Girls Gone Wild

Wild Magazine, that is, wearing a variety of glasses from 

Selima Optique

It all started last year when we made an impromptu stop into Selima on Bond Street and tried on a selection of their vintage sunglasses.  Remember this opening photo we posted?

And we followed that photo with a number of others, which you can see here.  That got Selima herself and her store manager Elena Polson thinking, and earlier this year they contacted us and asked if we'd like to do a shoot pairing their glasses with our clothes and accessories.  Would we? Hello -- would we ever! So, in April, just before Easter, we got to try on lots of frames from Selima's wide selection.  We chose three pairs of sunglasses and three pairs of eyeglasses each, took them home and built outfits around them.  A week later, Valerie dragged a suitcase and Jean dragged several bags into taxis, and we made our way to Selima's to see what they'd dreamed up for us.

We didn't tell you before because Elena's photos have only just surfaced, in The Wild Magazine in the Arts section online.  Click on the link and check them out!  Since our own shots are no longer (self) embargoed, now we can share the behind-the-scenes look from our perspective.

The first shot was in front of a large colorful mural covering the entire storefront of Ideal Glass gallery on East Second Street.  Here is Jean in one of many poses during this portion of the shoot.  Jean paired a vintage Darcel laquered straw hat with a vintage Norma Kamali leopard print jumpsuit, ivory bakelite earrings and cuffs, and her DIY customized Dankso clogs.

Elena moves in to capture Valerie at just the right angle.  That's a 1930s vintage doll hat (green ribbon added by the wearer), polymer earrings by Elke Kuhn, Issey Miyake shirt and pants, Perry Ellis jacket, green Big Bird ring from Pylones, unlabeled green suede bag with Hut Up green felt leaf attached by Valerie, and Charlotte Olympia shoes.

Tate A.K.O. is Elena's talented partner and collaborator. She designed and painted the most extraordinary props for the second half of the photo shoot. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. More about that later.

There are all sorts of tricks of the trade that you don't get to see in the finished product.  Here, Elena and Tate hold a reflective board to light to Jean's face and counteract the shadow caused by her hat.

When that part was over, the ladies had to take down the paper - called seamless - that they'd so carefully put up.  Elena's concept was to deliberately show us interacting with the seamless - not to look as if we were in a white box or as if we were on the street, but to appear as though we were moving in and out of the frame, between two worlds, so to speak.

Here, we reflect on the next part of the shoot.  Periodically we asked Elena to take photographs of us together, but she was in charge of the shoot, always thinking several steps ahead, so for the most part we photographed one another to chronicle the progress of the shoot.

Glasses are obviously small, intimate objects, so to get the full detailing it's best to photograph them up close.  Both of these sunglasses have vertical black and white stripes. Jean's frame is called "Virginia" and Valerie's is called "Heathaboo".

We styled a pair of black and white outfits around the black and white frames and even wore the same tee-shirt, in opposite color ways, to further tie our looks together.  Jean is in the white on black and Valerie's is the black on white version.

The terrific black and white mural adorning the wall in the alley behind Selima Optique's Bond Street store provided the perfect backdrop for the black and white glasses and outfits.  Jean's Yohji Yamamoto hat topped off her black and white striped Zara Basic jacket, Kedem Sasson slacks, Jeffrey Campbell platform lace-ups and black and white plastic and bakelite bangles, earrings and necklace.

During our shoot earlier this year for Beacon's Closet, Valerie tried on these flat white round-toed oxfords and purchased them on the spot. They were the perfect shade of white to match her suit.  Valerie's vintage white straw hat by Henry Margu, anonymous plastic target earrings, white linen suit by Calvin Klein, shirt from Zara, foam bangles from Chaos, hilarious anonymous bustier bag, and shoes by Nathalie.

The weather had been so unpredictable that we were definitely worried that it might be too cold for an outdoor shoot when we scheduled, but we were blessed with gorgeous weather.  On the other hand, it was also windy, which, on most days would be fine, but on a day centered around seamless turned out to be occasionally problematic.

