Romeo and Juliet

With Valentine's Day looming upon us, I felt compelled to share this photo shoot, inspired by one of the most famous love stories ever: Romeo and Juliet. Arguably, there can be no better combination than fashion and great literature--at least to me.

This was a shoot from December Vogue 2008. Ballet dancer Roberto Bolle was invited by Vogue to star alongside model Coco Rocha in a fashionable rendition of Romeo&Juliet. The shoot is called "Love of a Lifetime" and was shot by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz.

Juliet (AKA Coco) dons some amazing couture dresses, featuring some designers like by Christian Lacroix (ball scene) and a gorgeous Alexander McQueen red silk tulle gown in the heart-breaking end scene. It is an absolutely beautiful shoot, to accompany an equally beautiful story.

I've featured some of my favorite lines from Romeo and Juliet along with the pictures.

"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw saw true beauty till this night."

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Ok...I know this is a more serious post, but it must be said. NICE TOOSH!!! Ow Ow!!

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off! It is my lady. Oh, it is my love. Oh, that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp. Her eye in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!"

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love and I'll no longer be a Capulet."

"Amen, amen. But come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one short minute gives me in her sight. Do thou but close our hands with holy words, then love-devouring death do what he dare; It is enough I may but call her mine." Romeo

"Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance, not of ornament. They are but beggars that can count their worth. But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth." Juliet

"I defy you, stars!"

"As is the bud bit with an envious worm 'ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, or dedicate his beauty to the sun."


"O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty."

"Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death. (kisses JULIET, takes out the poison)

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy seasick, weary bark. Here’s to my love! "

"Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust and let me die."

"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."