Celebrating Red: Live Fashion Illustration for Alain Mikli Eyewear

‘All in red’ fashion portraits for Alain Mikli’s New York City boutique event in April 2026, celebrating the launch of their bold red eyewear collection.

Live illustrations by Deanna Kei, done entirely in red

I created live fashion illustrations for guests throughout the two-day activation at the Madison Avenue store, capturing individual looks through a red-focused palette inspired by the collection.

Guests stopped by for quick portraits and posed in their favorite frames, with each sketch completed in around five minutes, allowing for a steady flow while keeping the experience personal and engaging. The event also featured Polaroid moments and drinks for guests, creating a relaxed, social atmosphere within the boutique setting. The legendary designer, Alain Mikli flew in from Paris for the event and shared stories and style tips with attendees.

Deanna Kei creating live portraits at the Alain Mikli New York event

In the evening, the activation extended into a private in-store celebration accompanied by a live violinist, which added to the atmosphere of the event and created a more immersive, luxury experience. Live sketching continued during the evening, becoming part of the rhythm of the space as guests mingled and celebrated the collection.

Each portrait highlighted personal style alongside the statement frames, offering guests a unique, bespoke takeaway from the event.

An Alain Mikli client poses with her live portrait by Deanna Kei

Live fashion illustration brings an interactive and memorable layer to luxury retail activations, combining entertainment with a personalized artistic experience. For this NYC boutique event, the focus on red created a cohesive visual story that tied each portrait back to the collection.

Working in a live setting allows for spontaneous, expressive sketches that reflect both the energy of the event and the individuality of each guest. It was an inspiring opportunity to translate Alain Mikli’s bold, sculptural eyewear aesthetic into something immediate and personalized.

Deanna Kei is a fashion and beauty illustrator who collaborates with brands to create custom illustrations, and illustrated trend reports and content. She also sketches guests live at special events, brand activations, weddings, and private parties. To discuss a collaboration or book live fashion art for your next event contact: DeannaKei@gmail.com or see here for more details!


3 Creative Live Activation Ideas for your NYFW + Valentine's Day Event

Valentine’s day is taking place during New York Fashion Week once again! If you’re in search of the perfect, on-theme activation to entertain your guests with, you’re in the right place! Here are some creative station ideas to make your special event unforgettable:


 

Guest in sketches in this post are wearing looks from Dior Spring ‘26 and Valentino Spring 26

 

  1. Decorate your own fashion portrait

Guest’s love seeing themselves transformed into fashion sketches, especially when they’re dressed for the front row! Take it a step further by setting up a little decoration station where guests can then embellish their portraits with stickers, glitter, or other fun accents. Bonus points if you include branded elements! For example: stickers of mini shopping bags with your logo, or tiny product stickers guests can place on their sketch. This not only adds a playful, interactive touch, but it also reinforces your brand in a memorable way!

Live Fashion sketches: Get guests involved by letting them embellish their portraits after the artist draws them.

2. Fashion ‘Galentines’

Treat your guests to their own Valentine featuring a fun fashion portrait of themselves. To make it extra special, you can provide lace, colorful mini paper hearts, and ribbons so they can each decorate their Valentine themselves after having their sketch done. This is a perfect way to give attendees a keepsake they’ll treasure, and also invite them to join in on the creativity.

Fashion valentines: Guests can take their completed sketch over to the DIY valentine station and get creative!

3. Themed live product customization

Have an artist onsite to personalize your gift bags in real time! This creates a lasting, functional memento from the event, and also gives guests highly shareable, on-theme content. It works especially well for cosmetics and fashion brands, events with swag and sponsors, and bridal showers or parties.

Product customization: Guests can request specific motifs, or the artist can offer design options from a brand approved list.

After all, when Fashion Week and Valentine’s day overlap, it’s the perfect excuse to host the cutest event! 💕

Which of these ideas is your favorite? Leave a comment!

 

Deanna Kei is a fashion and beauty illustrator who collaborates with brands to create custom illustrations, and illustrated trend reports and content. She also sketches guests live at special events, brand activations, weddings, and private parties. To discuss a collaboration or book live fashion art for your next event contact: DeannaKei@gmail.com or see here for more details!

Creating Custom Cookware for Gigi Hadid: A Special Collaboration with Maybelline

In celebration of Gigi Hadid’s 30th birthday this past April, Maybelline commissioned me to custom design and paint a Le Creuset Dutch oven as a one-of-a-kind gift from the brand to Gigi.

