It all started with the shoes. Somewhere in the middle of last year – no wait, 2010, holy crap! – my friend Cat sent me a cellphone photo of some shoes she’d just seen in a shop. Red-sequinned they were, with black stripey heels, and knowing my obsession with The Wizard of Oz and ruby slippers (I even wore a pair of red shoes on my wedding day), she knew I’d love them.

She was right. After she told me the price-tag, I knew they had to be imported, so I went and Googled, and found them almost immediately. And that was my introduction to the kickass-ness that is Iron First Shoes. I’m not even a shoe girl, and I hardly ever wear heels, but hot damn, I wanted everything on that website. I couldn’t get the ruby slippers out of my head, so a few weeks later I popped into the shop Cat had been in to see them in person.

Well. The only pair left was the display pair, and they were one size too small for me. But they were On Sale. ON SALE. For one fifth of the original price! So in order to justify the purchase,  I decided I would buy them to use in a shoot one day. Photographing them’s just as good as wearing them, right? In fact, better, because it’d be more comfy.

So I bought the shoes – and another pair which actually do fit me, and were also on sale (score!) [see them in the couple shoot I did last year] – and left the store resolving to do a shoot based around them. Which I planned in the back of my head for ages, trying to get past the craziness that was last year and the first portion of this year, and then trying to find a dress, and a venue, and props, and a male model…

Finally we put it all together; I shot it last month, and here it is. My models were Cat and Louis, who are both in bands – Cat is the lead singer in a Rock ‘n Roll Band, and Louis is the drummer for TWO bands! They even brought along a few props to play with. The dress was made by Carla from Estienne Carla Photography, who is not only a crazy talented photographer, but an epic dress designer (Carla, you ROCK!!), and the makeup was done by the most fabulous makeup artist, Sam Scaife of Lashline, whom I love and adore! The coke can bouquet was made by an awesome guy named Christopher, who sits on the pavement outside the Woolworth’s on First Avenue Linden, selling his crafts, and the shoes were MINE. All mine.