOST AN EVENT..GET A CLUE. Thank god this event was in a bar. Another exclusive engagement barring the models who have slaved for them. Remember Faces??? Thank god for Artfest...Oh, and PArk, why is water $12? Us non-alcoholics DRIVERS need a break from all this pretentious BS... And the crowd was amazing. Packed into a sardine can unable to see anything unless it was in your face. Nice arrangement STL??? NO??? Do as your paid to do??? They made money... Highlight of the evening. A REAL RUNWAY... Holy crap. None of this "I just screwed cheap OSB panels together on a wobbly frame...GRACE??? Not that it wasn't safe or anything... The lighting was amazing, enough to view the rest of the runway through mirrors. That was different. And the slide show didn't hurt either, added to the element of surprise. Speaking of surprise. RICHARD... Your dance moves were entertaining. Now that was where your creativity went. Try not so hard to be in the limelight, and let your fashions speak for themselves. Fashionista Baby!!! Bobby Trendy, you devil.... Love the makeup. You suffered for fashion. Now that was fabulous. Maybe 2010 will be different...

I was laughing form the get go. Whoever thought that Hallmarq was not going to win was naive. Sacramento is a one show pony town. Don't get me wrong. Richard, Dee, and (MIA) Tomiko have done a lot for fashion in the area. (NOW THAT SF FASHION WEEK DIED). Cast Images is a joke, they have never done anything for anybody unless you work in the front office and skim all the jobs. (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE)...Mother agency, yeah, 10 percent for nothing, whoring yourself out to be in a bigger market for an additional 20 percent. Why would Cast pay for using the models? Nobody else ever has. Some models get destroyed by this nasty process. The designers have been using them for years, as well as the hair stylists. Speaking of, winner of the hair award is the biggest butcher around. Who wants to have a red sore scalp after a fashion show? Who wants to have to pay to recondition, and wait years for their hair to regrow? "Its the price you pay for being a model?"-Rowena...Seriously? Hair is one of the tools to being a model. You destroy it and blame me, then charge me for product to mask its destruction? Who straightens curly hair, then curls it, then teases it straight? WHY??? And the makeup artists are used for their makeup to create a look to go with F'ed up hair and then blamed publicly for a bad job??? Lets face it. Sacramento has subpar designers with poor construction techniques, oversaturated fashion shows, abused models and makeup artists, and heartless hair designers. Follow the money. Who gets paid? The designer when they make a sale, the hair stylist when they get a client, the makeup artist when they do a gig(hopefully), the model when they are booked through Cast(NOT!!!)...Oh, and the nominees of avant-garde designers, Hemmens and Rickman...PLEASE.. Did they even know? Of course not. They have a store or had a store...They are artists. HUGE DIFFERENCE... And the photographers??? Name who was there besides Pickett(HE SHOOTS FILM$$$). Nobody. No Vasquez, no Huynh. Everybody who slaved for them to get where they were was not there...Now do you think the judges knew any of this? Of course not. They barley knew who was who and only were invited because of their connections with Richard. Model of the year? Locally? How about local market? Hands down whoever is the hottest at the moment of balloting. Easy enough. She is on 2 covers currently and about to be a 3rd. There are a lot of models in this market, but you don't know who they are because they are hot in SF, not here. Easy to be a big fish in a small pond. So an SF model winning...Huh???Sorry Ellen, you got screwed, and so did Ryan. It was a look at me and how great I am situation, and if you expected something else you are mentally retarded and you are the scene, the sad sad fashion scene which needs to die a horrible death...It needs to be saved, and not by itself. It needs legitimacy through real sponsorship. A giant who can smack some sense into these egomaniacs (minus Dee).