Behind the Boutique

There are so many things that happen behind the scenes of this little boutique and I promise to share them all but I'm going to start out with the mother of all debacles and how I got half naked for Lavish.

Last year I was introduced to my marketing guru...drum roll please...Cristina Calvet-Harrold of CCH Marketing. She has done more for me than I could even begin to describe. From her no-nonsense representation to post party clean up she has been more than a consultant, she has been a friend. Amongst it all she introduced me to two of my favorite girls to collaborate with, Amy Morelli of The 2u Collection and Abby Liga of Liga Photography. The four of us sat down over a half dozen Crispy Creme donuts and came up with the brilliant idea to have an in store photo shoot to showcase the Fall, Holiday and Spring fashions. And so the adventure begins...

I began by hitting up every networking tool on the web in search of models. If I had a million dollars Giselle Bundchen's cell would have been blowing up but I needed girls who would work with my modest budget in return for exposure. Myspace was a lifesaver and there I found Raychel and Marlene, two local models who I now call friends as they are just as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. So I had Holiday and Spring and the only look left was Fall.

I call none other than Marjorie Robinson, my hair stylist who is so amazing with the scissors that I used to drive from Naples to WP just for an appointment with her, to style the girls' hair for the shoot. She then recommends a much needed third model and we're now in business. So it's the day of the shoot and we start with Marlene for Holiday and things are looking fantastic. She is the most glamorous woman to ever step in front of a photographer's lens I kid you not (right photo). Like a pro she poses her little heart out and 4 hours later we have more shots of her than needed to fill an entire issue of Vogue. Next is Raychel and we're still rolling. She's a complete natural and after having a child only a few months prior, her body is looking so impossibly fit that she puts my without-child body to shame (photo left). Just as we're wrapping her sessions our 3rd model arrives...baby and carriage in hand.

If you were there you would have my look of absolute panic engrained in your memory for eternity. I won't go in to too much detail but the gist is that there was no way in hell she was going to fit in any of the looks I had to shoot nor was she as youthful as expected. I'm doing my best to be nice as she had kindly volunteered her time and was as sweet as can be. A beautiful woman but she was still nursing, having given birth just months before, and her breasts were too large for the samples I had flown in from my designers is NYC and London just for the shoot. I did my best to politely explain the situation and although she was perfectly understanding and gracious for the opportunity, I was still down one model. This might not seem like a huge deal but when you're paying serious money for a super talented team of marketing specialists and photographers...it's kind of a big deal!

So there we are with the store completely rearranged with tables and merchandise scattered to a point of being an unrecognizable disaster zone, cameras ready, hair and makeup waiting and no model. What else could I have done but jump into the fitting room, strip down to my birthday suit and reappear wearing some serious Lavish lingerie. I know it's completely tacky to model for your own store but this was the last resort and as you'll see, we found a way to keep some mmystery as to who the model is. The only thing that put the cherry on top of this comical day was that I had chosen not to board the windows of the store for privacy because I wanted to create some curiosity and buzz on the street. If you've been to the store you know that the entire front is glass and my photo session was for EVERYONE's viewing pleasure. Not to mention that I have a children's store located directly across the street with a clear view of every little detail. A few mommies had to have 'the talk' a little sooner than expected I'm sure. After a dozen or so poses I caved and we put up a sheet to block the outside view. I got my taste of modeling for the day which wasn't an easy task (we almost cancelled the remainder of the shoot!) but we pulled through and some of my shots turned out to be the strongest images for everyday marketing! Here are the ones that made the final cut with some photoshop help from Abby.

Before and Afters...

My debut as an amature lingerie model was painless as you can see we left things quite anonymous but now that all the marketing campaigns have come and gone I can safely admit that yes, I got half naked for Lavish.