Publisher: Champagne and Heels | Fashion, film, food, music and fun from both sides of the track

Hellin Kay is a magazine editor, stylist, brand consultant and photographer with fifteen years in the fashion and entertainment industry. She was born in Moscow, Russia and emigrated at age seven to Baltimore, Maryland where she developed an obsession with music, fashion, film and art as a result of too many trips to the museum with mom and too many punk shows at an impressionable age. After graduating with a BA and MFA in film from Bard College, Hellin moved to New York City and went to work as a design assistant for Calvin Klein in the men’s collection design department. Soon after she got bit by the styling bug and accepted her first job in the publishing world as the fashion assistant to Fashion & Creative Director Polly Mellen at Allure magazine. Following Ms. Mellen’s retirement, Hellin was hired as the fashion editor for the newly launched Russian Vogue and has since worked as a stylist, fashion editor and photographer, both as a freelance contributor (L’Uomo Vogue, i-D London, British Vogue, Elle, Nylon, French, Blackbook, and others) and as the staff Fashion Director & stylist for the Russian editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Spoon Paris, where she styled, photographed, developed and packaged content and oversaw fashion shoots and on trend editorials. She has collaborated as a stylist on shoots with photographers including Deborah Turbeville, Tierney Gearon, Larry Fink, Guy Aroch and Greg Kadel, and as a photographer with fellow stylists Kate Young, Laurie Trott and Kusum Lynn. Most recently she was West Coast Fashion Editor for Women’s Wear Daily and Editor in Chief / Creative Director of Signature Magazine, an LA-based fashion and entertainment monthly which Hellin re-designed and re-launched with the September 2009 issue. In addition to styling and photographing countless actors, fashion editorials and advertising campaigns she has also written on the subject of fashion, music, film and art for print and online publications and has spent fifteen years honing her eye and creative skills in every facet of the industry, working with some of fashion’s top brands, designers and magazines. Her art and fashion photography has been published in numerous magazines and books and included in group and solo shows in the US and abroad. Her short films have been written about and screened at film festivals and she has styled and directed music videos for young emerging artists. She has photographed and styled advertising campaigns for a variety of brands including Joe’s Jeans, Anthropologie, Enza Costa, Guess, Godiva, Selfridges London, Black Halo, Style Network, ShoeMint, Denim of Virtue and Club Monaco. She has also done trend forecasting and brand consulting for Alpinestars, Sorel, Sears, Conde Nast Digital and others. Her celebrity clients include Sosie Bacon, Ana de Armas, Nikki Deloach, Tia Mowry, Dawn Olivieri, Taryn Manning, Jessica Szohr, Jessica Stroup, Rachel Bilson, Abbie Cornish, Brendan Fraser, and Matthew Perry. She has covered trends at Coachella for WWD and Marie Claire, and styled fashion videos for InStyle magazine. Most recently she styled advertising for Cosmopolitan digital of the Peter Som and Kohl’s collaboration. During New York Fashion Week in September 2011 and February 2012 she styled the runway show for Tara Subkoff’s Imitation of Christ Spring Summer 2012 and Fall 2012 Collections. Hellin, who really loves to feed people and throw parties, also hosts intimate curated dinners with brands in Los Angeles, New York and at the Sundance Film Festival for friends, fellow editors and stylists, celebrities, filmmakers and other influencers. We like to celebrate love and talent. She has an Instagram account that is now her obsession but has yet to buy an iPhone. (*iPhone bought December 2013!) Champagne & Heels The name of the blog may not always match the content but that is somewhat the point. What you see is not always what you get and vice versa, and on a good day there should be a surprise beneath the surface. We are all walking contradictions and cliches. That is the beauty of it. #ProFaux forever.