Last week, my friend Shae Acopian Detar & I drove out to Pennsylvania to take photos. She pulled up outside my apartment with a car loaded down with sequins, flowers, beads & cameras. Her adorable Shar Pei, Waylon, hung out in the back seat & enjoyed the view as we drove away from the city.

An hour or so later, we arrived at Shae’s grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania. It was gorgeous & located on an IMMENSE piece of property with woods all the way around the perimeter. Shae & I parked the car, wandered down into the middle of the forest, laid all the clothing out on blankets & I proceeded to get undressed! It all felt very The Craft. (Kind of related but mostly not: I had the word “widdershins” in my head all day!)

What followed was a day of many outfit changes, lying in piles of bamboo, climbing trees, scrambling up mossy hills using only our fingernails & getting mud on our boots. It was GREAT! It felt fantastic to get out of the city, run around & fall over.

I’m wearing…

Floral headband by Loulou Loves You
Vintage pink fur coat (found by Shae in an antiques store)
Black sequinned leggings with bead applique (made by Shae)
Black belt
Dr Marten Regina boots

This outfit made me so happy — it’s so “Gala” but at the same time, not how I would normally dress myself! Shae styled me all day which was really fun. I always love seeing what other people want to put me in! When I was in Los Angeles she sent me a text message saying, “I’m in an antiques store & I just found a pink fur coat…” !!! This is it, & it looked even better in person than I imagined. Very Easter Egg Queen!

I love the way Shae shoots, too, which is by using lots of different filters, cameras & lenses to get the look she wants. She doesn’t believe in doing a lot of post-work so everything comes out of the camera looking almost exactly like it does above: dreamy & whimsical & lovely.

For these two photos, Shae, her cousin Ani (who was filming) & I clambered up an enormous hill so I could sit on this tree stump. In the first picture, you can see how steep the hill is behind me! It was so funny crawling around, dancing around enormous earthworms & seeing huge toadstools. Ani was filming a “behind the scenes” & there is LOTS of footage of us all trying desperately to make it to the top of this hill, which I can’t wait to see! Hahah!

I am wearing…

Vintage beaded shirt
Black high-waisted velvet shorts
Pink stockings from SockMan
Vintage top hat
Pink parasol found by Shae’s mother! Who called Shae in the middle of the night to tell us we MUST use it in the shoot! I love Shae’s mother, she is magnificent!

There were a few locations & outfits which didn’t make it to Shae’s final cut, but I’m going to see if I can get my hands on some of the pictures anyway. These include: wearing a huge turquoise bow by Chubby Bunny & walking along a bridge; climbing rocks in a sequinned evening dress; a floor-length Zac Posen gown worn with a boater hat, in a cornfield, pretending to be in a Neil Young video; & wading into the middle of a very prickly tree looking like a loon!

We had so much fun! Shae is about to start attending SVA so she can learn more about photography & I’m really excited for her. I think her style is already so distinctive & beautiful, & she will have a wonderful career!

Here’s what Shae wrote on her blog, Everything Style…

This last week me and Gala Darling took a little trip out to Pennsylvania where I am from, to play dress up in the woods! I rented a 12-24mm lens and I also had my 50mm lens with filters. The 12mm lens setting was a little too intense…the wide angle kind of distorted things a little too much. While I wasn’t super thrilled with how much it distorted some images, it was super awesome to be able to get so much into the photo! I think I am going to try a few more lenses out, I definitely love having multiple lenses to shoot with…options rule! My cousin Ani Acopian is in the process of making a behind the scenes video…so when she is done with that, I will post it! I had a really great time photographing Gala…she was a complete delight!

Thank you SO much to Shae for wanting to collaborate with me, & for producing such dreamy pictures! She is going to go a long way, yes?