Countdown

set-up at Le Showroom in March for Fall 2007

set-up at Le Showroom, last October showing Spring 2007

Less than one month before the show in Paris and I start to get a little...crazy. There's a lot to do to prepare for a tradefair so my calendar is pretty packed. I need to:

• finish the postcard and send it out to about 200 buyers by next Monday and Tuesday
• photograph and/or scan all the new pieces, photoshop them and plug them into the new linesheets for Spring 2008. (This is really time consuming---to printer by September 24th)
  
• Finish 2 new lookbooks for press: one for the new "Around the World in 80 Days" Collection and one for the new "Porte Cles: Key Fob Jewelry" Collection. I may even do one if there's time, for the "Les Historiettes" Collection. (to printer before September 28th)
• Work on display of show--do mock-ups of set-up. I'm having a new piece of wood cut for the display---not too brilliant to lug heavy walnut all the way to Paris with me, but I think it's a really clean complementary display. I can keep it some of it at my friend's flat throughout the year which is nice.
• Design and create posters or a wall hanging for my booth--something eye-catching that will sum up the new collections.
• a hundred other little details such as buying a tray so that buyers can carry the pieces they want to my table and a felt mat so they can lay it onto a neutral surface. Oh and maybe get a haircut, eat, call my mom, show up for a few Saturday market days on Smith Street.
  

If I survive the next few weeks and still post it will be like this: at 3 am when I wake up wondering if I can do all this.

The best payoff for me is that Jim will be coming over to meet me and will see the show for the first time. After it's all over we're going to wing a trip, maybe along the coast from Normandy to Brittany and maybe back through the Loire Valley . Or maybe the other way, Brittany to Normandy and around through Champagne. Or we could take a train to London or across Eastern France into Germany. Maybe we'll try catch a cheap flight somewhere like Prague or Budapest. After all this planning, winging it sounds just right.