Fabian Lopez for Shimmer Magazine
- Russel Frank
- May 11, 2015
- 8 min read
Theme: Shimmer Magazine Featuring Fabian Lopez – Fashion Week Las Vegas: Season 6 Winner
Fashion Stylist: Myself
Wardrobe: Twisted Liar
Photographer: Zach Reininger
Videographer: Francisco Garcia
Makeup | Hair: Rene Cuadillo
From Fashion Week Las Vegas: Season 6 male model winner was Fabian Lopez. Part of his winning prize is being offered a 2 year contract with Envy Model Management, hair styling makeover by Allen Cole Blake, and an editorial spread in Shimmer Magazine. Being the Runway & Talent Director for FWLV, and the Fashion Editor for Shimmer Magazine, I built a team for the shoot. With Rene and Cole as Beauty Directors for FWLV and Beauty Editors for Shimmer Magazine, they already were part of the shoot. As for the photographer, I wanted to ask Zach to be our photographer for this shoot. I have worked with him on the Lace & Tulle shoot, as well as a few other shoots he was a part of. His attitude and vibe is very positive. He is a kind of person who feels off the vibes of others on the shoot. He’s an emotional contributor to the shoot, if that makes sense. He gets excited about shoots, feels the same energy that you give off in a shoot he gives back. As for wardrobe, we wanted to feature a FWLV designer, and honestly when I saw Twisted Liar looks prior to season 6… I already wanted to build a good relationship with them to make this shoot happen.
*** Image is not my work, nor from the shoot. Image of Twisted Liar look book / campaign
Twisted Liar is perfect for my aesthetic of styling. Mixture of prints and patterns for womens ready-to-wear is my style, but they also do this same technique for their menswear line. Clearly I am obsessed with their collections. Not too many males can pull their looks off, especially for everyday wear. That is a specific kind of guy that can pull it off. Confident, fashion forward, trendy, trendsetter, not afraid of bold colors, bold prints. I showed Zach the looks of the designer, not knowing that he ALREADY SHOT WITH THEM when they were in Vegas back in February 2015. I still wanted to shoot with Zach, but personally, I didn’t want the same thing in his portfolio. He wouldn’t be gaining anything, except a publication for his portfolio. Zach told me the first time he shot with them, it was for publication, not out yet. He shared with me some photos, which was good, because it gave me an idea of how I should take the shoot differently so that it wouldn’t be the same thing for his port. Which, Zach had mentioned to me that my styling would give it a twist anyways, so he wasn’t worried about the shoot. But I was… Twisted Liar is already designed vibrant, didn’t leave me much room for styling. This definitely was going to push me to do something different.
Fabian didn’t walk in their runway show, so when I told him about the wardrobe, he was happy and excited about it as I was. Talking back and forth between the team, I came up with a great concept!!!
I always wanted to do a shoot on a subway. Living in Vegas, we don’t have a subway… but we have a MONORAIL that goes along the strip! They are smaller bus cars, but the concept can be captured!
I’ve been playing with fabric, tulle, lace as add on layering pieces. I haven’t done this with a male model yet. Fabian has strong features, high cheek bones, and a pretty defined jaw line, if he clinches his teeth.
Of course… with a line like Twisted Liar, adding jewelry to the pieces. Some feminine – masculine pieces.
Then… dying his hair… WHITE | SILVER!!
BEHIND THE SCENES: Photo by Zach Adam Photos
This shoot was elevated for everyone on this shoot. Everything was coming together.
I saw Zach at an event, RAW Las Vegas, and I wanted to confirmed with him the shoot. I knew he had a fe other shoots for that day. We talked, ran through the concept again, and he assured me that the time of the shoot and location, and concept was going to work for him. I everything was set. I confirmed with Fabian, coming in from LA for the shoot, as well as with Rene and Cole to for the hair and makeup.
The day of the shoot, I started to prep the looks. From steaming, ironing, and accessorizing, coordinating the looks. Came around 7pm and I just figured that hair and makeup was being done. We ran into some issues, and unfortunately Cole wasn’t able to make it. Luckily, Rene had some gel, or cream that would highlight or lighten your hair silver. Zach and I were already at the location of the shoot, and used the time wisely to scout location. Zach teamed up with a videographer Francisco Garcia. He was added to the shoot ot capture video footage of the shoot, behind the scenes, and for personal use on our portfolios. Personally, I thought this was a great idea. Yes you have BTS photos and pics, you can post 15 second videos on Instagram from your cell phone, but a full on video of the BTS I had been thinking about added for a while. In reality, there wasn't too many videographers I knew of I could of partnered up with on previous shoots.
