On a cold and somewhat slow morning, a few visitors surprised me. No, they weren’t construction workers looking for a lost address sign… They were a group of Baltimore Sun and Washington Post reporters on a scavenger hunt for their friend’s birthday. dresscodebygita.com was able to cross off a substantial number of things from their list, including an expensive purse, lady in red, pearl earring and a white button.

I hope the group found everything they were looking for! They definitely made my afternoon!

-miss dresscode

Please enjoy the transformation of an empty space in Baltimore’s Harbor East into

Pop-Up Shop #2!

It has been almost a week and I am still recovering from the party, are you? In continuing with the “last minute” theme, the TEAM worked nonstop to get the boutique ready for Thursday night. To the guests the party may have appeared seamless, as if we waved our magic wand and everything came together. In reality we put all our perfumed sweat and mascara smeared tears into the party and the grand opening of Pop-Up Shop #2 in Harbor East.

We celebrated a glamorous occasion with friends, family & Prosecco. Glistening Jewels and sparkling flutes adorned the fabulous guests and guests of guests. Always the social butterfly, Gita fluttered around the room mingling and striking a pose for our resident photographer, Kirsten Beckerman. Gita looked fabulous in her chic ensemble, bright red lips and soaring heels. Tech savvy Nick worked out the kinks of the stubborn webcam, so we could bring you a live broadcast of the PARTY at Justin.tv. Vanity Fair Oscar Party DJ, Steve McMahon of Happy Soul Club in England, created the ÜBER hip music especially for the affair.

The magnificent Martina kept everyone calm and happy as she danced around the room mingling with clients and averting all potential meltdowns. The always helpful Frances cheerfully greeted every guest. The PARTY would not have happened without the support of H&S’s Michael Beatty, his lovely wife Nathalie and Chris Janian, who all popped into the reception on Thursday Night. They were finally able to enjoy the shop without being asked constant logistical questions about the space.

It seems our guests enjoyed the party as much as we did, Brain Lawrence of Baltimore Style mentioned our PARTY in his blog. Gita received many compliments from her friends, some of which we posted last week. All in all, we found the affair to be a giant success! I can finally rest for a few days… until the holiday rush!   – Miss Dresscode

Just a few things Baltimoreans are saying about POP UP Shop #2….

“A beautiful Pop-Up.” -Neil

“Bravo again. Brilliant space.” -Nancy

“All the best for 2011, Gita!!”-Kaushik

“So happy to have you in the neighborhood.” -Paula

“Thank you for bringing lovely elegance to Baltimore!” -Emily & JR

“Welcome to la center-ville in Baltimore.” -XO Christina & Hannah

“Congrats! Gita you are a star again! ” – XOXO Chi Chi and Andrew

“I love Neil’s work, it’s fabulous and your new space is great – will be by more often now. Congrats!!” -Jordan

“Everything is beautiful! Wish I bought more cash! Thank you for your hospitality …. Good Luck!” - Megan, Keegan & Stacey

“Baltimore has been waiting for something like this ! Thanks from those of us who have had to go elsewhere for such stimulation! ” -Maria

You must be curious what all the talk is about…pop in and find out!

More to come in the next few days about my experience @ Thursday’s marvelous PARTY……….

Dresscodebygita.com is excited to feature a lovely young artist, Neil Lonsway, at our new Harbor East pop-up shop. Gita discovered Neil at the MICA Student Art Show in May. Enjoy a sneak peek of his graphite sketch drawing “Aware” – You will discover this piece as well as other works at the party tomorrow night.

Neil Lonsway is a Canadian born artist currently living in Maryland. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 2010 with his BFA in drawing. Neil was born in Ontario, Canada. He spent most of his childhood living and traveling in West Africa.

His work focuses largely on the use of figures and the way they interact with the space around them. He often chooses to omit the space entirely in order to create a stronger connection between the viewer and the figure. The amount of empty space surrounding the figures is carefully chosen and considered. It is meant to evoke a range of emotions in the viewer and allow them to create their own background and space.