All better now!  Jean's fan is from the the Brooklyn Museum of Art gift shop.

Our third and last full-length shoot, before retiring to the studio for indoor head shots, was on the sidewalk on Lafayette Street, just south of  Bond.

Valerie paired her purple frames with a deep pink swirled felt Chisato Tsumori hat, vintage pink straw earrings, Yoshiki Hishinuma shirt, Ivan Grundahl dress in shades of purple, pink polka dot socks from a flea market and perforated pink shoes by Aerosoles.

Jean matched her red felt vintage hat to her red frames, bangles, earrings and fan and added a black and white jacket from The Vintage Shop, black resin necklaces, Issey Miyake pants, with Trippen boots with a geta-style platform. (She's standing next to what remains of the seamless after a huge wind gust ripped it right off the frame.)  Luckily, the green wall provided a terrific primary colored contrasting background.

In other cities, fashion shoots on the street might possibly be disruptive.  New Yorkers are so wonderfully oblivious, many -though not all - of them simply ignored us.  Elena encouraged interaction, so many pedestrians just walked right past us, into and out of the frame, while others stood on the sidelines, cheering us on and snapping pictures of their own, at a polite distance.  (All perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the shoot.)

Elena asked us to make faces, gesticulate and just generally get physical on this one, so we raised a bit of a rumpus during this part of the shoot, but we weren't the only local color.  We LOVED this woman's purple hair and wonderful haircut.  (That's Jean in the background, after the wind had once again wreaked havoc with the seamless.)

Tate, Elena's talented partner and collaborator, designed and painted three wonderful boards to showcase our glasses.  There were head-size holes in each of them.  GREAT idea, but boy, were they tricky!  The holes had to be just big enough for heads, but small enough to surround the neck, so everything, including earrings, had to be taken off, the board lowered onto the neck at EXACTLY the right angle (or the nose would get in the way), and then put back on. Of course, the boards were wide enough that once we were in one, our arms weren't long enough to reach around to put the earrings or glasses on ourselves.  We were asked to make fun expressions, which is harder than you think when you literally can't turn your head.  Below, Jean is wearing a black Ignatius straw hat and black and white plastic gumball choker.

Valerie had to re-think her headgear for this shot, since her wide brimmed hat kept colliding with the back of the board. Luckily, Elena came to her rescue with a black feathered fascinator that looked terrific with the black frames and op art.  The glare of the lights on the lenses is other-worldly.

Jean's straw turban -- by Ignatius, of course -- was perfect for this tropical background, and the bright red trim on the frames worked really well with the color scheme.

When we were asked to make comical faces, we obliged, but when we're rich and famous we're going to demand final approval on all our photos, 'cause you have no idea how you look while you're inventing these faces.  It's a risky business.  (Reminds us of our brief stint on reality TV!)

The brim on this hat, by Vogue in Tokyo, did clear the backboard, but just barely. All that angling of hat and board created a broad swath of pale flesh in the midst of all the green, but we fixed that by taking Valerie's shirt from the purple suit and swaddling her neck with it.

Tate's last board looks very much like party confetti in mid-air.  Dorothy Parker said 'men never make passes at girls who wear glasses', and Marilyn Monroe famously quoted her in How to Marry a Millionaire, but these days a woman can party in her glasses, and who knows? - a well dressed guy might very well have a pair that matches.  Valerie's veiled green straw party hat from Printemps, Paris, 1996.  Earrings (plastic replicas of a Monies design) from Etsy.

By total luck, Jean's hat choices (brimless turbans and a tiny black straw hat) and jewelry (choker necklaces) worked beautifully with Tate's painted frames. Who knew? She's wearing a mustard yellow knit turban from Urban Outfitters and her charm necklace.

There you have it!  A behind the scenes look at the world of glamour!

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Oh, and by the way, for you numbers fans out there: Monday is 7/7/14.