We got stopped by the monorail security. They advised us not to pursue any potential shooting or filming. Being the creative director for the shoot, being asked “to leave” is crushing. I had no back up plan, not back up location. It already was 9pm, hour behind shchedule, our hair stylist had other obligations couldn’t get out of. Zach was still game on. We walked more around the location and, about an hour passes by and Rene and Fabian, and Rene’s sister Amanda had showed up, with silver hair. I was sooo excited to see Fabian with his silver hair! I asked Fabian, how does he feel about his look. He was comfortable with it. More than white hair. We grabbed Fabian to get him dressed, in his first look.
Fabian didn’t know how I was going to style him, he knew I was going to dress him in Twisted Liar. I pulled out the first look and tulle. No guys don’t walk around with tulle on their necks, but for an editorial look, it gave a good twist. He was such a good sport about it, and was open to doing it. Remembering back to his port, I knew this was something that was going to be different for him, which this is something I try to do for every model, or team member… let alone myself. I finished dressing Fabian, and we headed back over to our first spot. I can’t disclosed the hotel area, however, we shot a few shots around the hotel. Of course since we didn’t get clearance from the hotel, we were on the look out over our shoulders in case we got kicked off property. We did get approached by a security guy. I walked up and peaked around the corner at our shoot, but I don’t think he knew exactly what was going on. He must have been seen the flash from the camera repeatedly going off that grabbed his attention. We then walked over to the our next spot, which was in the walk way of a bridge that connected the monorail station to the hotel. Zach saw some angles in the architecture which gave some creative posing for Fabian to master in his shots. Going into our third look for the night, we headed back to the monorail. Yea we got kicked out of the vicinity, but I wanted that shot… Zach wanted that shot. Second times a charm…
Behind the scenes, team Model: Fabian L. | Rene Cuadillo | Me | Francisco Garcia
We headed back, changed Fabian into his third look. We already know we had to quick and sneaky to get the shot. We were all on the same page. Get it, get it done. We got to the station, act normal… well as normal as we could. How many groups of people do you know who walk around with a glam squad crew, two people with cameras, and a 6’2 male model, who keeps changing clothes with white silver hair walk around the monorail station?? Yea not so many people. Zach got some shots on the loading station. There was a crowd that came off the trains, that stopped and looked. Generally a crowd brings too much attention. There was a few security guards around the corner from us, but they surprisingly didn’t say anything nor tried to stop us. So Zach kept on shooting. The train came, we got on, no one was on the same train car as us. We rode it down a few stops, still no one got on our train. We were getting lucky. The train car was dark, so every time Zach took a photo, it was going off like a flashlight. Half way on the trip, some tourist got on our train. They were pretty stoked and excited to see an actual photo shoot taking place. They were apologetic, which we didn’t mind them being in the car with us… just as long as they didn’t get in our shot.
There was a shot that Zach was trying to get with the car doors closing in the shot behind Fabian. We got to one of the stops, and there were a group of ladies walking on the loading dock of the station. They literally stopped right behind Fabian’s door, right in his shot. Zach took a few photos but the ladies were in them. Of course I couldn’t yell at them, not that we had clearance from the monorail to be on their taking photos like that. That only would of caused more attention to us. The frustrating part, was the ladies didn’t even get on the car, they just stopped to watch the shoot. A few more stops till we reached the end of the line at Luxor Hotel, we got the shot with the door opening / closing in the backdrop of Fabian. We got the shot!! On the way back to our original location, we just enjoyed the ride. None of us, being locals, have never been on the actual monorail. So it was a win win for us. Being able to do something we as locals take advantage of and were able to experience.
At this time, we had just one more look to do. It was pretty late around 11:30pm at night. We were just about ready to call it for the shoot, for me I wante to get this last look in. We had only shot 3 looks, and Iam allabout variety and versatility. Getting one more look in would help complete the looks. We utilized the area of the parking garage and shot around the walls and stair walls. Zach had light method he had used before in previous shoots. We found a wall with holes in it we flashed the colored lights through. That pretty much wrapped up and ended our shoot. It was a long night, but an even longer day for Zach. I was excited to work with him again, even though he had a tight busy day of other shoots, I’m glad we were able to pull it together. On top of all the hassles, jumps, hurtles we had to get through to get the shots we wanted, the end result we were all happy with. Zach doesn’t like to “show and tell” / “share” the pics until later, but the expression on his face of the shots he captured made it worth it.
Francisco's video will be used for promo behind the scene for each team member, as well oas for promo footage forShimmer Magainze. The still shots, will be published for Shimmer Magazine – July 2015 Summer Issue.
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