THE 'GLAM GRANDMAS' FASHION SHOW DECEMBER 2019
- By Jackie Commissar
- •
- 10 Dec, 2019
'GLAM GRANDMAS' SHOW EVERYONE WHAT THEY HAVE GOT!
WOW! 2019 has been a great year as you can see from the cover photo, some of the 'Glam Grandmas' joined together to perform a fabulous fashion show for charity which I will tell you all about a bit later in this blog.
In February of this year after losing all the weight and stopping the alcohol, I decided to go ahead and book a face lift for October. As in 2020 it will be my 70th birthday, our Golden Wedding Anniversary, and my grandson's bar-mitzvah celebration, I justified it by saying it would be the most important year of my life and I wanted to look as good as I could.
I plucked up courage and paid the deposit before we left Florida, determined to save up for the cost of the surgery.
I was still losing weight but feeling well, and when we returned to Spain I continued walking 3 miles every day on the beach. I couldn't believe I was finally going to get a proper facelift even though I had had the surgery in 2013 it was predominantly to remove the filler, this time I was hopefully going to get rid of the sagging cheeks and the jowls as well.
I was still managing my 'Glam Grandma' Facebook group and enjoying reading the posts from all the members. I was gaining new members regularly and everyone seemed to be enjoying reminiscing about their early years, with nostalgic memories, and posting pictures of the grandchildren. However I was feeling that it was becoming a little uninteresting and tried on several occasions to encourage more 'get togethers'. Lunches and meetings were organised and they all seemed to love meeting up.
Around this time I had an idea for a group of special 'Glam Grandmas' to come together and create a fashion show for charity. I have always wanted to prove to everyone that just because we are grandmas we also have a wealth of experience to offer, and we can still look amazing for our ages.
I formed a little committee consisting of 4 friends and my daughter Katie and we worked together to plan a GG's Fashion Show raising money for a charity. We didn't take long to decide on a charity that was close to our hearts, after all its all about children and grandchildren for us and we chose Gt Ormond Street Children's Hospital to raise funds for.
We posted on our group that we would be holding auditions in September and we chose a date which was December 5th, just before Xmas, when we knew people wouldn't be going away. I also wanted to make sure that I had time to get my facelift done and that it will have healed in time for fashion show. We chose a venue and then selected 3 fashion houses to represent. We chose classic smart ladies wear, casual trendy clothes that would suit young and old, and stunning evening wear.
By August when we advertised ticket availability we were blown away when we sold out 165 tickets for the ladies lunch in just a week!
We then decided to extend the day and host a supper show as well, totalling over 300 guests, and once again sold out in no time. We were so excited, and after holding auditions we were thrilled to have Jilly Johnson, Nina Carter, and Tillie Mezzina all former famous models taking part with our 12 other models.
Meanwhile in September I was making my way back to Florida to have my facelift. Tony stayed with Katie and I flew back with my sister who had been visiting us in Spain. I was staying with Rob and my sister was my nurse for the first few days. I was apprehensive, but determined to get it done, I hated the toll that the weight loss had taken on my face, and I had no doubt that Dr Hillstrom the surgeon would be able to improve the look of my face. He had made it clear that he did not perform the typical 'wind swept' tight look that many women asked for, his work was geared at making the face look natural even keeping some of the ageing lines, but ensuring that his patients looked as they always looked but younger. This is what I wanted, I had seen too many disastrous face lifts on celebrities and women I knew, and I didn't want that stretched look.
The surgery took over 7 hrs and I was sedated for 9 hrs. I had the procedure done in the doctors office in the theatre that was part of his surgery. I wasn't given a general anaesthetic, but a deep sedation which meant I would recover quicker. I was bandaged around my head which had staples in it and looked like an Egyptian mummy!
I felt as though I was being strangled around my throat and it was really uncomfortable until the first bandage was removed 2 days later and replaced by a looser one.
On day 3 I started to swell up, I looked like the 'Joker' from Batman! It was then that I developed a hacking cough. I thought it was just a temporary irritation but it turned out to be the worst part of the whole operation. The swelling in my face must have caused severe congestion to the nasal passages which in turn caused post nasal drip. This cough lasted for 6 weeks and kept me up at night which in turn hampered my recovery. Apart from the awful cough though I didn't get much pain or discomfort, and it all turned out to be well worth it!
