New York City 2015
Old Friends, New Friends
6th August, 2015
Every visit to New York has been an opportunity for me to mingle with fashion-forward types that just aren't really around in Ann Arbor. In the past I've managed not to take advantage of these opportunities, instead eating a ridiculous amount of Korean-style fried chicken or hanging out in Washington Square Park to listen to the piano guy (stealing the show for a few minutes when he feels like dancing).
This time I made an agreement with myself to shoot some fashion. I reached out to a few friends in the area to see if they'd like to work together and was greeted with interest!
The first person I contacted was, coincidentally, someone who attended University of Michigan around the same time I had. I never met Lisa before, but I'd seen her work and found her knack for styling to be pretty on point. I had wanted to collaborate with her for about a year prior, but our times and places never aligned well. Fortunately things worked in our favor this time around!
The second person I contacted was a friend I met in my work with NOiR last year. Devine is currently working at Alexander Wang and her background in fashion is visible in her style. I went to meet her in a sleepy corner of the Lower East Side.
We found a few vivid backdrops to shoot against, which contrasted well with the simplicity and stark black of the outfit. I revel in color sometimes. One backdrop we found depicted long, streaking, cotton candy-colored dragons. How fun!
Perhaps my favorite location was in front of a set of doors painted a robin's egg blue. It was as if they were reflecting the bright blue sky we were shooting under. This shot is my favorite — It captures a serenity that I marvel at.
A few days later I arranged to meet up with Lisa at last. I received a pleasant surprise when she got another of her fashion friends involved. Lisa is a buyer at Bloomingdale's, and her friend Kayla works on the Marth Stewart magazine. These two have an impressive wardrobe and wear it very well.
Lisa and Kayla prepared matching outfits — the first was an all-white affair and the last was focused on culottes. I've obsessed over culottes in the past and got overexcited about the whole thing. It turned out just as well as I'd pictured in my head, though, so I'm not complaining.
We started shooting on the Upper East Side in an area with a little grit. Things were under heavy construction and the buildings lining the street had developed a peel as they aged. We eventually moved up to a quaint block reminiscent of the brownstone homes of Brooklyn fame nestled among the otherwise rather plain UES landscape.
I'll dispense with the talking here. Feast your eyeballs on the rest of these photos!
