My Lovely Friend Meghan and Her Amazing Talent

I wish I could do many things. 

I was in Vegas recently, and I was able to see Cirque de Soleil's production of O. The wonders the athletes can accomplish with their bodies blows the mind, and can make one feel a little trapped inside their own ordinary body. 

I took a circus class once. It was a three hour sampler offered here in the city by Firefly, and it was fabulous. My favorite part of the whole class was swaying in a hammock of knotted silks with my friend Aimee. Being 60 pounds lighter now, I wonder if it would be any easier to climb the rope, swing on the trapeze, or bend around fabric.

I'm too busy now, I think, with photography (or that's what I tell myself) but my friend Meghan pushed passed the circus sampler and has made a lifestyle around climbing up and down impressive tensile strength jersey to sway lithely high above the circus floor. 

I convinced her to let me shoot her, and with her friend Danny's help, we planned to shoot in the only outdoor place they had worked before. the shoot never really came to be, until I casually mentioned the idea to my friend Nicola Gavins, who is by far, the best make up artist in the city and a purveyor of fine ideas. Nicola had costume pieces in the trunk of her car, and so I was whisked into stores and into her lovely collections to pull items and ideas for the shoot. 

We teased, dressed, and stretched. We hauled all of our (heavy) items down a muddy path to the base of the bridge where Danny proceeded to climb (very safely, I might add, no joke!) to an appropriate spot where we could sling up the silks. 

The crazy thing about silks is that in a gym, they hang still, heavy and reliable. In the outdoors, they become giant sails with a mind of their own. There was a forcible vibration that transformed the silks into guitar cords and we had to wait patiently for the gusts to die down before we could shoot again. 

I had a blast that cheerful morning in the sunshine, and I wish I could do it again and again. Here are the images from the shoot. I hope you enjoy.

Hats, tutus, striped socks and pom collar are Nicola's, the white tunic top is from Loft 82 as well as the lace bolero, gold thigh highs are from American Apparel. The black belt with the 2 gems is mine, I found it in a thrift store in London and I've been waiting to immortalize it since.