Our NY Entertainer of the Week is Kristen Taekman. You may know Kristen from The Real Housewives of New York City! She is the creator of POC Beauty and Last Night’s Look.

Kristen Taekman is also .Luxury’s Fashion Ambassador who’s coveted style reviews and round-ups you can read about on the discover.luxury blog and website. .Luxury is a new and expanding online network of hundreds of luxury-oriented websites, each carrying a signature domain address ending in “luxury”.  The .luxury community is designed to connect brands and consumers interested in luxury products, services and content.

Check out our recent interview with Kristen!

upfrontNY: Can you tell us about Last Night’s Look and how it got started?

Kristen Taekman: Sure, Last night’s Look is my blog. When I was on The Real Housewives of New York I was working with a stylist and we put together all of these exceptional looks that I wore on the show. There is so much that we filmed and if I had to wake up every morning and decide that morning what I was going to wear that day it would take me too long. I worked with this great stylist and matched together all of these different looks that I could pull from, so it was seamless. We had all these great looks and he kept telling me “you should really do a blog” but I didn’t want to because it was too much work.

When the show started airing I had a lot of people on social media reach out to me that they loved my necklace, or my dress, or my shoes, asking where did you get that? I gave into the idea of doing a blog and thought that it was easier to put it all on one platform.

The only name that I really wanted to use was Last Night’s Look because that’s essentially what my blog was; it was Last Night’s Look, what I wore on the show. The show would air on Tuesday evenings and I would post Last Night’s Look on Wednesday morning. In the off-season it evolved into more mommy things, fitness, and New York City. It has been really fun and I really enjoy it.

I still model. Putting on clothes and having a passion for clothing is something that is my roots and it has come easy for me, which is great.

 

upfrontNY: It sounds like working on Last Night’s Look is a lot of fun. Do you have one look that has gotten more attention or a favorite look?

Kristen Taekman: There is a Sex In The City Tour Bus and they do a tour, I went on the tour, and we shot all these different looks in each spot, like Carrie Bradshaw inspired looks from the TV show. That was my favorite series.

We shot on her block and her doorstep, those places that were those iconic moments from the show. It was really fun. I think it was 2 summers ago we did a whole series of shoots so every Wednesday we would post a new Sex In The City look. It was so much fun!

 

upfrontNY: Can you tell us about .Luxury?

Kristen Taekman: .Luxury is this awesome new domain for everything luxury. They were looking for a fashion ambassador and they came across my blog and they were looking for someone in the city . It was a natural fit. They are awesome, and I am having so much fun contributing blog to them. With .Luxury I really get to live out those fashion dreams, going to Bergdorf and featuring events there, New York Fashion Week, and I covered Art Basel, and I am going back to Arab Fashion Week in Dubai.

 

upfrontNY: The weather has changed and is getting colder. Do you like the changing of seasons for the change in style?

Kristen Taekman: I think Fall is my favorite season. I love fall. I’m from Connecticut so I’ve always been used to this climate. I think fall is every fashionista’s dream, the perfect time of the year. It is accessory overload. You have your scarf, you have your hat, boots, booties, closed toed heels, over the knee boots, under the knee boots, ballet flat or anything. I was out of the city all summer at the beach and I do have to say and I hate to admit it but I did get sick of my staple summer wardrobe. By Labor Day weekend, I was ready to hang up my gladiators and trade them in for some booties.

It is always great too because of back to school. I feel like even if you don’t have kids or you’re not in school yourself, it is still like back to school, back to work, back to reality come September 1^st.

Fall is fun. Fall you can get away with layering, ponchos, and sweaters. Once winter hits it’s the overcoats and you get how chic can you look in a puffer jacket. I just did a post for Last Night’s Look of a red puffer jacket, which was really fun. I am going to put that out in the New Year.

New York City is the best city for that. You walk down one block and there is just so many awesome fashion moments.

 

upfrontNY: Do you have a go to Holiday look?

