catching up: flowers, streetwear and a fashion flashback

Wow, it has been a minute since I updated this little corner of the internet! Time flies when you're having fun, right?

This spring, I styled some spectacularly fun projects for Hour Detroit, starting with a dreamy, romantic floral fantasia for our spring fashion shoot and most recently a totally rad fashion flashback to the 1980s for our prom-themed Best of Detroit issue. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen most of these shots, but here are some highlights from three of my recent Hour projects:

romantic edge

Valentine's Day is this weekend, love is in the air, and it's the perfect time to share the bridal fashion story from the February issue of Hour Detroit! The lovely and talented Cybelle Codish photographed this story at the Russell Industrial Center, a gigantic warehouse complex with some incredible raw spaces as well as artist studios. The raw spaces provided a beautiful, incongruous backdrop for the ethereal, romantic gowns I pulled for the shoot, but they did create some unique challenges. The Russell is raw - really raw, like standing water, layers and layers of dust, disgustingly dirty raw - in the unfinished parts of the building, so extreme care had to be taken to make sure all of the gowns made it out of the shoot alive and undamaged. At one point, the model was standing on top of my coat inside an Ikea blue bag with her train pooled around her to make sure it didn't even come close to touching the ground. Photo shoots are so glamorous, aren't they? ;)

When it came to styling, for the looks shot in the raw spaces, I wanted to bring in elements like leather jackets, biker boots, and black leather gloves for a rougher, edgier take on bridal. By contrast, I wanted the looks shot in the studio of painter Andrezej Sikora to be more classically elegant and sophisticated, but still artistic. The model's subtle tattoos were the perfect compliment to the styling concept, and I'm so glad you can see them in some of the final images. Her engagement ring was also perfect - she got engaged two weeks before the shoot, so we decided to let her wear her own ring throughout!

Check out all the gorgeous gowns below.

hitchcockian fashion for hour

I adore shoots that tell a story. Whether fantastical fairytales or Russian mobsters, using clothes to tell a story is my favorite thing about my job. So of course when I found out we were doing a Hitchcock-inspired shoot for the January issue of Hour, I was beyond thrilled. Photographed by Jenny Risher at the gorgeous Henry Ford Estate in Dearborn, the shoot has a mysterious, noir element that I love. The models were both fantastic, creating characters that perfectly captured Hitchcock's legendary psychological drama. The final images are so cinematic, like stills from a movie.

For the clothes, I wanted everything for this shoot to have a sense of timeless luxury. Classic suits worthy of Cary Grant and femme fatale dresses laid the foundation, with plenty of exquisite fine jewelry and vintage-inspired accessories to take things to the next level. See all the looks below, and visit here to shop the shoot.

say hello to metro detroit weddings!

When I first started styling and editing Metro Detroit Bride three years ago, my personal wedding planning days were long over, but I was so excited to have the opportunity to help other couples on their journeys down the aisle. The magazine has always been about inspiring Detroiters to plan the wedding of their dreams through beautiful images and thoughtful content.

But this year marks a milestone - the magazine has been relaunched as Metro Detroit Weddings, with a more inclusive outlook and a more modern design aesthetic. Everyone at the magazine, myself included, was overjoyed when the Supreme Court ruled to legalize same-sex marriage. Equal rights for all - especially when it comes to love - is a cause we all believe in strongly. The magazine's new name reflects that, dropping the "bride" in favor of "weddings" to show our support for Detroit couples who are gay, straight, and everywhere in between.

To launch the new magazine, our new art director, the lovely Carolyn Chin Watson, created a modern, sophisticated new logo. For the cover shoot, we knew we wanted something equally forward. For our location, we decided on the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University in Detroit. Designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the building is a Modernist masterpiece, perfectly showcasing the exquisitely modern, deceptively minimalist wedding gowns featured in the shoot. Photographed by the always amazing Lians Jadan, this shoot is one for the books. For gown details, visit me on Instagram!