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Zuss at New York City

Here we are; home again, I'm behind my own old Mac, and now is the time to rearrange all the information and pictures, to complete our New York Journal.
When we returned home, last Thursday, 2nd of November, our best friends Annelies and Shireen waited at the airport, and at home there was a sign: "Welcome Home" with festoons!
Krijnie was really sick and visited the doctor right away; she got her medicine and is recovering now.
These last days a lot of friends and family dropped by to hear all our stories.

But let us go back to the beginning of this journey; to Monday the 16th of October, when we left Schiphol Airport and arrived at Newark USA and checked in at our Seafarers Int'l House. This Seafarers House was our base in NYC, located in the middle of Manhattan, which was great! Too bad we didn't have email facilities in this hotel, but we had telephone in our room.
This first day we went to bed really early, because we skipped a night.

Tuesday: we decided to check out The Gramercy Park area, The Place where it all would happen.....the next couple of weeks. So, armed with our map of Manhattan we found our way; and if not there were always nice people to help us out.
When we phoned Paul Sladkus from Good News Broadcast, he invited us to come to his office right away; and so we had our first interview. 'Your smile begins and ends all good things. Smile with us.' Like they say. So....for the next 11 minutes; the Good News Broadcast interview.

Wednesday: another night we didn't sleep too well, I guess we were restless, and we had to get used to all the big city noise!
We tried to phone LindaAnn Loschiavo, but couldn't find her number, so we first searched for an Internet Cafe, which we found 2 blocks away, on the E 13th Street. There we found messages from home to reply, also from LindaAnn with her phone number and from a fashion photographer; Israel Colon.
Israel had found our website zuss.com and thought we made 'gorgious' fashion; 'How about a fotoshoot in Iceland?' he asked us....we mailed back, explaining we were in NYC for a couple of weeks now to promote our Zuss Fashion.
After that we mailed to Kari Auerbach, our other email contact, that we would visit her store Mayhem on the 9th Street this afternoon, although we knew she herself wasn't working that day. So we visited East Village, and enjoyed it very much, this is a wonderful neighbourhood, with lots of little shops and a lot of artists. We met Karyn in the store, a lovely lady, and Kari called to the store, so now we could hear her voice; this woman we were so eager to meet, and this had to wait until Sunday!
They also have their website: Mayhem (site down).
And if you ever visit them at 441 East 9th Street: say HI from us; that's Zuss Fashion Design!

Thursday: 'AN EVENING IN VENICE.'
Our first night of good sleep, thank goodness, because this was 'An Evening in Venice' day! The morning we used to do our hair and we dressed up for the press conference; Krijnie wore the 'Freaky' hat, and handbag, I wore rubber laces through my hair and my hip-bag.
The first time at the National Arts Club; we were send upstairs, we brought our Zuss Box with bracelets to give away, everybody loved them!
Mark Pines, behind his camera, started shouting: 'heeee this must be the Zuss-girls!!' This major sympathetic guy would become a good friend!
We met the Boldrin couple from Venice, (they really broke the ice immediately, when they wispered if it was REALLY necessary to wear 'black tie' tonight?) and Liz Learmont, and Michelle Lance, all maskmakers.
But no LindaAnn! Where was she, we wanted to meet her so bad! We learned quickly that LindaAnn is always 'fashionable late', and when the lunch started we saw somebody running around with hat and gloves; 'that must be HER!' And then we met her, the lady with the wonderful smile and shining eyes!
LindaAnn, the one woman who started this whole adventure with: this lady, who found Zuss on the internet, looking for masks and maskmakers, learned us how to do PR and showed us the way in NYC. Every step of the road she coached us, invited us to different events and introduced us to the people of the National Arts Club and New York City. Without her, this story of Zuss in New York would still be a dream! Thank you, LindaAnn, you wonderful lady, you have won our hearts forever!
Of course she was very busy, and we couldn't talk for long. With the pressconference that afternoon and also in the 'Evening of Venice' she called us up front and introduced us to everybody who was there. That day we were very shy at first, even when Mark Pines wanted to interview us; we were too shy to come to him! We did have some interviews though, and we met Greg Wittrock for the first time; he stole our hearts.
That night, at the auction (screenshots of the live webcast), there weren't too many people and everybody was a bit disappointed. The most beautiful masks were sold for no more than $100 and some art wasn't even sold at all!

