International Day of Friendship

 

Today is International Day of Friendship. In honor of that, we'd love to tell you a story of two best friends. Magic truly does happen when women connect. 

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Sun-Tzu and I met on my first day shooting for E&B. When I met the makeup artist, she immediately said “Omg wait until you meet Sun-Tzu, you guys are going to love each other.” It was so interesting to me that she said that about some person I didn’t even know! Later on, Sunny came to set and we said ‘hi’ but didn’t speak much. We had a short break and all of the models started dancing together. Then, Rihanna’s ‘Work’ played in the studio and her and I immediately started tearing it up on the floor. We were so in sync dancing. It was wild. We had the best time. THAT’S when I was like ‘okay, who is this girl?’ Haha.

It was love at first conversation. She was really sweet. I told her I was going to get vegan pizza after the shoot and also told her about a yummy vegan breakfast I had had earlier. She asked “Are you vegan?” 

 I thought she was going to be off-put by the fact that I was. But instead, she said, “I’m vegan too”

…I thought she was lying. It was too perfect. Especially since I was not expecting that response. Turns out we had the same lifestyle. Which meant a lot to us.

After the shoot, we went on our first “date” at a vegan pizza spot in Portland. We talked, ate yummy pizza and vegan ice cream and it was like we had known each other forever. It felt like our souls were already connected from a past life and we were just quickly picking right back up and getting each other updated on where we are in this life.

When she moved to LA, it was kind of surreal. We were in this long distance friendship for about six months. We talked on FaceTime pretty much every day so when she moved it was interesting to be like ‘oh, we can actually hang out in person now.’

 But I think we were so used to FaceTime (still are), that when we don’t see each other for a week, or only for a limited amount of time, we still always FaceTime.

A lot of our time together is spent talking, helping each other, cracking jokes and loving on one another. Our favorite thing to do is stay inside and make yummy food, then cuddle up and watch movies. But usually we don’t even finish the movie because we just end up talking so much. We love going out dancing to afro beats. She was my date to a wedding once, and a Bat Mitzvah! That’s probably the weirdest thing we’ve ever done together. haha.

The most recent shoot we did together was awesome. We had so much fun on the flight to Portland. The TVs on the plane weren’t working so most of the time we listened to music sharing earbuds and talking about a whole bunch of stuff. 

Honestly, this most recent shoot we did together with EB was awesome. I mean, who gets to shoot a campaign with their best friend, where you met, AND with a brand you love and admire. I’m grateful we got this opportunity. It’s something we will remember for the rest of our lives. Doing what you love with people you love is what I would consider success.

Sincerely,

Joi Liaye
EB model