"So, YOU'RE Randall Craig...?"

Vanessa 3.0 In An Original One Shouldered Turquoise Brocade Column Gown. 

Imagine my surprise when on the first night of the Fashion Royalty Topicalia Convention I walked into a room that was just buzzing with people. As I looked closely (through my Vodka induced haze) I saw that the dealer was selling several Randall Craig Designs especially made for the Orlando Convention. I figured the lady sitting behind the register who was dressed in a lovely yellow brocade sheath dress was  a dealer that specialized in the designers clothing that I had never met before. I sat on the bed and watched as many of the shoppers in the room were in a frenzy, grabbing and pulling at the tiny couture that glistened from within their perfectly packaged boxes simply label "RTW". In the corner of the room, I saw a fashionable young man sipping on a drink wearing a pair of aquamarine skinny jeans and a wonderful pair of espadrilles. I thought to myself,"He's cute." Then, when my friends were done, I got up from my perch on one of the two full sized beds in the room and we tra-la-la'd away onto the next room.

I hate shopping on the first night of the convention. Everyone is buzzing with excitement and running from room to room to scoop up the best deals. That's just not me. I really don't "hurry" or "run" anywhere. I think one of Sting's old lyrics stuck with me a long time ago - "A gentleman will walk...but never run." So, I tend to wait until things slow down and if I miss out on a deal or two....oh well, c'est la vie. 
The next day, after I was done with my shift of doing custom hairstyles at the Color Infusion Style Lab, I started wandering from room to room picking up deals here and there. I went back to the room that had been hopping the evening before and saw that there were only a fraction of the lovely fashions that had been there at the beginning of the convention. I saw the young man there again and began to chat with him. This quiet, shy and painfully styllish man turned out to be the designer himself - Mr. Randall Craig. Well, color me embarrassed when I said upon my realization,"You're Randall Craig?" in disbelief. For some reason, I had imagined someone completely different. His design have always been so classic, simple with a nod to retro-fab that I just assumed it had to have been designed by someone a bit older. I was definitely not expecting the person standing in front of me...who looked like HE could be a model himself.

Later, we were going to be hosting a few of the "boys and girls" from he convention to join us at one of the most famous establishments in Orlando - the world famous Parliament House. I invited Randall to come along fully expecting him to politely excuse himself, when to my surprise he answered that he would love to join us. Well, I was tickled pink that he decided to come along and I was happy to find that he was a very sweet, fun-loving, easy-going guy that fit in quite nicely with the rest of the party goers that evening.
After an evening that went on into the wee hours in the morning, we all made it home tired but having had a great time. Later on after nursing a spectacular hang-over, I meandered back to Randall's room (who to the untrained eye looked perfectly put together on the outside...but I could tell "Auntie Mame" was a "bit hung" when I looked closely into his eyes), and I decided that I needed to own a RTW original for my collection and I bought one of his nude muses that were also laying on the bed ready to go home with another collector to hopefully be loved as much as he had.
I look forward to seeing Randall again soon, considering that he lives close to me in Florida (again, much to my surprise) or at least seeing him at another doll event. Hopefully, he will take me up on featuring him in the December Issue of my magazine - www.whatshappeningmagazine.com.
I've included images of his amazing works of art to accompany this article (for your enjoyment) from his website: www.randallcraigrtw.com

Enjoy!
Frank