Baby Model, Cousin, Cyclist…All-Round Good Guy

Alec (Yellow Turtle baby model!) in le•top, circa 1993, with his tricycle and...is he holding a bug?

J. at Yellow Turtle found a “vintage” photo of her son in le•top and sent it over for fun. I loved the old tricycle and the whole composition of this photo; the un-mowed grass, the dandelions, the lone tennis shoe and little Alec looking like the quintessential, all-American portrait of little boy having a great summer! Of course, I wanted to share with everyone on the blog, so I asked J. for a more recent photo of her son, Alec (now 18), and she sent over a few. I noted to her that there seemed to be a cycling theme, and she said her niece, Alec’s cousin, has MS, so Alec has been doing the Bike MS ride since he was 12! Alec and his dad do this ride every year. Last year Alec raised over $2000 – they both rode 75 miles each day, in the hills of Vermont! J. and her daughter are the cooler girls – they wait at the rest-stops with drinks and food. Great family support! We’re looking forward to photos from this year’s Bike MS in Vermont which will be held August 8-9, 2009…Go, Alec!

Alec, now, but still being a little boy at heart! Photo at left is from his Bike MS 2008 event

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Coming Up for Air!

Design Manager, Anna managing kids coming and going at our crazy-fun go-see!

January and February are always exciting months here at le top! During this time we finalize our new collection for the fall and winter – yes, we have to work that far ahead! – then we put together everything to show off our designs to buyers for the season. What does that take? In a word – lots!!! Our first step is getting in all our samples, and “fluffing” them (my word) for taking care of any little problems, hanging, pricing, tagging and finally shipping out a set of everything to our sales representatives located all over the United States.

Second big challenge – photography! This crazy fun task starts with a ‘go-see’ – fashion terminology for model tryouts (I think I promised a little “more” about our go-see a couple months ago when I  first wrote about this. Sorry it took so long – I’m only now coming up for air). This is always pure madness! The go-see is held at our corporate offices – and this year we had a huge turn-out – 128 darlings! Loads of energy – I wish I could bottle and sell it! We joke that we do our own version of “American Idol” – since Karen, our art director, Charly, and I all sit at a table and ‘see’ all the little cuties one by one as they try on our new styles. We look at how the clothes fit and whether the child seems to like doing the modeling – then we have to make some really difficult decisions! Once we have our cast, we start planning our actual photo shoot. Our fabulous photographer, Marcy Maloy met with Charly and me to discuss the details of sets, lighting and all the little details that go into making our magical photos.

This season all the stars aligned and we have great photographs and a very exciting collection! Our sales representatives are showing the samples to store buyers – and they love it! Of course the new fall collections will not be in stores until June, July and August – but here are a few sneak peeks from the photo shoot!

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