We're in the 2013 Edition of StyleCasters' 50 Most Stylish New Yorkers!

OMG!  We were selected to be in StyleCasters' 2013 Edition of The 50 Most Stylish New Yorkers!  Click here or on the link ( http://stylecaster.com/new-york-style-2013/ ) and check out #45 out of the 54 photos!

We are in great company.  We rubbed elbows (digitally) with Patricia Field,  Courtney Love, Bergdorf Goodman's Linda Fargo,  basketball legendWalt Frazier, Hannah Bronfman, and Scott Schuman, creator of The Sartorialist.   Interestingly, we shared space with chef Marcus Samuelsson. All three of us are obviously doing something right. We were also among Time Out New York's 35 Most Stylish New Yorkers a couple years ago.  (And we photographed Loan Tran in angel wings four years ago!)

The shoot took place on August 10th, so for weeks we've been dying to spill the beans.  Here's the behind the scenes scoop:

Spencer Cain, StyleCaster's Celebrity Editor,  and Phil Oh, our photographer (of Street Peepers fame), arranged to meet us that Saturday morning, and gave us our choice of locations. Above is the photo that made the final cut.

One of the funniest parts of street photography is that it inevitably attracts the attention of passersby. One gentleman intently quizzed us about who we were then then proceeded to tell us his entire life story.  Phil and Spencer were completely unperturbed, and waited patiently till everyone had taken their pictures or asked their questions.  There's a four-lane street just out of view, and to get the angle in "the money shot",  Phil had to time his photos to sync with stop lights and traffic flow.  Many thanks to Spencer for taking lots of candid photos for us.

Here, Phil shows us the results of some of his work.  We could have cropped this photo so as not to show the chicken wire or razor wire or trash, but remember this is New York, with all its wonderful contradictions.  Reality blogging is a natural outgrowth of reality tv.

See if you can guess where we did our next series of shots.  Although Spencer pretty much let us choose our own venue, you never really know what's going to work, so we chose three locales, within a two-block radius.  First was the colorful mural-covered wall above. (Faithful readers will remember when this wall sported a huge Popeye cartoon, featured in our Swedish newspaper shoot this past spring).  Second was the Liz Christy community garden below, and third was outside the New Museum.  All three are on the Bowery.  When Valerie was a kid, 'Uncle Boo is living on the Bowery' was something people would say in a hushed voice, if they said it at all.  (Remember The Bowery Boys movies?  There's a reason they weren't called The Park Avenue Boys.)  Today, if your Uncle Boo is living on the Bowery, you hope he'll invite you to stay in his condo to water his plants while he's away on business.

Wonder what has become of our wonderful Keith Haring dogs?  Like so many women do with their frou-frou dogs, we're carrying them in our bags.  Really!  Why should Little Precious have to roll across the street when he could be carried?!

Phil took a series of shots of us in the garden.  The greenery was very lush and canopied, and here and there were little pools of light.  Although we tried both sun and shade, we all knew the best shots were in front of the mural.  The gents called it a wrap before we even had to go to our third location.  Fast, easy, fun!  What more could a girl want? Below, Phil, Jean and Spencer, before we went our separate ways, mission accomplished.

The best way to make friends with a woman is to first make friends with her dog, right?

Spencer mentioned that Patricia Field had a farmer's market outside her store on the Bowery, so we stopped by to pay our respects not only because she is also one of StyleCasters' Fifty Most Stylish, but also because she's so much fun. Here's the proprietress herself in her civvies with Jean. We run into each other at  lots of events (like Stephen Petronio Dance Company's art auction last year) and Jean sees her on the street walking her two adorable little white frou-frou dogs. We both bought the most delicious heirloom tomatoes and corn on the cob.

Having worked up an appetite, we headed to dbgb, Daniel Boulud's wonderful restaurant on the Bowery just north of the Liz Christy Garden. When we stepped inside to pick up menus, we met John and his friends who were enjoying a snack. When John asked his pals to snap his picture with us, Jean asked if they would return the favor with her camera. As we always say: wearing a hat breaks the ice.

The weather was so lovely, we picked an outdoor table and ordered a delicious cold summer soup (with a hint of mint) and a celebratory cocktail.

While we were relaxing, Catherine Schuller happened to be passing with friends walking north on the Bowery. When she stopped to admire our hats and chat, we gave her our card. Stay tuned for what happened as a result of that chance encounter!

Later that same day as we were making our way home, we were approached by a gentleman with a camera. We generally never say no when someone asks to photograph us. Brandon Isralsky, uncharacteristically, asked to shoot several pictures, and was sporting a camera big enough to photograph polar bears from a mile away for National Geographic. We should have known better, but we didn't, until he was kind enough to send us the results about a week later. Turns out Brandon works for Fashion Bomb Daily, and he sent us a link, which you can click on here, when we appeared on FBD! We can report it now that StyleCaster is out, but at the time we were a little shocked - shocked! - that the outfits we'd put together for StyleCaster actually appeared on FBD. Still, only StyleCaster shot our Keith Haring dogs, so we guess it's okay. (And Brandon, can you fix that name? It's Valerie, not Patricia.)

We don't have to tell you how astonished we were when we got an invitation from StyleCaster to be photographed for this shoot. It was as if we'd gotten a hand engraved invitation from the Pope to visit the Vatican.

Not to say we didn't agree with StyleCaster's assessment, but we were very curious to learn how they knew about us. The answer? Our friend Rolly Robinson, whom we first met last year at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, nominated us. Here are the photos we took last year to commemorate the event (with Valerie wearing the same dress!!):

We were carrying red and white polka dot balls for a shot in front of Louis Vuitton's Yayoi Kusama windows. The entire store as well as the windows were covered in polka dots.  We knew we were kindred spirits when we saw Rolly's iphone cover!

Well, it turned out Rolly works for StyleCaster, and he was singlehandedly responsible - a year later! - for nominating us. So we have Rolly to thank for the great day, the great photos, and the great reaction we're now getting. THANK YOU ROLLY!!! AND THANK YOU, EVERYONE AT STYLECASTER!!!