Last year I took part in Austin Fashion Week mash-up team competition. I worked with designer Benson Roberts, hair stylist Ivy Kim and model Stella Sebit.
In the initial meeting, Benson said “lets drive to White Sands New Mexico for the shoot”. My initial response was “Are you mad” but before I could finish the thought, it struck me that this was a brilliant idea.
The first model we had in the meeting was a no- show at 10pm on the night we were to drive to New Mexico. We furiously got on FB and the phone to see who we could get at the last moment. Within 2 hours we had convinced someone (who none of us knew) to get in the car and drive to White Sands at midnight. Stella had actually never modeled before. She was just over 6 feet tall and when she walked in the door we knew she was perfect. Given that she was in school working towards being a doctor, he was granted special permission to take the 3 days off for this adventure.
We got to White Sands at 9am the next morning and found a hotel in the closest town about 16 miles down the road. We spend that first day doing test shoots with different outfit. The second day Benson brought out the red dress, and Ivy got to work with the hair.
Once we were done and back in Austin, the difficult job was picking the image to submit – there were just so many incredible images as Stella knocked it out of the park.
Fast forward a few weeks and we are at the awards night for Austin Fashion Week and when it came time for the winner to be announced, we were overjoyed that the piece we had worked so hard and invested so much in took the award of the golden cowboy boot.
Here for your viewing pleasure is the winning shot :)
Thanks to Benson Roberts, Ivy Kim and Stella Sebit for your incredible work and for making it such a pleasure to be a team together. This would not be possible without you guys.
