{ Photos by Armand Smith }

Arriving at tonight’sevent at Terra SF, I checked my mobile phone to see who had checked in on Foursquare. Only “Danny Bloomfield” and 3 others had already checked in so, before anything else, I decided to try to be Foursquare number five for the evening.

At the welcome table, I couldn’t help but notice one of the lists on the attendant’s clipboard was labeled “Influencers.”  I thought to myself - who are these people and who are they actually influencing?? – so, I was very surprised when I gave my name and the attendant stood up and ushered us into the busy main room to meet the event PR team.

Last Friday, I got an email from Janice Yu of Limegreen PR to invite friends to the event and she wanted to meet us. We chatted about Chicago, where she is based, and the upcoming San Francisco Fashion Week. After a few photo ops with our great SFFAMA photographer Armand Smith, I got a text from new face and model Allan Dixon and I see him walking towards us. He was excited about his first advertising modeling gig with the Lytro product team whom he met at one of the Apple Store workshops I curated during AIGA SF Design Week. Allan will soon be coming to your neighborhood Target and Best Buy all over North America as the star of the looped video promo for the cool new Lytro cameras.

After I chatted with Damien Miller, decked out with his camera gear, about his new project and his photo studio, I caught up with SFFAMA’s business developer and Solz founder Brad Carrick holding court in the corner. We are excited about Brad’s new venture, establishing California’s Leading Fashion Law Firm, as a New Equity Partner with the Lord Bertram Law Firm. I met Lord Bertram previously during our Pitch Night and Google+ Workshop and I reassured Brad he was going in the right direction as he was frequently asked by startups about his legal services and fashion startup expertise. Of course, Brad also went to Harvard Law.

I took a breather, headed outside, and finally remembered I had been holding the same EFFEN vodka movie star cocktail called “Picture Perfect” all night, but had failed to even taste it. We were supposed to be circulating the entire venue drinking different EFFEN cocktails while viewing the curated local art exhibit and then go through some stylized voting ritual for the best EFFEN drink creation, but everyone seemed to have “EFFEN” forgotten all of that and were either loading up endlessly on all the cocktails or talking endlessly like me. I decided to make sure I finished my Foursquare checkin.

Heading back inside, I ran into gorgeous model Farnaz Dadashi and her dapper economist sidekick Ignacius Garcia. We chatted about San Francisco Fashion Week and non-profits. Soon, I was directed by Robert Nixon, our CFO, to the other side of the room to say hi to Terra SF owner David Boyle. We were supposed to be venue scouting, not just talking and drinking, and had just met David last week by accident.  We were given very nice business packs and handy swag bags from the Terra SF team.

The flickering of lights signaled the end of the evening as people started their final exits. That’s when I ran into always stylish blogger Adele McElveen of Fashionista Lab. We chatted about blogging and about her Modcloth cover article. As the security guards guided us to the door we merged again with Farnaz, Ignacius, Robert Nixon and one of our favorite fashion designers Scott Ian McFarland. Also in attendance at the were the evening’s host, fashion blogger Lindsey Louise of Complacency Kills, super mom and lifestyle blogger Melissa Sanchez of Savvy in San Francisco, makeup artist Erin Dudley, models Jenn Lazorack and Ben Kline, and Jennifer Choi of Goorin Bros. 

~ Article Written by: Owen Geronimo