Please take a minute to learn more about Neil and his works at his website www.isolationinthevoid.com and enjoy Neil’s dialogue with Gita @ http://vimeo.com/11884762

See you tomorrow night at the party – 810 Aliceanna Street 5-8 p m

No excuses not to attend, but if you truly can’t make it enjoy the party with live streaming by justin.tv – just click here

XO

L

Have you ever gotten to that point where you can only laugh about a series of misfortunate events? You can’t be frustrated anymore because the newest problem is just absolutely ridiculous? US girls have just gotten to that point…

Gita has been working with Nick on our amazing YouTube video. If you have not seen it please take a few minutes to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbGVU-ev8_U

Anyways, Carlos worked very hard yesterday to get the projector up for Thursday’s party. We are excited to have Nick’s video because it fills a large unused space and it brings the elements of movement and color to the shop. Well, what Carlos failed to mention was that he had installed the projector upside down. His answer for his reasoning was simple and quite logical, “I installed it upside down because you wouldn’t be able to reach the controls. I figured the fancy projector would allow you to flip the image.” We thought the same thing, but unfortunately that was not the case. Between the projector manual and our video expert, Nick, we have concluded there is no way that image will rotate, wonderful! Gita finally broke down in laughter. She suggested that maybe we should just leave it, “It can be like Viktor and Rolf in Milan, everything upside down.” Carlos is on his way to fix the projector now. I don’t think we will be going with the inverted theme, although it would lead to interesting conversation at Thursday night’s party.

I wonder what tomorrow will have in store for us? Remember positive thinking! The pop-up shop looks amazing, please stop by 810 Aliceanna Street, Harbor East.

I am a planner. I have my “to do list” for work and my personal list. Every night before I go to sleep I check everything off. You can only imagine how I have felt over the past 72 hours as we scrambled to set up our pop-up shop. One word describes it “chaos,” not organized chaos, pure and simple CHAOS.

When I walked into 810 Aliceanna on Wednesday afternoon all I saw was a mess – half painted walls, dirty concrete floors, ladders, tools, trashcans, construction workers, and electrical wires. I thought to myself “Gita are you crazy, there is no way this is going to be opening on Saturday.” I have worked for Gita for just over two weeks. In those two weeks I have learned two things. First, Gita always has a vision. Second, Gita will always execute that vision, no matter what!

I had no idea what was ahead of us, and quite honestly no amount of planning could have prepared us for this week…

First, we had no phone line. Now that might not seem like a big deal since everyone over the age of nine carries a cell phone, but when you are in a concrete building surrounded by concrete walls it is a VERY big deal. Cell phones and particularly the “can do everything” iPhone would have full bars in one spot and zero bars two feet to the left. Not only did we not have a working landline this week, we couldn’t call anyone to get us one.

Second, no Internet. Thanks to the wonders of technology the Internet and the phone line are the same thing. No phone = No Internet. Thankfully Chris Janian came to our rescue and convinced our sweet neighbors, Haagen Dazs, to share their Internet with us. Yay for Internet and ice cream!

Next, the fire marshal refused to approve the space because of a curtain that separated the showroom from the office. Instead of subjecting our customers to a view of drywall and steel while they tried on that beautiful diamond necklace, we built a wall…in a day. This wasn’t just any old wall it is a 14 ft X 27ft wall. This wall threw a wrench in our design concept, so we went back to the drawing board. We decided to put our logo on the blank wall. This of course created a new set of problems, we needed to find someone to make the logo and we needed to put up shelving, fast. Who knows how to measure, space, and draw shelves for Carlos to follow? Why me of course, ahhh that architecture degree does come in handy after all. With the wall up, we now needed the mirrors to go up as well. Gita and I came up with this great concept, or so we thought-hang the mirror from the ceiling in the corner to make it appear as if it was floating off the wall. Carlos quickly brought us back to reality and instead hung all the mirrors staggered across the wall in record time. It was not the original concept, but it looks fantastic next to Neil’s amazing life size graphite sketch. To add more pressure to the party we had a conga line of onlookers and visitors coming in and out of the door as we quickly ran from one project to the next.

Rome might not have been built in a day, but our pop-up shop was. We kept are cool and best of all we finished at the 11^th hour! It is truly amazing that we started with “blah” and now we have a full showroom with everything in its perfect place. I can finally breathe and I have time to write a sentence. We still have a few things to finish up, but we are open, clad in our chic black outfits and ready for business. The finishing touches will be completed over the next week, just in time for the party! Although it was fun to live in the moment for the past 72 hours, I think all continue my planning ways. Thank you to everyone for the support and amazing help!

XOXO

Lauren