Zazzle Blog

Saturday, September 8, 2007

After a shower, a huge dinner and a few hours of sleep, we were ready to rock the Style Villa for Day two. Apparently, Saturday was supposed to be the biggest day with the most traffic and the biggest celebs. Could it get much bigger than Timbaland and 50!?

As the morning rolled around, we were reminded of two Vegas certainties: nobody gets up before noon and if you do, you better stay close to air conditioning or shade. By noon, it was 100 degrees hot!

Trying to stave off exhaustion and heat, we lounged lazily on the chairs in our bungalow. It wasn’t long before someone came by and gave word that Robin Leach had arrived! Robin Leach, Robin Leach!? The legend and man behind the iconic voice that narrated the lives of the rich and famous for nearly two decades? No way. Before I even had a chance to look around, I heard it….

Like a booming ship horn, it came, “ONLY ONE MILLION DOLLARS!” as he examined a 222 diamond encrusted flat iron on display at the bungalow sponsored by CHI professional hair equipment next door. At first I thought it was a mirage…but then the entire Zazzle team looked around in a daze, and suddenly burst into laughter. It was as if we had just walked into a TV show! Needless to say, he rounded the corner and paid us a visit. Guess what he put on his shirt? Yes, you guessed it, “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams”. How predictable.

Once noon had come and gone, things began to pick up. One after another, celebs started rolling into the Zazzle bungalow. A couple of times we even had celebs waiting in LINE to create their shirts! Imagine that, celebrities waiting in line. In any case, here are few of the celebs from day two and their corresponding photos below:

 

Lucy Walsh - She loved her shirt so much she changed into it right in our bungalow. What a cutie!

 

 

AJ Buckley – He made a few shirts, but this was our fav. (In case you can’t read it, it says “So Malaria”!) He also hooked us up and jumped on the SWAK campaign bandwagon. Unfortunately, he coudn’t stop laughing and the lipstick got EVERYWHERE!!

 

?uestlove - Looks like he’s headed to the Scrabble Championships – no, REALLY!!

 

Nelly - Had fun with it, and schmoozed with everyone in our bungalo, including ?uestlove!

 

Tila Tequila – Made a shirt so suggestive I couldn’t bear to post it…

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Ashanti – Aww, Gwen’s #1 fan!

Shar Jackson - Think she wanted to make a public statement? That’s the beauty of Zazzle!
She was even caught wearing it on TMZ…check it out here!

 

Cisco Adler from WhiteStarr – He loved his shirt so much he wore it out the next day!! See it here:

 

Tara Connor – 2006 Miss USA smooches for SWAK, and makes a shirt with one of her fav phrases, “Festive”. Look Donald – she’s a good girl now!

 

 

Joe Hahn from Linkin Park – he really is KISSING! Look at that face!

 

Peter Moran of VMA nominee Peter, Bjorn & John– made a shirt in his native language, and allowed me to apply red lipstick for SWAK – on camera no less!

Melanie Brown & Stephen Belafonte – they smooched for SWAK together, and made a pair of shirts that ended up in Life & Style! In addition, Mel B. did her ONLY interview of the day with Vh1 right in our bungalow!

 

Jeffrey Ross – um, grammar anyone?

 

 

 

 

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It is nearly impossible to find the words to properly describe the insanity that was the Style Villa. Overwhelming, ridiculous, surreal, fabulous – these words are all accurate, but by no means do they say it all. Let me start from the beginning…

Earlier this summer, Zazzle was offered an exclusive invite to be a part of one of the most attended celebrity gifting suites in the industry. The Style Villa. The Style Villa is renowned for attracting huge stars, and for attaining levels of cool that all other events only aspire to. What did participation get us? Three days of hosting a stylish and sexy poolside bungalow at the swanky Venus Pool Club at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, where only the very posh are privileged enough to sunbathe and sip cocktails. Access to celebs and other industry A-listers were promised, and Zazzle decided to put our best foot forward by attempting something we hadn’t done before – taking the Zazzle show on the road. So we fired up the party bus, stocked up on redbull and cheezits, and headed to Vegas! When we arrived, we took our suped-up apparel printers poolside, and allowed celebs to design their own tees and have them made on the spot. Needless to say, it was a HUGE hit. Here is day one…

Thursday, September 7:
It is over 100 degrees, but the team is performing beautifully – we unload our truck, and set up our bungalow without a hitch. Many hours, empty water bottles, and sweat soaked shirts later, everything is perfect and running smoothly. Ready for the big event! See the photos here:

 

 

 

 

Friday, September 8:

Opening Day! The sun was shining, the pool was sparkling, and the temperature was rising. Dozens of gorgeous bikini clad models slinked poolside passing high end shots, cocktails, and snacks. My team (consisting of four handsome, single guys) somehow sweet talked them into our bungalow for a quick photo op. That’s Zazzle’s very own Freddy Fresh!

 

Since most people were traveling on Friday, it was a pretty slow day until late in the afternoon when we saw some of the biggest names in the music industry! We made a shirt for Timbaland that read “Timbo da King”. Apparently, it went over so well his “people” called our people and asked for MORE of them! We printed them up, delivered them to his hotel and he wore them to his big Vegas partay that very night! Lookin good Timbo. Check it out here:

 

While superstar 50Cent refused to enter bungalows of any apparel companies (I am guessing due to an existing endorsement deal), we got an indirect request to create a shirt for him. Our designer Josh worked his wizardry and whipped up this baby for him, inspired by his recent cash-in with SmartWater:

While we couldn’t get a photo of the actual delivery, he was thrilled with it, and let us know by shouting, “I can whe-are dis!” with a huge grin. He really showed us love by wearing it out that very night! Apparently the SmartWater folks weren’t too happy with the public display of his recent earnings, as the SmartWater PR team came to find me the next morning to learn the details… that’s what happens when people express themselves!

Coltrane Curtis hung out with us for a bit, making a totally raunchy and inappropriate shirt! While he went a little off the deep end with his shirt design, he was a very good sport, and allowed me to deck him out with lipstick in order to leave his kiss print for our Sealed With a Kiss campaign coming up in February of ’08.

 

 

 

Last, but not least, Desperate Housewives star Josh Henderson left his lip prints and designed several custom shirts. Josh was great and had a lot of fun with it. Not to be outdone, Zazzle’s own star in training, Mike Karns got in on the action (seen in the middle). Rumor has it Mike’s in the running for a walk-on roll as the next love scandal on the show….has there been a milkman?

All in all, a fabulous and successful day! Stay tuned for juicy details from day two!