Recently published in Fixation Magazine
Posted in Press on March 31, 2012 by vampsandvixens
Behind the scenes at a pin up shoot with Kim Frost and Vamps and Vixens!
Posted in Uncategorized on February 27, 2012 by vampsandvixensIn Honor of Frazetta – RVA Magazine
Posted in Uncategorized on February 27, 2012 by vampsandvixensPosted by: Tony – May 23, 2010
We made a post last week when sword and sorcery illustrator Frank Frazetta passed away. Little did I know that local photographer Kim Frost was working on something that pulls inspiration from his pieces. There is an interesting story here about the models. They are married, muscled up vegans that met while playing World Of Warcraft, and these pictures are a part of their wedding set.
ed. correction- They are not married yet !! That happens next month. Congratulations, Derek and Marcella!
More information on Derek and Marcella can be found here: http://www.veganmuscleandfitness.blogspot.com
photography: Kimberly Frost
hair and makeup styling: Dayna of Vamps and Vixens
photo assistant: Kevin Haynes
wardrobe designer: Jerrell Edwards
models: Derek Tresize and Marcella Torres
Marcella & Derek’s World of Warcraft meets Spanish carnivale wedding
Posted in Weddings on February 27, 2012 by vampsandvixens
Real Weddings: Northeast US By Offbeat Editors on August 18, 2010 
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The offbeat bride: Marcella, Actuary(mathematician)
Her offbeat partner: Derek, Director of Personal Training, Gold’s Gym
Location & date of wedding: Garden ceremony, home champagne brunch, and Spanish restaurant reception in Richmond, VA — June 20, 2010
What made our wedding offbeat: We did just about everything ourselves, with the help of talented friends and family. The whole production cost only around $6,000. I made my own dress and jewelry and reconstructed the bridesmaid’s dresses. We all pitched in to make the decor. 
Our friend/groomsman of London Hair Design did our hair… another friend who owns Crossroads Coffee created an awesome vegan brunch menu… my bridesmaid, a talented musician, created a kick-ass playlist for us. It meant so much to us both to see everyone throw their hearts into making our day awesome.
Our goal was to celebrate our “weirdness” – after all, we met on World of Warcraft! – within a sort of traditional framework. The end result was: A small garden ceremony that honored our beginnings as comrades in WoW, and included an excerpt from a sci-fi novel while remaining moving, miraculous and a spectacular post-ceremony vegan brunch at our home with our closest friends and family.
All culminating in a Spanish Carnivale-themed reception at a local restaurant complete with salsa lessons and sangria! Somehow, these seemingly disparate elements came together to make an awesome whole, sort of like how we did!
They created these cake toppers from their WoW charactersTell us about the ceremony: From the ceremony welcome: “We are gathered here, as family and friends, to celebrate the joy of the marriage of Marcella and Derek. This union, this mysterious oneness and dedication of love, began over four years ago in the most unlikely of places: an on-line fantasy game where they met as avatars, each knowing nothing of what the other looked like or, initially, even whether the other was a man or woman.
As they quested and fought battles together from opposite sides of the country, they became teammates and fast friends. Over time the camaraderie grew into something more and on Valentines day several years ago, Derek made his first cross-country journey to finally meet Marcella in person. That initial excitement and curiosity has survived growth and transition to become a strong, true love. We are here today to honor this love…”
Our biggest challenge: The greatest challenge was paring down all of my initial grand plans into something manageable. It’s amazing how small details can take on such daunting significance when planning your wedding! Time was the biggest help there: as the time grew shorter, options for everything from venues to musicians and food and everything else shrank down to several rather than the overwhelming hundreds that I started out with. 
My favorite moment: Amidst the frantic rush to get ready for the ceremony, having finally gotten into my gown and veil, I turned to face my maid of honor and bridesmaid and they both immediately burst into tears.
Laughing with Derek at the “altar” as the celebrant somehow managed to tell the story of our meeting in Warcraft with grace and solemnity. 
Seeing everyone pitch in, unasked in most cases, to do everything from clean our house and make cupcakes, to act as coordinators and make paper flowers.
Dancing together at the end of the night.
My funniest moment: Seeing everyone in fake mustaches was pretty damn funny.
My advice for offbeat brides: Getting the many people of your lives together in one place, probably just this once, makes all the effort worth it and any mishaps insignificant.