We dressed up twice that day, for the pressconference and later for the gala and when we walked through the streets of New York in our Zuss fashion; people started to shout: 'nice hat!' or they yelled 'WOW!' 'I love your outfit' 'can I touch', everybody looked at zuss, and this was a very! special moment for us both, not only at the beginning but this moments stayed all through our stay, we met so many eyes; of course some deeper or longer and always different than others, but it felt SO good! To step in the unknown world, and meet love, respect and surprise, we could bath in it, that was the paradise of LOVE in moment and time.
Now we get personal; Krijnie and I received the Tarot card no. 6 LOVE from our friends before we left, @ our last Moon of the hunt celebration; and has to do with saying thanks for all your abundance blessings...

Friday October 20th: we had to check out from the Hotel and move to the guestroom of the National Arts Club.
That night we were invited by LindaAnn to have dinner at the Club with other maskmakers. At the dinner table we met Mr. and Ms. Boldrin, Venetian maskmakers, Liz Learmont and Timothy Hess, host LindaAnn, co-host Conrad Bradford and Mark Pines.
We had a great time with them, stayed the whole evening together before we went to our guestroom.

Saturday: after we woke up, we had breakfast in a trendy NYC restaurant, just around the corner. The wheather was so great, temperatures of 20C and sunny, so we decided to hang around and visit the private Gramercy Park and and enjoy the wonderful building ful of art everywhere you looked. Even the furniture was old and sometimes -one of a kind- especially made for this house, like the fireplace that came from Italy in the 1800's. It feld really special to go in with a key, and you know the other people who are there, also had to live in the neighbourhood. You could see people trying to open the door, and looking at you, 'how did you get in?' It was very quiet, in the middle of Manhattan, with sirenes and cars and busy talking people around you.
In the evening we had lobster dinner, discovered later we ordered wine of $ 10 each ); but we had a great time!
After that we went up the Empire State building, a clear and warm night, wonderful!!

Sunday: we woke up and packed our suitcase to go to Jersey City, we took the ferry, passed the Statue of Liberty, and -grace!- some lady gave us a ride to the 111 First Street, NJ, where the homecoming Art Tour was going on. There we finally met Kari; and it really immediately felt a bit like homecoming.........!!! An Artemis in her world.
Here they were, Kari Auerbach and Mykel Bristler, and we were so glad to finally meet, after so many emails, it felt GREAT!!!
Everybody helped us arrange an exhibit space, and spontaniously started showing them. We had a great time, and met so many people, during the afternoon at the NJ Art Tour, when we were invited to the dinner with other artists and the Mayor, and Mykel ended up singing!
That night we joined 2 really cool parties and came home by four. 2 handbags were sold, and everybody loved the bracelets, and there were only positive reactions on our work, artists and visitors.

Monday: checked in at the Seafarers House again, tried to rest while the building was renovated (ever tried?)
There was a message on the phone from LindaAnn; how about a Fashion Show on Halloween Howl?? (((: together with Jordan Betten?!
We had a 'date' with Mark Pines to meet him at the NAC at 17.00, to use his laptop to check email. The connection was very bad so we finally had to leave and this kind Mark, he asked us to dinner, and we had a chance to get to know this man more, and we closed him in our hearts when he asked for the 'sister-sandwich-hug'! This musican and filmer, from full screen to a stamp; onlinetv.com.
Early to bed.

Tuesday: today we made a lot of phonecalls, LindaAnn, Mark, Greg, media for the Fashion Show.
We also went to Goodnewsbroadcast office to email, and Israel Colon, the fashion photographer had mailed us: I'm in NYC too, let's meet, ladies!
Back to the hotel, phonecalls, to the internet cafe, sending mails, the jpgs take a lot of time...Early to bed.

