Fine Day
photo: Minh Tran
Take more than a dozen teen and tween Portland girls, looks from dozens of Portland designers and boutiques, mix with styling by Rebecca Goldschmidt, hair by Kira Pinski, Lindsay Mae Hill, and Chris Toepfer, makeup by Anna Webber and Madeline Roosevelt, and set them in the colorful ground of Oaks Park as art directed and shot by Minh Tran and you get our latest POINT-OF-VIEW photo editorial: FINE DAY.
It’s been long in the making, this idea of shooting teens or tweens, regal and smart and on the cusp of absolutely everything. Goldschmidt and Tran heroically collaborated to pull it all together. But the real hero of the story is Tracie Smith-McCarthy who conceived of the idea of a fashion design camp for the Police Activities League and reached out to the Portland fashion community to recruit local designers and fashion industry professionals to work with these young women.
This spring, the lovely girls of the Police Activities League Fashion Design Camp took a day out of thinking about making fashion to head out to the park, Oaks Park, to experience life at the other end of the lens in a photoshoot styled by Goldschmidt featuring looks from Portland designers and boutiques including: Adam Arnold, Crow Clothing, Erhart, Flood Clothing, Foundation Garments, IDOM, Diana Lang, Leanimal, Low Key Apparel, Makool, Pendleton, Dayna Pinkham Millinery, Precious Knits, Liza Rietz, Sameunderneath, Seaplane, and Souchi.
It wasn’t easy to narrow this huge photoset down from hundreds of Tran’s excellent photos. Go see here.
POSTED: June 22nd, 2008 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: fashion | 10 Comments »
correct me if i am wrong, but is this the first time ultra has shown people of color on its home page?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you trolling? If this is the first time Ultra has shown people of colour on their home page then it should be commended, and if you had an issue with the lack of colour on Ultra previously you should have brought it up then. As such your insinuations are a day late and a dollar short.
oh come on. the girls are going to be looking at this and showing their parents and friends and you, whoever you are because you aren’t brave enough to identify yourself, decide to make it about race? it’s not about them being beautiful black girls, it’s about them being BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!!!! they could be purple and it wouldn’t matter! they were incredible to work with and did something that most teenagers would be too scared to do– stand up and be noticed. we should applaud THEM for their confidence, bravery, and beauty instead of making snide remarks about ultra.
This is a conversation that needs to take place in print media. There is a great article in the current issue of Vogue about racism in fashion. I don’t think it has anything to do with young girls, but I believe that original comment was directed more at the publication. Yes, the girls look wonderful and your styling is impeccable, the photos are good, too. Personally, I don’t view it as a snide comment but an observation. I have been reading Ultra for a long time and I have to say… I haven’t seen people of color on here before.
filipa, thank you for the lovely comments. i completely agree that there needs to be a forum for this. im just not sure that this posting is the appropriate place to do it…but i suppose we’ve crossed that line already.
i have talked with lisa before about increasing diversity on ultra and this shoot was one of our ideas. the problem with portland is that (unfortunately) we don’t have a high level of diversity. it’s a very white city and there aren’t many people of color involved in the fashion community. the small number who are have been featured on ultra several times–modi of idom; the several black models from portland fashion week; sameunderneath and bishop’s, both owned by minorities; even the entire crew of this photoshoot, myself included, come from asian backgrounds (minus the hairstylists!). minh’s photos are on here all of the time. there may not be a million photos of minorities, but we are certainly involved with this publication in one way or another.
for portland, lisa is doing a pretty good job of representing everyone involved, white or not. as far as the global fashion industry is concerned, white is right. but that’s a different story.
The pictures are so beautiful! I am so proud of the girls. And their parents will be too. Thank you, Ultra for putting them on the cover, this is more then I expected.
Young people being celebrated (black, white, asian, pink or/and green), that’s what I see in the pictures. Bold, beautiful and so much to look forward to, they are our future and if we can be THE influence then let’s be it!
Rebecca is right, Portland (Oregon) is lacking color no fault of any one person. It is just the way it is. But we are here and this article is what it is all about!! We are here!
Again THANK YOU ULTRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First up, all credit to the models and the crew who made extraordinary photos of young women looking like regal versions of themselves. The A. commenter (who is not anonymous at all, but someone many of us know) sees this through the lens of race while I see it through the lens of youth. Who is talking about the images that young women are fed about how they should look, dress, behave? Rather than dwell extensively on a plethora of negative, unrealistic examples for our young women (don’t get me started) we are thrilled to give platform to this great editorial honoring these girls at their best, styled and shot with respect.
I’d been thinking about shooting young people for a long time. The kids at DaVinci Arts Middle School were the inspiration. The students there have miles of style. When Rebecca proposed this project, I knew it would be excellent, but was still blown away by how good the photos are.
Thanks to all.
Lisa
Don’t get you started??hehe you are funny!! DaVinci is amazing!!! Most of the kids in these photos are DaVinci Students….My girl and Lisa’s girl attend.
So much life there!!! I will miss being a DaVinci mom. I was very proud to say my child goes there.
OK OK….back to the pics. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO REBECCA and MINH and ALL Who participated to make it happen. I am still excited about it all. Now if I can get the Fashion show to be half as fabulous!! REBECCA the GIRLS MISS YOU SO MUCH!! They keep asking when is REBECCA coming back! They know you are not but they ask anyway! You made a lasting impression on them. Thank you!!
Both sides pose different viewpoints. Neither is right or wrong. However, I see where A is coming from. I have to disagree that Portland is a “white city”. There are large numbers of Latino, black, Asian, etc populations. Those communities have just as many events as we have “in the city.” It is a choice in reporting, in my opinion, whether to extend coverage to those groups or stick to the mainstream, and what is safe.
Got ya blinders on???….it’s all good. Everyone see’s what they see!!