Hi every­body! My name is Christina, and I am one of Shirin’s assis­tants. Our team recently attended the “Red Bull Art of Can” Open­ing Night Gala on Fri­day, July 30th, and I’m here to give you all of the details!

Shirin was asked to cre­ate 4 designs incor­po­rat­ing Red Bull cans to show­case at the event. Along with Kourt­ney (Shirin’s other assis­tant), we began work­ing on the gar­ments sev­eral weeks ago. We started cut­ting cans..a very tedious task by the way..and after about 12 cases, we finally had enough cans to make the gar­ments. We came up with the designs, and although we didn’t know exactly what to expect the final out­come to be, the sewing began!

For any of you who have ever won­dered if it is pos­si­ble to sew alu­minum cans together, now you have your answer!

The first dress Shirin made was a bit dan­ger­ous. FYI, Red Bull cans are really sharp! We cut  the cans into flower petals and sewed them across the front, up to the shoul­der, and then on to the back. To make it more dimen­sional, we turned the edges of the petals out..which made it look awe­some,  yet also very weapon-like.. as Shirin quickly found out the hard way! The dress turned out great though, and fin­ish­ing it made us all even more excited to make the rest of the gar­ments.

We started work­ing on the other 3 out­fits imme­di­ately after fin­ish­ing the first one, and our project quickly pro­gressed! 300 cans later.….

The most dif­fi­cult part of the entire process was con­struct­ing our “wings.” We wanted so badly to make them work; we were deter­mined not to give up! After 78 cans,  we fin­ished the high­light of our Red Bull Col­lec­tion.

In addi­tion to the gar­ments, we made some acces­sories for the mod­els to wear with their out­fits.

By the day of the Gala, we were cross­ing our fin­gers that every piece to the puz­zle would fit, and hop­ing that the wings would fit in someone’s car! (Nat­u­rally, Shirin’s mini cooper was auto­mat­i­cally out of the ques­tion)

Later that evening, we arrived feel­ing anx­ious and excited for the event!! After walk­ing through the Gal­le­ria and receiv­ing extremely strange looks for car­ry­ing gigan­tic Red Bull wings around the mall, we made it to the Ice. We were then led to a dress­ing room, where hair and makeup artists took over and prepped all of the mod­els. Shirin had asked me ear­lier that week if I would wear one of the out­fits, so I was excited to join the other mod­els and get all dolled up! With lots of down time before our appear­ance, luck­ily we were able to adjust all of the pieces and make sure that every gar­ment was in tact.

At 9:45, after prepping/hiding back­stage 2 1/2 hours, it was finally time to make our grand entrance!

Shirin onstage talk­ing about the pieces

The girls with the nights mc Steve Kem­ble

The Art of Can Gala for Red bull was a blast! Thank you to Red Bull and my amaz­ing team for mak­ing it a huge suc­cess! ~Shirin Askari

Event Pho­tos by Quoc Cong

Accord­ing to the press release:

I have recently been work­ing  on my debut col­lec­tion that will show Feb­ru­ary 26th in down­town Dal­las.  It is going to be a very excit­ing event pro­duced by the ever fab­u­lous Jan Strim­ple. I have part­nered with the Fash­ion­istas for this fash­ion show. It is a won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion that raises money for stu­dent schol­ar­ships.

ALSO Kalyn Hemphill, the model who won Mod­els of the Run­way will be fea­tured in my show as well! She is a sweet­heart orig­i­nally from Lake Jack­son, TX.  Since I decided to have my debut col­lec­tion shown in my home­town of Dal­las, TX instead of New York I thought Kalyn would be a won­der­ful south­ern addi­tion to the show!

Kalyn Hemphill, Win­ner of Mod­els of the Run­way

Its going to be a great night filled with sur­prises so make sure to buy your tick­ets soon, they are sell­ing fast! All the pro­ceeds will ben­e­fit the F2 Schol­ar­ship fund. You can pur­chase your ticket here.

See you on the runway!.…Well not “on” the run­way unless your a model

Two new stores have just picked up my line. They are both amaz­ing stores in Dal­las. Melanie Gayle has two loca­tions, one is in Snider Plaza and the other is at the Shops of Legacy. It is a beau­ti­ful store with won­der­fully sweet peo­ple ready to help you. The other store is called Assem­bly. It is located in the West Vil­lage in Dal­las. Assem­bly has a mod­ern, trendy atmos­phere with a great selec­tion of pieces. I am thrilled about work­ing with these won­der­ful new stores. If your in the Dal­las area make sure to check them out!

http://www.melaniegayle.com/ourstore.htm

http://www.worldofassembly.com/

As many of you prob­a­bly know my time on Project Run­way was cut short 3 episodes from the finale.  I left real­ity TV world  and finally said hello to reality…and it feels pretty nice. It was a great expe­ri­ence and one that I feel blessed to have been a part of. I learned a long time ago that every­thing hap­pens for a rea­son and there is no need to look in the past and won­der why.  Although, I will say that all of the amaz­ing love and sup­port every­one has shown me through the immense amount of emails, mes­sages and posts have  truly meant so much to me.  I wanted to thank you all again for your kind, heart­felt, encour­ag­ing words which have not gone unno­ticed.  SO many of you have expressed your frus­tra­tion about my departure…but I guess I would rather leave the scene and have peo­ple be upset that I’m gone, rather than upset that I’m still there 

Now …enough with the mushy stuff! I’ve been so busy fill­ing orders for stores, doing cus­tom wed­ding dresses and now work­ing on my new col­lec­tion. I’m so excited because I just picked a venue for my Fall 2010 Fash­ion Show!  I wanted my first big show to be where I grew up so I made the deci­sion to have it in down­town Dal­las.  More details to come so stay tuned!

Lots of love,

Shirin

So… as some of you may know, I protested Crocs from the very begin­ning.  The one on left is their attempt to be “cute.”  To me, its still just as awful as the mon­stros­ity on the right. Again, unless your under the age of 12 this is just not accept­able.

And now I come to find out that some­one despises them just as much as me.

FOXNews.com: What is the one fash­ion trend you want to see dis­ap­pear?

Tim Gunn: Crocs!

Glo­ri­ous. 

Link to arti­cle

Shop THIS week­end only August 27 – 30 at shirinaskaristore.com and you will receive 20% off your ENTIRE pur­chase!

Use Dis­count Code: SAVE20 at check­out to save!!

Project Run­way Sea­son 6 just started!!  I pro­duced some shirts for the Project Run­way store and they are up for sale! I even designed two shirts for your lit­tle dog 

Project Run­way Shirin Shop

Now I don’t know if its because I’m a his­tory nerd,  I have a love for mar­tial arts, or I like any­thing that makes you feel more pow­er­ful in your every­day life…but I absolutely ADORE these bags from Empire 33. What’s more empow­er­ing that walk­ing around town with the han­dle of a civil war or katana sword?!?!!?…Well maybe the sword itself   Although, that might be a lit­tle harder to coor­di­nate with your out­fit. These beau­ti­ful hand­crafted Ital­ian leather bags are sim­ply bril­liant because they aren’t just a beau­ti­ful piece of art, they are func­tional and they give you more insight on the woman whose hold­ing it. A.…“Don’t mess with me or I’ll cut off YOUR sword to make my next bag atti­tude!!”