People think fashion work is glamorous. This week I styled a rooftop shoot on the Lower East Side in 94-degree heat, and I am here to correct the record.
The call time was 8AM at a walkup off Orchard Street, five flights, no elevator, and me carrying two garment bags and a steamer like a fashion mule. By flight three I understood things about my own mortality.
Styling a shoot in a heatwave is a special genre of suffering. You are wrangling wool blazers for a fall lookbook while everyone is sweating through the linen they wore just to survive the commute. The clothes hate the weather. The model is a saint. I am praying to every god I know, including a few Bollywood ones.
Here is what actually goes into styling a shoot that nobody sees. Safety pins hidden everywhere. Nipple covers taped like an art form. A steamer that runs out of water at the worst possible moment. Me on my knees adjusting a hem while the sun tries to end me personally.
We did seven looks. Seven. Each one had to look effortless and cool while everyone off-camera was actively melting on a Lower East Side rooftop with a view of the Williamsburg Bridge shimmering in the heat.
My favorite trick this week, and I will share it because I am generous, is that in heat you style from the waist up for close shots and let the model wear shorts and slides below frame. Nobody photographs the bottom half. It is smoke and mirrors, babes.
The best moment was around 2PM when we got the shot, that one where the light and the fabric and the pose all agree with each other for a single second. Everyone knows. Nobody breathes. That is the whole job, chasing that second.
We wrapped at 5, and I hauled everything back down the five flights, and I got a mango lassi from a spot on Ludlow and drank it like it owed me money.
Styling a shoot in a heatwave is not glamorous. It is problem-solving in a sports bra with a mouth full of pins.
But god, when it works, there is nothing like it.
Fashion is 10% vision and 90% not fainting.
Love,