FASHION & STYLE
Producing and writing recurring stories featuring real women and trend reports on the latest in fashion and lifestyle.
DIRTY MARTINIS, GOLD MULES AND BETTER LIVING WITH HEATHER CHRISTO | THE REALEST
Why should models have all the fun? Each month we’re finding a “real woman”—i.e., of any shape and size—and giving her the model treatment in The Realest. We bring the wardrobe, stylist, photographer, makeup artist and blog editor—she brings her anything-but-one-size-fits-all personality and style—and we all head out on location for an IRL photo shoot to showcase our monthly Dress Spotlight.
Meet Heather Christo, a classically trained French chef, erstwhile high-end caterer, two-time cookbook author, popular food blogger and enviably polished mother of two. When she and her children were diagnosed with a slew of collective food allergies, Heather (not without a heavy sigh) threw out the butter and eggs and set about using her professional experience to create new dishes that were safe for her family but just as delicious–if not more so–as the food they were accustomed to.
Along the way, she documented her experience on her blog and poured it all into her recently released one-of-a-kind book, full of helpful information and tasty recipes she developed that are free of gluten, dairy, egg, soy, nut, peanut, shellfish and cane sugar. No small feat! Find out how she does it (she’s sharing recipes!), read about her style and see her modeling some of our favorite dresses while being an impeccable hostess in her beautiful home and garden.
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CAKES, SPRING SILHOUETTES AND A MALTESE NAMED GINGER WITH KATE SIGEL | THE REALEST
Having been up since 3AM (her normal wake-up time) and having spent hours at it before our photo shoot even began, Kate was still infectiously all smiles right through the end. It probably doesn’t hurt that her work-life revolves around making beautiful cakes and pastries all day. As the founder and owner of a specialty cake business, Sweet Tooth Cake Company, as well as executive pastry chef for the Huxley Wallace Collectiverestaurant group, Kate’s a busy woman! Fueled by more than just sugary confections, Kate is smart, passionate and inspired by anyone who shares the same ability to get so excited by whatever it is she or he loves doing.
We spent our day with Kate getting her into some of our favorite dresses for spring at her family friends’ gorgeous home on the waterfront. She was kind enough to bring us a vanilla cake to decorate with the most delicious grapefruit curd (!) between the layers all topped with vanilla-orange Italian meringue buttercream frosting (!!). We definitely all congratulated ourselves with a slice after wrapping up the shoot—which we made sure included at least one scene featuring the resident pup, a Maltese named Ginger, who probably ended up getting just as much attention that day from the crew as our seriously delightful model.