To celebrate designer Stacey Martin’s refreshing rebranding of her clothing line from Kania Couture to Stacey Martin Lifestyle I thought it would be fun to look back on our first shoot together. Stacey has been an inspiration to me for a decade now with her consistent commitment to greatness and hard work, thriving as a successful entrepreneur, designer, dancer, mother and friend. She makes it all look so effortless. Her line of stylish clothes that are made to be moved in is habit-forming, so beware. All her fabrics are locally sourced, hand dyed and machine washable. Feel like you’re wearing your favourite sweats while looking like a million bucks. That’s what Stacey’s clothes do for women.

Back in the spring of 2013, Stacey booked a 16-year-old Herieth Paul for our shoot right before she blew up into global supermodel status. The Tanzanian beauty has gone on to grace the covers of Vogue Italia, Teen Vogue and Elle, walked for  Diane von Fürstenberg, Lacoste, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Armani, Cavalli and 3.1 Phillip Lim, starred in campaigns for Tom Ford & cKone, and is now a brand ambassador for Maybelline. We were very lucky to have her!

The theme for the shoot was “Tropical Luxuriance,” however we were planning to shoot in Quebec so we needed to get creative with our location. We decided to break into a construction site on a Sunday that had a mountain of white sand we could pretend was the fine beaches of Jamaica. Of course, we were risking a confrontation with security etc. etc. but no one was there and the shoot went splendidly. We were blasting Rihanna all day from Stacey’s hybrid SUV. We shot through sunset, exhausted but patting ourselves on our backs for a wonderful shoot completed. All packed up and ready to head home, we piled into the car only to realize we had naively completely drained the battery with our beats throughout the day. Now we were stranded in an abandoned construction site in the dark.

As we frantically read the hybrid’s manual searching for a solution, three dudes on dirt bikes, also taking advantage of the unprotected sand mountain, pulled up to our vehicle to see if we were alright. Luckily they were kind souls and with all of our heads together we managed to get back on the road. The “Tropical Luxuriance” lookbook was born and nobody was harmed! Another one for the books. xo