This summer I had the opportunity to fly out from NY back to L.A. to do a shoot for Anthropologie. As if shooting for Anthropologie weren’t exciting enough, the sunny day in L.A. was spent working with one of my favorite photographers Graham Dunn (whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with quite a few times now) and the darling Anthro team (whom I’d met a few weeks earlier in Philly, where their headquarters are). There were two sides to the shoot — one was print, primarily showcasing Faithfull the Brand dresses (my favorite being a green, striped one!) and the other was shooting (on 16mm!) a 37 second short about my summertimes in France. If you’ve been following my journey for a while now, you’ll know that talking about summers in France and my grandma are two topics near and dear to my heart. Basically, this shoot was a dream for me. Thank you SO much to Jodie and Graham for a wonderful day. I hope you enjoy the video, scroll down for a few more words, photos & behind the scenes photos!

Photography & Videography: Graham Dunn

Hair & Makeup: Diane Da Silva

Styling: Christy Michal

Creative Director: Jodie Harrison

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Words from my Diary (About the Shoot!)

Well, for starters, I was in rollerskates the entire time. Just as I think I’ve done every possible shoot out there (under water, on a roof, in the Sahara desert), I am put to the test and my limits are stretched (which, for the record, I love. I love a good challenge). Sure, I enjoy going to my neighborhood rollerskating rink every once in a while, but what I didn’t fully realize prior to the shoot was just how different r

ollerskating on asphalt and uneven surfaces would be from slick, even ground. From the moment I wobbled out in my first look, which happened to be on grooved tile flooring, the first trickles of light-hearted laughter (at me but also with me) began. The laughter continued on throughout the day but the grand slam of it all was for our final shot. Imagine this: a seemingly calm neighborhood street, of black relatively-new pavement, lined with romantic trees, on a quiet afternoon day. I thought “Excellent. This will be easy!”. However, the moment I rolled out onto the street to begin my back-and-forth pacing (we do a lot of that as models, in order to "get the shot"), the traffic picked up. Oh, right! We were back in L.A. and there’s this wild thing called “L.A. traffic”. It swarms out from nowhere, invades every street and lasts about five hours. So between concentrating on looking graceful, dodging and moving out of the way of cars, avoiding asphalt cracks and pebbles, and nailing the shot, it was a little stressful (insert smiling emoji with sweat mark on forehead. That was me, except no one could tell I was stressing, because, that’s what I do. I pull through to get the shot, no matter what!). And then something happened to me that happens every time I finally feel a stroke of confidence when I skate (you’ve probably experienced this too at some point in your lifetime): I FELL ON MY FACE. I was skating toward Graham, all was well in my mind, and BOOM, I tripped on a pebble, flew forward and did a complete belly flop onto the pavement. A cool breeze came over the lower half of my body and as I turned my head around, to my horror, I realized that my dress had flown, mid-air, onto the top of my head, so kindly revealing my nude thong and pale booty. The dress was unscathed (thank goodness), my knees WERE scathed (but now healed) and I was at once mortified and dying of laughter. Thankfully Jodie was laughing contagiously hard as well, which made the entire incident feel…like a bonding experience? I mean, what other walls at that point could’ve been broken? The whole team saw my butt! HA! I quickly got back up (because no scratch will stop me from doing my job) and we continued with our shoot. We wrapped two minutes later and that was that! It was an action-packed day of work and giggles and a real joy to film something so special to my heart; despite (rather fun) challenges and sometimes-embarrassing moments, there is no greater joy to me than working with talented, kind people. And these people were that. Talented and kind. Thank you, Anthropologie!

xx

Alex

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A few behind the scene photos:

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Graham Dunn, everyone!

XX