...The New York City Ballet Gala + Anger Management

At the New York City Ballet Gala Premier of Lynne Taylor-Corbett's "The Seven Deadly Sins" Betsey and I walked the red carpet as the sin "anger." Well, walk is maybe an understatement because Betsey literally dragged me down the red carpet on the end of a leash.

You might be wondering, how did we get ourselves into this? Well... Betsey's public relations extraordinaire, Katelyn, sent me an email two weeks before the gala inviting Betsey to create a look based on one of the sins and present it on a model on the red carpet. Betsey chose anger and I agreed to put on my pointe shoes from my dancing days and ignight the red carpet with some performance art.  

When Betsey first started to brainstorm for the look she wanted to do a take on Black Swan. It made perfect sense to dress me in a one of her new tutu dresses and pointe shoes and flutter around like an angry caged bird. After some thought, we decide that was too literal and predictable. Wanting to shock, awe and do something new, we dug around the showroom vintage and pulled out a large hoop dress shown in Betsey's Spring 2011 runway show. It was the perfect amount of avant-garde for the gala. 

We had the killer dress, now we needed to find our handle. How could we tie it to a story so that on the red carpet we could be characters and really put on a performance? A good rule of thumb for Betsey in these situations is, when in doubt grab a sharpie! Hence the sharpie tattoos. She wrote "scram!" "Back off!" "Don't Bother Me Boy!" and my favorite "Piss Off!" all over my skin. She completed the art by writing "ANGER" boldly across my chest just above a sharpie cleavage shadow. (hubba hubba) Now that we had my roll as anger we had to make up a roll for Betsey to play. On the morning of the gala Betsey went to have her hair done and through salon chat her hair dresser suggested that she play "anger management." We sent one of our devoted interns to XXX shop to pick up a dominatrix collar and leash, making her in control of anger, aka me. 

With the look and back story complete we prep-ed for the night! Betsey and I did our own vampy make-up with her signature red Betsey's lips. I reached out to my friends the amazing Peter Gray (Hairstylist savant and fellow jack of all trades) and Kelsey Osterman (brilliant from Cutler salon) to create my hairstyle using long-choppy extensions, a lot of product and a lot of back combing! After we were all gussied up we practiced our choreography which included hiking my skirt over my head to show off red bloomers and sharpie pantie hoes seams. End result...

After parading around the showroom tethered to Betsey we hopped in the car and headed to Lincoln Center for the gala.



Arriving on the red carpet we started our show

Light bulbs were going off everywhere as we put on our grand performance. There are plenty of pictures on the web of my red bloomer butt!  Following closely behind us on the red carpet was Sarah Jessica Parker. After the event the NY Post wrote that we. "almost knocked her off her heels." As we reached the end of the red carpet we broke character in a fit of giggles. Betsey began doing interviews and a reporter asked me if wearing the leash hurt. Betsey, the sharp tac that she is, answered "Do dogs complain!" We did not stay for the ballet because Betsey had another engagement and I could not imagine sitting through all the acts in that hoop skirt. Plus, we had a bottle of champagne at the bar that was calling our names.

The next day I woke up with a cold and couldn't make it into work and Betsey called me to see if I felt better and thank me for putting on a show with her. She is just that nice of a person!