Also, people will remember having a good time and how happy you were, not whether you had perfectly color-coordinated centerpieces, menus, and escort cards or any such details. Don’t get so immersed in “Martha Stewart Weddings” etc that you forget that the portion of the population not currently getting married has no idea what an escort card is anyway. Don’t worry too much about that stuff!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Dress: Me
- Headpiece: Etsy, Be Something New
- Photographers: Kimberly Frost and Chris Smith
- Makeup: Dayna of Vamps and Vixens
Seen in After Dark New York – RunAround Sue! (makeup and hair by Vamps and Vixens)
Posted in Press on February 14, 2012 by vampsandvixens( http://newyork.timeout.com/music-nightlife/nightlife/2606639/after-dark-inquiry-runaround-sue)
After-dark inquiry – RunAround Sue
The sparkly Sugar Shack Burlesque veteran runs the weekly Shaken & Stirred shindig.Interviewed by Bruce Tantum
RunAround Sue
Photograph: Kim Frost
The sparkly Sugar Shack Burlesque veteran is the producer, MC and shaker-in-chief at the weekly Shaken & Stirred shindig.
You’re shooting for a film directed by James Gray, the guy who did We Own the Night and The Yards. So what’s that all about? Oh, it’s so exciting! It’s set in 192 in a burlesque brothel in the Lower East Side. James Gray is really big on accuracy, so he wanted some actual burlesque performers.
How did they find you? One of the assistant directors had seen me dance three or four years ago in the Berkshires—I was producing a show up there for a really long time—and she got in touch with the venue and got my e-mail address. She asked me to send in some photos. So I did, and then I had a phone meeting with James! We talked about the history of burlesque and burlesque today. Then they had me come in for a meeting to meet him and the producer and the DP and everyone, and we talked about the movie for hours. And then they cast me in the role!
This is a real all-star affair, right? Aren’t Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner all in this movie? Yeah! It’s a big deal. Joaquin is sort of the girls’ manager. I’m actually committed to this for seven or eight weeks, and I’m on set a lot. It’ll get really intense when we start doing the theater scenes—it’s called the Jewel Box Theater in the movie. We’re shooting those scenes on a stage at Kaufman Astoria Studios.
What else can you tell us about it? What’s really exciting is that Patricia Norris is the costume designer, and she’s amazing. She’s done David Lynch stuff, she did Scarface…so many things! I went in for my fitting on Wednesday, and all the costumes are actually authentic pieces from the 1920s. You put them on, and you just start walking differently. You definitely wiggle a little more! I have this amazing headpiece for one scene that came from an opera house. It’s gonna be beautiful to look at.
You might have to forget to give some of those pieces back. That would be nice! Or I should at least arrange for a photo in them. And another great thing is the director is so intent on being as realistic as he can be. He’s really given us a voice—he’s interested in what we have to say and wants to hear any anecdotes we can tell him. It’s really nice to be involved in a project where your knowledge of the world is valued.
It’s good that they’re not doing some weird Hollywood version of burlesque, like a recent movie that we could name. Right! [Laughs] On Monday we’re shooting an outside scene, and we’re just wearing knickers. That’s definitely not Hollywood. I hope it’s not too cold!
Is this film going to interfere with your nighttime burlesque duties? I don’t think so. It’s mostly Monday-through-Friday day shoots, so we still have our nights and weekends free. But I live life by the seat of my pants anyway. And at Shaken & Stirred, I have two associate producers, Scooter Pie and Legs Malone, who can come in and babysit it. Plus, our DJ, Jess, is much more than a DJ. He really helps to run the whole thing.
You first started doing Shaken & Stirred years ago at Niagara, right? Yes, back in 2006. It was downstairs in the little tiki lounge, which was all kind of clandestine. Sometimes we’d have like 12 people there, but it was a lot of fun. My production partner at the time, Lady Satan, who eventually moved to San Francisco and started up Sugar Shack San Fran, was the one who hooked that up. We just went down there one night and started chatting up the bartender and mentioned this idea we had, and luckily he was into it.
But eventually you moved to the slightly larger confines of the Delancey. We were like, well, let’s do this as a dance party! So it was important to find a place that had no seating. If you give people the option to sit, a lot of times they’ll just chicken out and sit!
It’s fairly rare for a burlesque event to also be a dance party, isn’t it? Yeah, a lot of shows—including a lot I produce, especially out of town—are the more traditional style, where you’re sitting in a seat and watching. They can still be very participatory; people are cheering and coming up onstage for antics. But Satan and I just love dancing. I can dance to the sound of a coffee machine.
