Where babies, I mean baby fashion features, come from

If you’ve had a look at our April issue, you’ve hopefully enjoyed the illegal levels of adorableness that is our Criminally Cute baby fashion feature. You guys, I wish I had a video of the meeting during which we brainstormed the concept. It started with a tiny seed (I said, “I kind of want to open with a lineup of babies”), spiraled into an overgrown weed (someone mentioned, “We could do a ‘public intoxication’ shot with a bunch of empty baby bottles strewn around some drooling munchkins.”), and was honed down to a well-manicured flower bed (a voice of reason stepped in, “Let’s keep it classy, y’all.”). Here’s the inspiration photo, which depicts a lineup of staff members at another baby shoot years ago and is displayed proudly on an office bulletin board:

And here’s the final product:See the resemblance? Sometimes I can’t believe I get paid to do stuff like this. P.S. An insider secret: Three of the babies are family members. Oscar, the chubby, tatted little man, is my nephew. Isn’t he edible?

Alex, the seemingly innocent cherub (who is beating on her partner in crime’s head with markers in this behind-the-scenes film) is Associate Editor Alyson West’s daughter. These days, Alyson puts her hair in pigtails, and it is positively too much to handle. And Max is Associate Editor Rachel Reiff Ellis’ baby. Can you believe the day of the shoot was his first time standing like that? His strong little legs held him up for an impressively long time, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t sat for longer than 30 seconds since. P.P.S. You did watch this video I linked to just two paragraphs up, right? I promise, you won’t regret it.