We recently worked with a new photographer — the lovely and talented Erika Dufour. I’m not going to lie to you, we were scared. We’ve been working with Karl Rothenberger for a long time now and the 3 of us definitely have our groove down. We love and adore Karl, we love and adore his work and we love and adore working with him, BUT he lives in New York. This means that we’ve had to try and find someone local. Not an easy task, mind you.

Well, we are pleased to announce that the shoot with Erika went off without a hitch. Super-fun all-female (and a little canine) energy filled Erika’s studio that day, and the final result is more than we could have hoped for. We’re very happy and very proud. So happy and proud, in fact, that we’re posting it here. Hope you love it as much as we do =)

photography by Erika Dufour, hair and make-up by Sharon Casey, styling by us, featuring the fabulous Michelle Hicks of Ford Models.

Shop for the looks here.

And as readers of this blog will know, one of those models is Michelle Hicks. Well, apparently, we’re not the only ones who love her…

Michelle has been spending a lot of time in NYC and she’s been busy. You can catch her in this month’s issue of Nylon Magazine. Here’s a sneak peek…

Arlene and I are like proud mothers over here. We worked with Michelle for the first time back in February of this year and she blew us away right from the start. She is a total professional who clearly studies her craft and does not take her success for granted. She works as hard as anybody I know and she is only 19 years old. We had her freezing her tuchas off at the beach a couple of weeks ago and she took it all in stride. When we went to get the first shot…

…we were fussing with her hair, tweaking things, etc. and then went to take off her coat. We took it off of her and she was clearly freezing and we said, “Are you okay?” And she promptly replied, in the loveliest of tones, “I’m fine. Now get out of my shot!” Arlene and I hustled to get our asses out of there lickety-split, and the minute we were out of the frame, that girl turned it on and got her shot.

We just absolutely adore working with her and love everything she brings to our site. Here are just a few of our faves from over the months.

We shot our Nov cover story this past week and unlike the West Coast or down South, it’s cold here in Chicago.  We got completely gypped out of summer AND our indian summer!  The forcast that day was a tropical 60 degrees.  We maybe got close to 50?  Then there’s the wind that takes that number down another 10 degrees.  The wind just whips off the lake and…#@%)^T*($!!  But like those killer shoes, we do it for some fashion  I have to say, the fashion, the photography and the weather did make our hearts beat that much faster

The dynamic duo, Karl & Michelle

There’s Ms Nicole, our hair & makeup artist, trying to stay warm in a doorway and ‘guarding’ all our gear.  Who says fashion isn’t glamourous?

ahhhh….there’s a better picture of Nicole 

many thanks to…

Karl Rothenberger, photographer extraordinaire

Michelle Hicks, model extraordinaire

Nicole Schimel, hair & makeup artist & security guard extraordinaire

Katie Piotraschke, intern extraordinaire