Shooting with Bryan and Loni

Over the summer I had a test shoot that I never got around to writing about. In mid-August I shot with Bryan Whitely, a young Chicago photographer who shoots amazing stuff. I think he has shot almost every model in the city.
Bryan did his own styling and Loni Hale was on hair and make-up duty. The Loni-Bryan combo is fantastic!

Test Shoot Fun

A few weeks ago I shot with a young Chicago photographer, Chris Rucker. He is a student at Columbia College and does amazing work. It was the most enjoyable test shoot I have had to date.
Hair and make-up was done by Kat DeJesus and styling by Colin Boettcher. The combined work of these three is perfection.
Being an early morning shoot I brought a dozen donuts to set. By the end of the morning I had eaten four and the donuts had even been included in the shoot.

Style Chicago: Art of Fashion

In mid-October Chicago hosts the weeklong Fashion Focus. Throughout six days there are many designer presentations, trunk shows, and fashion shows. The largest of the events is the culminating fashion show: Style Chicago's Art of Fashion.

I was lucky enough to book this show for the second year in a row this fall. The casting was held in the conference room at the agency and Tracy Tarantino's familiar face was there to make her selection of girls. As usual, the fitting was held in a swanky suite in the Trump Hotel downtown and the clothes were all beautiful. 

I ended up with five outfits in the show- two are pictured here.

Fall in Five-inch Heels

Fall is a busy time for fashion in Chicago. There are many fashion shows and presentations around the city from September into October. As a model this time of the year gets hectic. In the last month and a half I have moved back to Chicago from Detroit, resumed classes at DePaul University, and been to more runway castings than I can count. 

The night I moved back to the city I worked Fashion’s Night Out at Northbridge Mall downtown. We models were dressed by the city’s best stylists and acted as mannequins throughout the mall’s concourse. Since then I have spent most of my days running from casting to class and class to casting.

The most important casting to date was for Joffrey Ballet’s Couture and Cocktails featuring New York designer Pamella Roland’s spring 2013 runway show. I felt calm at the casting though did not expect to be chosen. Later that afternoon my agent e-mailed telling me to hurry back to be fitted for the show. Unbelievably I had booked it.

After trying several outfits made of supple tweed and shimmering silk my final looks were decided. I would wear one black, trained evening gown, a cream colored jacket and flowing pant set, and a black corset and poncho with a wide legged pair of white pants. The shoes to go with the outfits were simple black or nude stilleto-ed sandals that were relatively easy to walk in.

The show rushed by in a flash of changing clothes and last minute adjustments.

Since then I have attended several other castings and will be walking in Chicago’s Fashion Focus tent in Millenium Park. As long as I don’t trip in my five-inch heels the rest of fall season should pass in a multitude of comp-cards and hurried hellos. 

(photo from Joffrey Ballet's Website)