I stayed with Rob for 3 weeks and spent some precious mother and son time with him. He was amazing, cooking and shopping for me and I was able to spend time with Sky my little granddaughter, who after the initial shock of seeing her grandma with bruises all over her face, just accepted it all as only a child can. Dakota my adorable golden Retriever grand-dog shared my bed with me, and my wonderful sister was my nurse and took me to all my appointments and shopped with me for new make-up etc.
I finally returned back to the UK after 3 weeks to Tony, Katie & the grandchildren, who were nervous to see me as they were expecting me to look totally different. I was also apprehensive and hoped they would all be pleased with my appearance. I needn't have worried, as they all loved how I looked, the children both told me I looked much younger and Harry asked if he could show all his friends Grandma's new face and the pictures after the op!
My husband actually paid me a compliment too, which was very unusual, and it was then that I felt it had all been worth it. I still had scabs that would eventually heal and the cough gradually went away but it seemed to take forever. As I write this it is just over 2 months since the surgery and I am delighted with the results, at last I can't see any lumps and the neck and chin area look really good, no more jowls!!
In February of this year after losing all the weight and stopping the alcohol, I decided to go ahead and book a face lift for October. As in 2020 it will be my 70th birthday, our Golden Wedding Anniversary, and my grandson's bar-mitzvah celebration, I justified it by saying it would be the most important year of my life and I wanted to look as good as I could.
I plucked up courage and paid the deposit before we left Florida, determined to save up for the cost of the surgery.
I was still losing weight but feeling well, and when we returned to Spain I continued walking 3 miles every day on the beach. I couldn't believe I was finally going to get a proper facelift even though I had had the surgery in 2013 it was predominantly to remove the filler, this time I was hopefully going to get rid of the sagging cheeks and the jowls as well.
I was still managing my 'Glam Grandma' Facebook group and enjoying reading the posts from all the members. I was gaining new members regularly and everyone seemed to be enjoying reminiscing about their early years, with nostalgic memories, and posting pictures of the grandchildren. However I was feeling that it was becoming a little uninteresting and tried on several occasions to encourage more 'get togethers'. Lunches and meetings were organised and they all seemed to love meeting up.
Around this time I had an idea for a group of special 'Glam Grandmas' to come together and create a fashion show for charity. I have always wanted to prove to everyone that just because we are grandmas we also have a wealth of experience to offer, and we can still look amazing for our ages.
I formed a little committee consisting of 4 friends and my daughter Katie and we worked together to plan a GG's Fashion Show raising money for a charity. We didn't take long to decide on a charity that was close to our hearts, after all its all about children and grandchildren for us and we chose Gt Ormond Street Children's Hospital to raise funds for.
We posted on our group that we would be holding auditions in September and we chose a date which was December 5th, just before Xmas, when we knew people wouldn't be going away. I also wanted to make sure that I had time to get my facelift done and that it will have healed in time for fashion show. We chose a venue and then selected 3 fashion houses to represent. We chose classic smart ladies wear, casual trendy clothes that would suit young and old, and stunning evening wear.
By August when we advertised ticket availability we were blown away when we sold out 165 tickets for the ladies lunch in just a week!
We then decided to extend the day and host a supper show as well, totalling over 300 guests, and once again sold out in no time. We were so excited, and after holding auditions we were thrilled to have Jilly Johnson, Nina Carter, and Tillie Mezzina all former famous models taking part with our 12 other models.
Meanwhile in September I was making my way back to Florida to have my facelift. Tony stayed with Katie and I flew back with my sister who had been visiting us in Spain. I was staying with Rob and my sister was my nurse for the first few days. I was apprehensive, but determined to get it done, I hated the toll that the weight loss had taken on my face, and I had no doubt that Dr Hillstrom the surgeon would be able to improve the look of my face. He had made it clear that he did not perform the typical 'wind swept' tight look that many women asked for, his work was geared at making the face look natural even keeping some of the ageing lines, but ensuring that his patients looked as they always looked but younger. This is what I wanted, I had seen too many disastrous face lifts on celebrities and women I knew, and I didn't want that stretched look.
