Underground Elegance

In the depths of the concrete jungle, I have fallen madly in love with the spirit of New York City. The fashion, the culture, the people, the food, the energy, the hustle, the subway performers, the blue bottle coffee, and those fresh croissants that flake off a little when you bite 'em.

“New York is calling me, it’s on the phone.”

Shooting with Underground NYC is always such a pleasure. He really knows how to capture the true essence of this beautiful, crazy, cool city. For this collaboration we shot the new subway station in Upper East Side Manhattan at 96th St & 2nd Ave. The walls are coated with vibrant blue porcelain tiles and floating white paper decals by artist Sarah Sze.

This elegantly-layered gown is by designer Samantha Samuel, at Fashion Sixty4, is adorned with sequins following the hourglass cut and criss-cross halter neckline. Consistent with one of this season’s “it” trend, the deep-V opening on the chest accentuates the sensuality any woman should feel.

The waterfall movement of this neoprene piece moves fluidly as you walk. Another simple, yet stand-out, detail is the back zipper that goes all the way to the bottom of the fluted skirt.

From time to time I like to do my own hair and makeup for editorials and for my blog. I kept my look fairly simple since my gown is so extravagant. I prepped my skin with Korres Vitamin E Face Primer, followed by MAC Pro Longwear in NC42. My skin tone isn’t even, so I corrected the darker spots with the red/orange creme in the Graftobian High Definition Color Palette. I also used the same palette for my highlight and contour tones. I set these cremes with my favorite Laura Mercier Translucent Setting Powder. I completed this look with lashes, a cat eye, soft tones on my lids, and pumped up the color with my Urban Decay Rouge À Lèvres matte lipstick from the VICE collection.

The waterfall movement of this neoprene piece moves fluidly as you walk.

This location was also featured in Monica Rich Kosann’s ‘Favorite Instagrammable Locations in NYC‘ guide (you can check out the guide here). I got an email about these photos and questions about this fresh subway station, and was later asked to in her NYC locket guide. As a fan of Monica’s jewelry, I was honored to play a part in adding to her curated locations around the city. It’s fascinating how Instagram has really changed the game for bloggers and influencers. It’s kind of become its own world wide web of clickable hashtags and geolocations with the power to direct traffic to almost any social media profile.