I am NOT a morn­ing per­son, let’s just start right there…But as lethar­gic as I felt the past two morn­ings when my alarm clock, which has never seen that early, buzzed me awake at 4am, I fun­neled large amounts of cof­fee and quickly began to antic­i­pate the excite­ment of the day ahead.

Yes­ter­day, as I made my way inside the two-​​bedroom cot­tage in Alys Beach, I joined the lovely group of ladies who have come together for a photo shoot that means more than just show­ing off cute clothes and beau­ti­ful women, it’s a state­ment. It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tion of pow­er­ful, intel­li­gent and styl­ish women who have trav­eled and worked across the coun­try, yet have found their home in the retreats of Scenic 30-​​A. With the city lifestyle still in their blood, it comes as no sur­prise that they want those else­where to see just what it is that makes this area so attrac­tive and stylish.

The idea to show­case the area’s styl­ish beach riv­iera orig­i­nated with Sheila Goode, a well-​​known and amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­pher, who part­nered with Nfo­cus Mag­a­zine, the pre­mier social lifestyle mag­a­zine out of Nashville, to cover a story about New York fash­ion at the beach. For some rea­son, it seems that “emer­ald coast” style res­onates a under­whelm­ing impres­sion in the minds of those who don’t live here. In fact, the very ladies who Sheila brought together includ­ing myself, Alli­son Craft (Alli­son Craft Designs), Hay­ley Green (Hay­ley Green Pho­tog­ra­phy), Julie Van Otten (Make-​​up Artist), Stephanie Nichols (DejaVu & Judith March Cloth­ing), & Paige Schnell (Trac­ery Inte­ri­ors) have all at some point or another worked in or with the fash­ion indus­try in some of the biggest fash­ion epi­cen­ters in the coun­try. We all want to show­case not only our arts and tal­ents, but more impor­tantly to make a state­ment about all the fash­ions and fash­ion­istas which make this area so incred­i­bly chic and memorable.

Sheila approached me to help style about eight dif­fer­ent ladies, NYC style, in cloth­ing donated by designer, Stephanie Nichols, who pro­duces a line of woman’s clothes called Judith March and Deja Vu. Alli­son Craft’s beau­ti­ful hand­made pearls were laid out all over the comfy white bed ready to be paired with the tons of fab­u­lous shoes, acces­sories, hand­bags and hats that filled the rooms with color, inspi­ra­tion and flair. We all fever­ishly pulled, plucked, paired, and per­fected out­fits, hair, makeup and acces­sories to make sure we had the per­fect looks. The finale to all of yesterday’s hard work, sweat (because it was 100 degrees out­side), and patience, was the last shoot of the day.…the Sex in the City shoot. Some­thing about see­ing every­thing put together and brought to life out­side at the mag­nif­i­cent Cal­iza Pool, made me com­pletely under­stand what we were work­ing towards and why we really do want to show off our local style, tal­ents, and designs. Every­thing has cul­mi­nated into a fab­u­lous, fun and mem­o­rable shoot.

Here are some of the shots I took dur­ing the last two days. These are only a few that I was able to squeeze in, but we lit­er­ally have hun­dreds of awe­some pics, so there’s more to come!!  S’amuser!

Just this morn­ing, Alexan­der McQueen, one of fashion’s most ecclec­tic and iconic design­ers, was found dead in his apart­ment in Lon­don. He was only 40 years old.

His design, unpar­alled. His pas­sion, remark­able. His life’s work, legendary.

We are sad to hear the news, but his fash­ions will be remem­bered for years to come. RIP

Don’t fear my friends, you will soon be able to see the lat­est in fash­ion trends, news, design­ers, bou­tiques and more from the Emer­ald Coast and across the globe!

We have cor­re­spon­dents in NYC, Miami, and Europe who are cov­er­ing the lat­est in every­thing chic! Stay tuned for our offi­cial launch in Feb­ru­ary after the Mercedez-​​Benz Fash­ion Week in New York. You won’t want to miss out on all the newest fash­ions and chic pics! Going to be uber fabulous!