The surgery took over 7 hrs and I was sedated for 9 hrs. I had the procedure done in the doctors office in the theatre that was part of his surgery. I wasn't given a general anaesthetic, but a deep sedation which meant I would recover quicker. I was bandaged around my head which had staples in it and looked like an Egyptian mummy!
I felt as though I was being strangled around my throat and it was really uncomfortable until the first bandage was removed 2 days later and replaced by a looser one.
On day 3 I started to swell up, I looked like the 'Joker' from Batman! It was then that I developed a hacking cough. I thought it was just a temporary irritation but it turned out to be the worst part of the whole operation. The swelling in my face must have caused severe congestion to the nasal passages which in turn caused post nasal drip. This cough lasted for 6 weeks and kept me up at night which in turn hampered my recovery. Apart from the awful cough though I didn't get much pain or discomfort, and it all turned out to be well worth it!
I stayed with Rob for 3 weeks and spent some precious mother and son time with him. He was amazing, cooking and shopping for me and I was able to spend time with Sky my little granddaughter, who after the initial shock of seeing her grandma with bruises all over her face, just accepted it all as only a child can. Dakota my adorable golden Retriever grand-dog shared my bed with me, and my wonderful sister was my nurse and took me to all my appointments and shopped with me for new make-up etc.
I finally returned back to the UK after 3 weeks to Tony, Katie & the grandchildren, who were nervous to see me as they were expecting me to look totally different. I was also apprehensive and hoped they would all be pleased with my appearance. I needn't have worried, as they all loved how I looked, the children both told me I looked much younger and Harry asked if he could show all his friends Grandma's new face and the pictures after the op!
My husband actually paid me a compliment too, which was very unusual, and it was then that I felt it had all been worth it. I still had scabs that would eventually heal and the cough gradually went away but it seemed to take forever. As I write this it is just over 2 months since the surgery and I am delighted with the results, at last I can't see any lumps and the neck and chin area look really good, no more jowls!!
So, after arriving back in the UK it was time to start rehearsing for our Glam Grandma fashion show!
Our first rehearsal at a community hall in Edgware was on Nov 2nd. The lovely Grandmas all arrived looking nervous and some had travelled from as far as Essex and Chelsea. Katie & Laurel (my life long friend) had spent weeks together preparing for the first rehearsal, downloading the music and choreographing simple steps for the Grandmas to learn. Everyone became instant friends and we were put through our paces and practised our moves. It was finally going to happen, and with an audience of over 300 we knew we had to look good.
Our small committee of 5 started the work of organising the event. We were all allocated jobs to do, ticket sales, raffle prizes, fundraising and donations, catering and choosing fashion companies, We took the GG's along to 3 shops over the following weeks to try on clothes and selected some classic smart wear, casual wear, and stunning evening wear.
The GG's were amazing, never complaining about travelling to the various shops, or accepting what was chosen for them to wear. We had 3 professional models in our show who had all been famous in their time, they were amazing and explained to us how when they were given clothes to model they were never given a choice, so we all followed their advice and allowed ourselves to be fitted by Katie & Laurel. Katie was adamant that the colours should all co-ordinate which paid off when we saw the results on stage. We were all fitted by experts at the evening wear company who knew exactly what we should wear to suit our figure and appearance. We had such fun meeting up on those days and it was all topped up with fabulous hats that some of us were to wear for one of the numbers. We were ready!
In the past I had been involved in a lot of amateur shows and many of them had been with Laurel my dear friend who was now helping with the choreography. Laurel had continued on to make a career from her dancing, and is still today running fabulous Zumba classes, some of which cater for the more mature lady! Some of these ladies were our models and they all performed Zumba dances modelling casual wear at the show. Because they practise these steps on a regular basis they were fantastic at remembering the routines, but the problem was when we all had to remember the other choreography to model to we froze, at an average age of 69 yrs old with 73 grandchildren between us the memory cells are not what they used to be!
We all got together when we could in between rehearsals to practise the steps, mostly in Katie's kitchen, and I would walk the dog in the park with Katie rehearsing steps in my muddy boots in the freezing cold and drizzly rain! It was all going in while we were doing it...and going out when we weren't! We had only 6 rehearsals to perfect the show and clearly this wasn't enough!
