November 19, 2022

Case Study: Desert Roses Fashion Show

Frankie Pike

We live streamed the first fashion show to ever happen at Willie Nelson’s Luck Ranch during Lucktoberfest on Halloween weekend.

Desert Roses, directed by Hannah Varnell, featured five local queer designers.

We were inspired by the contrast in the style of the vintage-looking film photos from the promotional shoot and the modern, novel garments that the designers created. We took a multimedia approach to blending the promotional video with live stream footage and photos from the event.

The show was backlit by the sun, adding to the hazy, smoking bar look, and helping to create a swanky glamorous feel.

For music, it was important to us to feature a local queer musician, since the show was directed as well as designed and modeled by a queer cast. Futuristic, Austin-based artist Y2K fit the bill perfectly.

In their song TECH.NOLOGY, Y2K embodies a “genderless cyborg that investigates our relationship to fetish, technology, and augmented reality, and imagines an accelerated future where these are embedded within the human experience,” according to DiverseWorks, a Houston-based art gallery that previously featured their work.

LIVESTREAM crew

Live Stream Director + Coordinator: Tony Stolfa
Technical Director: Arlo Bolbolian
Camera Operators: Karla Armendariz, Mason Haggerty, Meg Seidel
Production Assistant: Deni Roque
BTS Photography: Frankie Pike

sizzle team

Producer: Tony Stolfa
Editor: Deni Roque
Director + Photographer: Frankie Pike
Assisstant Director: Keila Martinez
Music: Y2K

photos