So yesterday Peeled Snacks' new chic, sexy t-shirt made its debut at New York's sensational, somewhat slightly ridiculous Fashion Week, where all the glitterati and fashionistas were on display to applaud our simple yet essential new statement, marvel at the beauty of our runway model (thank you Laura), and then go back to looking for Lindsey Lohan.  We had a small crew on hand to record some of the goings on, and hopefully we'll post some footage from the event in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately, the crew wasn't recording the actual runway debut of the shirt.  If anyone, perhaps, recorded in hi-def digital in the main auditorium yesterday from 1:30 to 1:50, I'd pay good money for your footage.  Or, well, I'd send you a lot of free t-shirts.  Would you prefer to be paid in snacks, perhaps?

There's been a great deal of buildup to the release of these tees.  Starting back in June, we had a designer put together some baseball tees to show off at a food expo (see the Peel Me blog entry from July).  At that point we elected to use the catchy, sexy slogan Peel Me.  That of course made quite am impression, sometimes though a bit too much of one.  Peel Me certainly garnered attention, though too often it led to off comments by VERY excited conventioneers.

One very unexpected yet pleasant reaction to those shirts heard from many was "where can I get one?"  I loved hearing that- it meant that I could finally start transitioning from my dream job as a snack magnate to my other dream job as a fashion maven.  But as we'd only printed 10 Peel Me shirts, we didn't have any way to spread the love.

Over the next month or so, our most worthy intern Rachel (or, as we like to call her, Rachelcalafrajalistic) put together a plan to get more T-shirts out there, and with the help of our great base of customers, we came up, via a submission competition, a new t-shirt slogan to replace the not-ready-for-primetime Peel Me.  Courtesy of Stephen Lahey, a customer from upstate New York, we chose a-peeling.  And the ball started to roll...

So when these goodies arrived last week, we weren't sure just how to debut them.  We considered donating a bunch of them to the New York Yankees, but it turned out that they already had baseball shirts of their own, go figure.  We thought about stapling them to the hull of Space Shuttle Atlantis, but cooler minds prevailed.  For a while we were in negotiations with the George Dubya Bush posse, and there was a moment there when it looked like he'd wear one for his fear mongering, er, 9/11 memorial speech last night, but as he insisted upon wearing the shirt and nothing else, we had to back out.

When someone in the room proposed debuting the shirt at New York's ultra-cool Fashion Week, the seven other people in the room simultaneously all slapped ourselves in the forehead, and immediately afterwards all simultaneously groaned "DOH!"  Considering that designers spend months planning the show, and spends thousands of dollars (if not millions) getting everything worked out, with 2 days to go and a budget consisting of pocket change, we put our plan in motion...

In a few days you'll see the amazing results.  I have about a zillion people to thank, but as I bribed most of them, I'll just give my sincerest thanks out to the LOVELY and talented Laura Valpey and my SUPER-cool, ultra-cunning cousin Andrew Maloney.  Without their help, we'd never have been able to drug the security guards and take those incriminating photos of the judges...

Poem for the day:

No, seriously Mr. security guard sir,

Ms. Lopez-Anthony NEEDS her snacks.

She called me personally,

not even using ONE of her 18 surly assistants,

because she had grown peckish,

and knew that if she went through her usual channels,

she'd have to ruin someone's life.

PLEASE, Mr. security guard, sir,

this is a matter of national security,

as one of our national treasures,

and her heavily insured posterior,

require nourishment that only I can provide.

I'd say it's a matter of life or death,

but considering that several members of Ms. Lopez's staff

have lost their heads over a similar, previous incident,

I have to assume that by now

it's a matter of life AND death.

I'm just here to prevent

any more horror from happening.

No?

Would you let me in if I gave you a dried apricot?

Here, try one.  Tasty, huh?  Have it with chocolate... 

Oh.  Thanks so much, Mr. Security Guard, sir.

(SCORE!)

Peace and happiness, and don't believe a word that Dubya says...

EN "Peel-en" K