Kristen Taekman: I definitely have been wearing a lot of red pops of color so I’ve got my red nail polish called The King that I’ve been wearing and my red color matte lipstick called Rags To Riches. I am a tulle girl I love tulle. This year’s Christmas card we shot, I had a long beautiful tulle skirt on with a black blazer and a cool silver belt. I feel like its fun and velvet is really in right now. I feel like between the tulle and the velvet and a pop of red somewhere, that is definitely my signature holiday moment.

 

upfrontNY: 2017 is right around the corner.  Do you have any new looks you are planning to try out?

Kristen Taekman: The first thing I think of when you said all of that is Adidas. I am like ok, back to the gym Kristen, me and everyone else we are going to be back at the gym wearing our Adidas. I got a fun new Adidas sweatshirt.

I don’t know I haven’t thought that far ahead. I think I am still in the Christmas mode.

upfrontNY: Living in New York City, what do you love most about NYC in general and NYC during the holidays?

Kristen Taekman: New York in general– I think it is that one city where you can go to drinks with a friend, go to 3 parties, and have dinner all in the same night even if it’s in different parts of the city because you have so many public transportation options.

I’m that girl who will wear Yosi Samra flats. They fold up and are so fantastic. Those foldable ballerina flats I will wear on the subway and either hold my heels or put them in a little bag, then get off the subway and go to a red carpet then put those Yosi Samra back on, jump back on the train, and go somewhere else. I love that there is always something happening at every moment.

But then at the same time I’m a mom and have 2 kids. Perfect Example: last night my friend and I went to 2 events. My friend had a jewelry party at her house and that was early at like 5 o’clock and then went to Bergdorf and a shoe designer was having an event. I took the train home and was home by 6:30 and put my kids to bed. I got into my room, it was quiet and I caught up on my shows. I had an early night, but I was still able to get out and be social and do some stuff for work. You get the best of both.

The Holidays– I don’t think we have enough time to talk about that. I did a whole post on the holiday windows. It is just breathtaking. It is gorgeous. Please check out that post, you just can’t imagine what they do. This is the first year that I paid attention to each window, each store had a theme. It is super high-end designers or artists, they design these windows and it’s a year in the making. That is a whole evening in itself. You can come from outside of the city and walk the windows. *Also going to see the tree. *The Rockettes is something that I always do. It is such a beautiful thing. The Rockettes bring tears to my eyes every time and I don’t know why. I think it’s because it is so beautiful and reminds me of my childhood, and I am making memories with my family. It is so magical. They do such a nice job and there is so much history. *We usually go to wait in line at Macy’s to go see Santa and that’s a really special moment too. *You can go eat at The Sea Grill in Rockefeller center overlooking the ice skating rink and Santa skates around the rink. You look out at the rink and the tree. It is a really beautiful place to have a meal.*I live in the financial district and they decorate every part of the city no matter where you live. They hung garland on every lamppost and put these stars that light up. We went away for thanksgiving and came back 3 days after the holiday and our neighborhood was completely transformed.

 

upfrontNY: What has life been like since the Real Housewives?

Kristen Taekman: Life has been fantastic since the housewives. I always like to note that it has been drama free. The whole experience was wonderful, I learned so much. I made great new friends and I feel like I learned a lot about myself. I always like to remind people when the whole thing started for me my daughter was only a year old and I was still in that whole mommy mode. So for me it was a great opportunity to get back out there.

It has propelled Pop Of Color and Last Night’s Look. The first thing that comes to mind is that it’s nice not to have so much drama any more.

 

upfrontNY: Would you watch the show every night it premiered?

Kristen Taekman: We had to watch it because we blogged about it on our bravo blog, so we had to watch the show every week. I couldn’t not watch it. My second reason was I had my blog and I needed to know what was being featured so I could write my blog post for Last Night’s Look.

 

upfrontNY: Is there anything you want others to know?

Kristen Taekman: Last Night’s Look is the hub for everything I do. That is the beauty of having a fashion blog, every other thing you do works organically within the blog. Pop of Color I’ve got two new regular lip-glosses I’m working on right now and a cool dual contour stick a contour and highlight. I’m excited! I just got my sample and that should be in the works in the Spring. I am always expanding my nail polishes, which is fun!