Olandria Carthen was already running late at 7:08 a.m. when the car pulled up outside, her pillows still brown from falling asleep in full glam the night before. That is the unglamorous arithmetic behind a week of back-to-back shoots: waking at 4 a.m., boarding flights to Miami and back on the same day, then flying to Nigeria, all while trying to mentally schedule a house renovation somewhere in the gap. For anyone who wonders what a rising creator’s momentum actually feels like from the inside, the answer is Olandria‘s answer: take it one day at a time, because thinking about all of it at once makes you want to lie down and not move.
Two shoots, two cities, one very long week
The week held two major campaigns. The first was an LA-themed commercial shoot at a private house so impressive that Olandria announced on the spot she would be pulling her interior design inspiration from it. The house had a full nightclub on one side and a pool with a skyline view on the other, and the production team used a spray bottle and a Home Depot bucket to create the rain-soaked hair look rather than putting anyone in chlorinated pool water. The second shoot, the one she had been building toward, was the Brandon Blackwood collaboration campaign, filmed out of a studio in New York from her penthouse-adjacent base she has stayed in so many times she jokes she manifested ownership of it. Brandon Blackwood, she explained, was one of the first designers to support her straight after the show, at a moment when most people were not willing to take that risk. The collab covers four bags, one of them a vanity bag with a mirror built into the flap, and the drop date is timed to her birthday.
The team that makes the long days worth it
What carries both shoots is the crew. Hair stylist Khalil worked from what Olandria cheerfully described as a booster-seat angle just to reach her updos. Glam artist Esther, who apparently asked Olandria when she planned to post her birthday photos on the actual day of her birthday, ran a self-imposed challenge to complete a full makeup look in ten minutes, with ambitions to bring it down to seven, then five, then simply close her eyes and imagine it done. Kamora got called out for having no home training. Reggie’s attitude was attributed to hunger and a need for snacks. Matthew was described as a ball of sunshine. Ginger from the nail team showed up with a full kit of lemon-yellow press-ons nobody asked her to bring, purely out of kindness. Olandria rated the whole ensemble ten out of ten.
At one point during the LA shoot, with the crew racing the fading sun and someone on a megaphone announcing they had an hour and a half of light left, Olandria repeatedly volunteered herself as a body double for the pool shots, on the grounds that no one would be able to tell the difference. The offer was declined every time. She remained unbothered. She also walked into the pool in red-bottom heels for an iconic exit shot, acknowledged the shoes paid the price for it, and concluded that the shoes could be replenished and the moment could not.
Putting it plainly after the Brandon Blackwood wrap, she said: ‘I’ve never done a shoot to this caliber before. I love doing new things and venturing out to see what I like.’
The nails Ginger brought without being asked
A full kit of lemon-yellow press-ons sat on the prep table at the LA shoot house, brought by Ginger entirely on her own initiative after noticing Olandria painting press-ons in her own content. The kit stayed out all day.
By the time both shoots wrapped to a round of cheers and someone raising a glass, Olandria was already eyeing the calendar for Miami, then Nigeria, then a house renovation she hopes to start in June or July, still running the same math she started at 7:08 a.m.: one day at a time, pillows and all.