 
Custom-painted Dutch oven by Deanna Kei for Gigi Hadid’s birthday, featuring illustrations of her favorite things.

The finished design for Gigi

 

Gigi has been an important Maybelline brand partner for many years, and they wanted to give her something extra special for her 30th birthday this year. So… what does one gift to Gigi Hadid?! Her love of cooking is well known — she’s even shared photos of her Le Creuset collection in the past. Maybelline and the PR agency LaForce reached out to me with the perfect way to combine her interests into an extremely personalized gift with a luxury level of customization.

Included Maybelline lipstick in the design of course!

They provided inspiration images along with insight into Gigi’s favorite colors and personal interests, and I presented several concepts for review.

Their original inspiration board presented quite a challenge: how could I incorporate such a wide range of interests — pasta, horses, the color yellow, lipstick, photography, New York City — into a cohesive design? Suddenly, my sketchbook was full of unusual ideas: flowers with pasta petals, the NYC skyline with lipstick and pasta replacing some of the buildings... [trust me, you don’t want to know].

Gigi loves photography so LaForce asked to include it in the design!

At first, I was envisioning fully painted scenes that would cover the entire pot — but it just wasn’t feeling like me. I realized I had been approaching the piece like a painter — and my strength is in illustration. Once I shifted to thinking in illustrated vignettes, the creative direction really came into focus.

Using Procreate on my iPad, I mocked up six of my favorite designs onto a photo of the Dutch oven so the client could visualize how each would look on the actual pot.

After they selected their favorite concept, we collaborated closely through the approval process. We exchanged a few rounds of emails and revisions before locking it in. Working digitally in Procreate gave me the flexibility to make quick edits and reposition elements as needed.

Finding oven-safe and dishwasher-safe ceramic paints that didn’t require kiln firing was another challenge. After a ton of research, I discovered a French brand that was perfect and fully heat-safe: Pebeo Porcelaine 150 paints and paint markers, and I learned that synthetic brushes were recommended for type of paint. I bought a fresh set of brushes to avoid contamination — it was important that no non-bake-safe material mixed in.

Custom-painted Dutch oven by Deanna Kei for Gigi Hadid’s birthday, featuring illustrations of her favorite things.

These Pebeo paints were perfect for the job!

The paints needed to be cured in the oven to fully seal them. I had never “baked” my art before, so I picked up a mini Dutch oven locally to perfect the process before working on Gigi’s piece.

During the test run, I learned a few helpful lessons:

  • Once the Pebeo paints are dry, but prior to curing, you can’t paint over them — they’ll chip off.

  • In the seconds before they being to dry, you can wipe them off cleanly with water.

  • Some colors are more opaque than others.

  • You can layer and re-cure paint as many times as needed to correct or adjust areas.

Outlining the illustration with a Pebeo paint pen

Then came the really complicated part: replicating my approved illustration onto the full-sized Dutch oven! I re-sketched each component of my design separately on paper, cut them out, and positioned them on the pot while measuring spacing. I re-worked them a few times until the sizing and spacing were correct.

Since everything needed to be oven-safe, I couldn’t use chalk or pencil guidelines — so I freehanded the entire design, removing one paper at a time and drawing in it’s place. Thankfully, the paint’s water solubility gave me a few seconds to correct any missteps.

I used the paint pens to draw clean black outlines for each motif. Once that dried I then filled in the colors with liquid paint using my new brushes.

Filling in the outline with Pebeo ceramic paint

The Pebeo Porcelaine paints had very specific instructions: 72 hours of air-drying, then oven curing at the recommended temperature and time. Once cured, the paint became permanent and fully functional.

The finished Dutch oven features a vibrant, personalized design that features many of Gigi’s favorite things: pasta, photography, New York City, horses, sunflower yellow, and of course: Maybelline lipstick. The gift was shipped directly to her as a birthday surprise from her longtime brand partner.

The final design wraps around the entire dutch oven!

It was such a fun, unique project to work on — and a great learning experience for working with heat-safe materials. I’m so grateful Maybelline chose to partner with me on this. I hope Gigi Hadid loves it!

Deanna Kei is a fashion and beauty illustrator who collaborates with brands to create custom illustrations, and artwork. She also sketches guests live at special events, brand activations, weddings, and private parties. To discuss a collaboration or book live fashion art for your next event contact: DeannaKei@gmail.com or see here for more details!