We were lucky enough to be given the venue to hold 3 of rehearsals in, and Katie video'd us so we could look back and see our disastrous mistakes....argh!! We never thought we could pull it off! In between the rehearsals Katie & I were filling over 300 goody bags with cosmetic samples and little gifts and discount vouchers for the guests which we had packed on the dining room table, we were wrapping raffle prizes and collecting grandchildren's names to print in the programme and charging £5 per name. We worked every day and night to prepare for the show and finally on Dec 5th we performed the most fabulous event, and we are so proud to say we raised over £15,000 for the sick children at Gt Ormond Street Hospital.
We were also lucky enough to have a leading newspaper interested in the show and have been promised an article, so fingers crossed we hope to have some fame for the 15 GG's! I will always be grateful to all these lovely ladies who joined me in making my idea a reality. We hope to continue with more fashion shows and events in the future and show the public just how amazing we all are in this chapter of our lives.
See you next blog!
Our first rehearsal at a community hall in Edgware was on Nov 2nd. The lovely Grandmas all arrived looking nervous and some had travelled from as far as Essex and Chelsea. Katie & Laurel (my life long friend) had spent weeks together preparing for the first rehearsal, downloading the music and choreographing simple steps for the Grandmas to learn. Everyone became instant friends and we were put through our paces and practised our moves. It was finally going to happen, and with an audience of over 300 we knew we had to look good.
Our small committee of 5 started the work of organising the event. We were all allocated jobs to do, ticket sales, raffle prizes, fundraising and donations, catering and choosing fashion companies, We took the GG's along to 3 shops over the following weeks to try on clothes and selected some classic smart wear, casual wear, and stunning evening wear.
The GG's were amazing, never complaining about travelling to the various shops, or accepting what was chosen for them to wear. We had 3 professional models in our show who had all been famous in their time, they were amazing and explained to us how when they were given clothes to model they were never given a choice, so we all followed their advice and allowed ourselves to be fitted by Katie & Laurel. Katie was adamant that the colours should all co-ordinate which paid off when we saw the results on stage. We were all fitted by experts at the evening wear company who knew exactly what we should wear to suit our figure and appearance. We had such fun meeting up on those days and it was all topped up with fabulous hats that some of us were to wear for one of the numbers. We were ready!
In the past I had been involved in a lot of amateur shows and many of them had been with Laurel my dear friend who was now helping with the choreography. Laurel had continued on to make a career from her dancing, and is still today running fabulous Zumba classes, some of which cater for the more mature lady! Some of these ladies were our models and they all performed Zumba dances modelling casual wear at the show. Because they practise these steps on a regular basis they were fantastic at remembering the routines, but the problem was when we all had to remember the other choreography to model to we froze, at an average age of 69 yrs old with 73 grandchildren between us the memory cells are not what they used to be!
We all got together when we could in between rehearsals to practise the steps, mostly in Katie's kitchen, and I would walk the dog in the park with Katie rehearsing steps in my muddy boots in the freezing cold and drizzly rain! It was all going in while we were doing it...and going out when we weren't! We had only 6 rehearsals to perfect the show and clearly this wasn't enough!
We were lucky enough to be given the venue to hold 3 of rehearsals in, and Katie video'd us so we could look back and see our disastrous mistakes....argh!! We never thought we could pull it off! In between the rehearsals Katie & I were filling over 300 goody bags with cosmetic samples and little gifts and discount vouchers for the guests which we had packed on the dining room table, we were wrapping raffle prizes and collecting grandchildren's names to print in the programme and charging £5 per name. We worked every day and night to prepare for the show and finally on Dec 5th we performed the most fabulous event, and we are so proud to say we raised over £15,000 for the sick children at Gt Ormond Street Hospital.
We were also lucky enough to have a leading newspaper interested in the show and have been promised an article, so fingers crossed we hope to have some fame for the 15 GG's! I will always be grateful to all these lovely ladies who joined me in making my idea a reality. We hope to continue with more fashion shows and events in the future and show the public just how amazing we all are in this chapter of our lives.
See you next blog!
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