Our annual Spring Fashion Issue is always an exciting time: a crazy, frenzied, whacky time, but in an organized way. I stay completely away from the process. My favorite time is when it is over and I get to hear the stories.
Amber Brewer, our Addy-award-winning art director, keeps up with everything fashion so it falls on her small shoulders to come up with an idea to show what Little Rock folks will want to wear. To get a feel for the theme, words are kicked about such as: bohemian, urban bohemian, flowing, natural, re-awakening, green, we need to eat. Wait, that last phrase always happens whenever we get together. In the end we’d call it a lone, mysterious gypsy camp.
A call went out via email and Facebook and Twitter and iPhone. We would need Little Rock’s most fashion-forward advertisers, a vintage Airstream trailer, deer antlers, a rope swing, firewood, a field, an eight-foot Turkish bird cage, a vintage parasol (thanks to Grace Steuri, our first Soirée style icon), a 1970s wicker chair, Tibetan prayer flags, a hand-tooled leather bird mask, an RV to provide shelter for our model and entourage, and lastly, a pretty day.
Everything was found. Can you believe it? Well almost everything. The weathermen missed the mark. It was cloudy and chilly, with wind up to 20 miles per hour on our only day to shoot. Ah, well, when the going gets tough, you know. Our photographer, Jason Masters, and his assistant Zachariah Reeves, fashion stylist Somer Bunger, hair and makeup stylist Angela Alexander, associate editor Amanda Morgan and sales and marketing assistant Christy Kenady were on location at 7 a.m. with Amber and our sales manager, Ashley James (she tied the rope swing) and assistant sales manager Mandy Richardson.
There were 14 full-page shots to be taken in 10 hours. Oh, yeah! And one was a bikini shot. (Don’t start flipping the pages now!)
Our people finished, on time. We thank the good folks of Scott, Ark., for their genuine hospitality. And no one reported sick the next day, which, by the way, was the most gorgeous day ever.
Dear readers, please “really” look at all the inspired details. You will be amazed.
This issue also offers you accessories from bags to clutches and sandals to flats in our hubbub section.
We have our regular features of notable people but with a little fashion twist. And our food section is fully loaded with interesting things.
Finally, we have 33 parties in this issue. That’s 33! I know because I counted them. It’s the most parties in an issue of Soirée ever. Ball after ball, gala after gala, enjoy them all.
Sincerely,
Becki Moore
Publisher and Editor, Soirée