Wednesday: a phone day.
This afternoon we were invited to Jordan Betten's studio, it was a sunny day and we walked all the way from E 15th to 29th Street. We met them at the Art Auction, Jordan and Muriel, and he is an artist and makes all kind of bags and pants and tops and coats, from very skillful handcrafted, custom made leather. He had a beautiful space with NYC view in huge windows and he showed us his work, and we showed ours, and we all loved what we saw!
He also was part of the fashion show at the NAC, next Monday, and invited us to his party.
After that, we took a cab to the Austrian Trade Comission, but got caught in traffic. There we met LindaAnn with Conrad and Juliana Zizzo, another designer who was part of the Fashion Show.
Then we took a cab to the National Arts Club, to a book presentation, 'Naked London' and the writer.

Thursday: visiting stores in East Village, we liked 'The Body Worship' the most, and the owner was interested too! We visited Kari at her Mayhem, and arranged models for the show. We also dropped a press kit at The Village Voice.
In the evening we attended Jordan's party, where we met all kind of people and had a great time with National Geographic photographer Nigel.

Friday: date with Fashion Director Adrienne Weinfeld-Berg from Ontone.com (site down), and she loved our Zuss Designs right away, was blown away. She will cover our story and had an interview.
In the afternoon we walked all the way to Paper Magazine and left a press kit there.
At 19.00 we had a dress rehearsel at the NAC, all the models were there and it was great to see the effect of zuss on these models, they loved it too, some great characters; it's going to be a wild show!
Exhausted we went back to the hotel.

Saturday: first we met Israel Colon, the fashion photographer, a great guy, and very serious in his work, gave us all good advice. He promised to come to our Fashion Show and shoot it, YEAH!
Then we took the train to New Jersey City, to Kari and Mykel again, to chill and sleep over. Krijnie was becoming ill and needed rest.
We agreed on exchanging our work, she would love to have our 'Victorian' top and we love her bracelet that looks like a spine!
We also talked about our new tag, and in the future she's going to make them for us!! Our Zuss label as a kind of coin.

Sunday: we checked back into the hotel and took the day of, Krijnie slept and I red a book.

Monday: more rest for Krijnie and at 16.00 we went to the NAC to prepare the show. We were first, then came bMicheal, then Jordan Betten and then Juliana Zizzo.
The models were GREAT and we had a fantastic, exciting Show, with Tree-Top (site down) music on the runway! Everybody loved it and the reactions were overwhelming!
Israel also made pictures after the show with us and the models.
After this we celebrated the Halloween Howl with everybody and met more people.
Mark Pines also made a video movie, and the whole show was live netcasted, but due to an connection error our friends at home couldn't see it at that time, but now we can.
Kari and Mykel also got a prize dinner, for the best couple-costume that night, as the King and Queen, father and mother of King Lionheart. Greg bought his choker at the spot, and Tyrone wanted his vest so bad, and we made a deal.
Thank you so much LindaAnn Loschiavo, with your big heart and smile, and enough energy for making this dream come true!
Thank you Mark Pines, for your precious time and friendship and filming it all!
And thank you Israel Colon, for just jumping into our lives and volunteering to shoot it all!
Greg Wittrock, 'one-of-a-kind' experimental theater artist, who uses the mediums of ice skating, masks, dance and sculpture to explore, communicate and characterize the human condition. His castmember; Alyssa, also dancer and ice skater; Shelton, and Tyrone Micheal Thomas, dancer and inline skater, also friends of Kari.
And Diane, the Precocious Princess, webdesigner and designer and again a friend of Kari.
And Olga, Russian model, ALL OF YOU, thank you so much for all your time and volunteerd to make this Fashion show ONE OF A KIND!!!! Zuss loves you all.

Tuesday: today we had lunch with Adrienne Weinfeld-Berg and Amedeo Angiolillo, president and ceo of Ontone.com (site down) and for the next 6 month Zuss will be in the Gallery! This is again good news! It will take a couple of weeks, though.
This evening we had a goodbye party at Standard, a bar in East Village, with Kari, Tyrone, Mark, LindaAnn and Conrad, and this was really nice and we had a lot of fun!! We made so many friends in NYC!

Wednesday: hanging around at the hotel the whole day, we went on our way back home at 16.00; and back home we went! We arrived Thursday, November 2nd.