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Happy Summer!

Alex talks stylist secrets, runway modeling lessons, and off-season plans.

By Alex McCord

 

How to Watch

Watch The Real Housewives of New York City on Peacock and catch up on the Bravo app

Happy Summer! It’s the last day of school for the chums and I can’t quite believe the preschool days are over in this house. Sigh. More book signings coming up this summer, along with some exciting other things you’ll find out about later, and I have to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has come to meet us and bought the book or downloaded the Kindle.

So I have to tell you, when this episode aired Simon and I were in a restaurant and had just ordered our main courses ... what did I order? Veal, of course. At least it wasn’t a veal chop, or an armpit! And didn’t have a juice box attached. Oh, Sonja is a very good friend for that, and Ramona never seems to sweat so I guess it worked! Did she do both sides? She must have.

I think I’m officially going to start calling KKB "Kellybean" (and not in a mean way – the girl just likes her candy!) I actually agree that it’s probably not the smartest thing to do to invite a guy over for one-on-one drinks when the kids are around. Sonja knew what she was talking about with the side entrances. Luckily I’m married so I don’t need to install another door ...

I was pleased to see the S. Kuhlman event that our stylist Alegra organized – she was a big help throughout season 3 keeping us fabulously dressed, and turned her attentions to Jason and Mario that evening ... until Mario and Ramona disappeared into the dressing room, that is! In my opinion the secret of a good stylist is to get you dressed the way you would dress yourself if you had the time and the immediate knowledge of where to get the perfect piece, right now, and Alegra definitely got inside our heads. During the shopping trip we all kind of horrified Bethenny with our pregnancy stories; oops. I think she rallied, though, and looked pretty amazing on the PETA billboard.

The Anita Kaufman foundation invited me to model in their show during fashion week, an event which raised money for epilepsy awareness in schools. I was thrilled to participate, and loved it that Ramona came out in support (AND stayed, even though she thought about leaving). That night I wore long, heavy dresses and definitely learned a valuable lesson for Brooklyn Fashion Week{end} – make sure the dress doesn’t get caught between your legs when you walk!

 

 

The gym scene in St. John cracked me up – clearly two modes of working out there – the "let’s talk 101 mph to make the time go faster," and "I am in zen concentration plank mode; leave me alone or I’ll throw a dumbbell at you!" I knew there was a reason I like to work out by myself, tee hee.

Ramona’s birthday party was a really special time – although you didn’t see all of it, she really opened up about the year she’d had and why that caused her to support particular charities. We all brought contributions in lieu of gifts, although Sonja managed to sneak in a cute bikini for St. John (48 hours after the lunch.) I didn’t have a problem with Ramona enforcing the seating chart – sometimes placecards are fluid and it’s cool to move them around, and sometimes it’s not. Ramona had specifically organized us so that we knew one person next to us and not the other, so we all got to know each other. I appreciated that.

Back onto the reunion couch, we all got to speak about our next projects and I was so happy to give shoutouts to the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association; both great organizations. In addition, it was really exciting to talk about our book going into its second printing and being available on Kindle. Look for more fun-sanity to come out of the McCord-van Kempen world over the summer, and we’re really happy to be doing a co-signing next week with our book and the new Real Housewives Get Personal coffee table book – Simon and I will be there with some of our friends from New Jersey!

If you’d like to keep up with us in the off-season, including our appearances on Bethenny's Getting Married?, add us on Facebook and follow Simon and yours truly on Twitter.

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