How did you hook up with DJ Jess? He’s quite a character. I didn’t know Jess, but Lady Satan was in awe of him. She was always like, “It would be amazing if we could get Jess to be our DJ.” And by serendipity—as it is with so many things in life—one night I was at, coincidentally, the Delancey. A good friend of mine was there, and I saw it was Jess deejaying, and I told her, “That’s the guy I want to get for our party.” She said, “I’m really good friends with him! Come on!” So we went over to the DJ booth, she introduced us and told him that I wanted him to DJ at this party I was starting up. He said, “What night?” I said “Wednesday,” and he said, “Sure!”
That was easy! And he’s been with you ever since. I always say that that’s my longest-lasting relationship. And he’s always apologizing for that. But we have a great rapport. I’m on the mike a lot; I’m the party’s MC. Part of my charm is that I think I’m the funniest girl in the world. So I’ve been telling the same jokes for six years, which is actually part of the joke—but Jess will sometimes just turn my mike off when I’m telling a joke. We have fun harassing each other. I call him my resident heartthrob.
You give out free shots at Shaken & Stirred, right? That’s one of the things that makes it into a dance party!
Didn’t I read somewhere that you once had a relationship with a guy who was totally opposed to you doing burlesque, and then with another guy who wasn’t quite opposed, but would get very uncomfortable at your shows? Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve never had great relationships in the past, though I don’t know how much burlesque has had to do with it. But a lot of women in burlesque are actually married, and a lot of others are in really serious relationships, and their boyfriends will schlep their props in and come to every show. So it is very possible to be in burlesque and have a relationship work out. But for me, personally, the guys that I’ve dated in the past haven’t been comfortable with it. It’s not a question of them not respecting what I do or being proud of me; it’s more like they can’t handle all the attention I’m getting, and all the things that people are saying about me. But the guy that I’m dating now is more of a homebody, so he rarely goes out to the shows anyway. Plus we had already been friends for years, which probably helps.
Do you remember what first attracted you to burlesque? I’ve done a lot of meditating on this because I am so drawn to burlesque and was trying to figure out why that was. I can remember when I started attending shows and I remember feeling what I call “a riotous act of freedom,” where everything was permitted but nothing was threatened. And I tried to break down why I felt that way. My mother was wanted by the FBI—she’s a thief. Her specialty was charming people. I think that caused me to be very quiet about my femininity when I was growing up; I was frightened to be too flirtatious, even though that was so much of who I was. So when I saw the opportunity to do it onstage, I think it fulfilled an outlet for me on a deep psychological level. I needed an outlet where I could be open and flirty, and all the things that I wanted to be, out in public.
Shaken & Stirred is at The Delancey every Wednesday.
February 6, 2012
It’s snowing!
Posted in recent shoots on February 11, 2012 by vampsandvixensWell, it snowed. For all of 10 minutes. But in celebration of the glorious wet precipitation from the sky, here are a few images from the “Snow Queen” set with 422 Studio. Richmond model Dana Podgurski was the beautiful face that brought the idea to life! I believe this was done over two years ago, but the images are timeless and beautiful.
I won’t reveal how we managed to keep the snow from melting inside the studio – but rumor has it Dana was finding snow in her street clothes for a few days afterward!
Stylized Bridal Shoot Highlights!
Posted in recent shoots on February 8, 2012 by vampsandvixensLast week Vamps and Vixens had the pleasure of working with Lucia Belle Photography and model Jenna Dalton on a stylized bridal shoot at The Hotel John Marshall. Please check out the link below to see the amazing results!
Our first bridal show was a success!
Posted in Uncategorized on February 7, 2012 by vampsandvixensVamps and Vixens attended the Richmond Bridal Show this past January for the first time, and what a GREAT experience it was! We held a “kissing contest” where brides-to-be puckered up to kiss a card for a chance to win a bridal portrait, courtesy of Kimberly Frost Photography . That day we glossed up over 115 beautiful lips! We met some amazing ladies and wish all of the brides-to-be best wishes on planning their big day!
Next up is the Outer Banks Wedding Show, happening March 24 in Duck, NC. We hope we can top our number of kissing contest participants!
(Kelly and Emily holding down the V&V booth!)
Vamps and Vixens Makeup Studio 