Alice in Wonderland Shoot for Specsavers Kids

All those rather mysterious Alice in Wonderland themed projects can finally be unmasked in the shape of the latest Supersavers Kids magazine. I styled and illustrated the cover and main set piece for the Spring Summer 2015 issue.

The first job was to design the looks for Alice, the Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter and White Rabbit. We have 4 fantastic 6/7 year  old models who had a great time on the day. Our Alice outfit was a particular favourite as I thought a bit outside the box and came up with this slightly dreamy floral dress from John Lewis.

The brief was to dress them in clothes they would want to wear; looking clearly like the character without looking like fancy dress.

The Queen of Hearts' outfit was largely from H&M and Doc Martins from John Lewis. Her crown headband was a particular favourite with the adults on the shoot!

on the shoot with Milo and Oli.

Can you spot the playing card bow tie and collar from previous blog posts? Alice's hair bow also makes an appearance.

We set up the shoot the night before which gave us lots of time to play with flamingoes and cupcakes!

Then came the illustration part. After settling on handpainted watercolour style (which is obviously my favourite!) I created a wonderland esque backdrop for both the cover and double page spread.

White Rabbit late for an important date

starting to add colour to the double page spread

adding in flamingoes all over the place. 

 The Magazine is out in the shops now. The project was managed by Specialist UK

fairy tale tower shoot: behind the scenes.

Another lovely, whimsical test shoot I recently worked on used up all of my granny's 1950's ball dresses. I've been trying to get them into a shoot for a while and they seemed to lend themselves to a shoot set up by photographer, friend and collaborator, Carly Wong.

Carly and Ali making a plan

Here are a few behind the scenes images, showing how we used multiple belts to cinch in Ali's already tiny wait to accentuate the voluminous skirt and broad shoulders of the coat, creating a fairytale hourglass figure. We shot at Cabot Tower on a blisteringly hot day in August.

assistand Jacob Boodrie holding the reflector/fan to prevent Ali from passing out in the heat of a winter coat in august

Mia Stronach created fantastic floating tresses, whilst I ransacked Carly's house and nicked some balloon ornaments that ended up as awesome handbags.

The red dress has more fabric that you can imagine, knowing the modern day cost of silk brocade...i may be able to use it as a deposit to buy a house. 

The hand painted taffeta gown was also one of granny's and I just about managed to squeeze into it for my 6th form ball all those years ago. I don't think vintage was even particularly cool back then, but you can't deny it's unique..I certainly didn't have the issue of picking a dress from Monsoon and considering it a result if less than 5 people had the same thing.

 Hold tight for the finished snaps...coming soon.

Decadent Fashion Shoot, The Bristol Magazine

I have been styling a fair few shoots over the past few months, but images are always kept under wraps for a wee while whilst they get put into magazines or published with clients. We all have to wait to unveil our latest work un util we get the green light. Many green lights have recently flashed so I can give you a few behind the scenes tours!

You all saw the male model test shoot we did with James King at the MilkThistle, well I headed back there to style the Christmas Party wear edit for The Bristol Magazine with Editor Jenny Hayes

setting up downstairs at the milk thistle to get the below shot:

 Dress £450 LK Bennett, shoes £495 Christian Louboutin both at Harvey Nichols

Andre Regini

Sarah of the Grayling team carefully tending to the Christian Louboutins!

I won't give too much away, the magazine is out in the shops, and I'll also get some lovely hi res images to share with you fully, but I couldn't resist sharing my favourite look that I put together:

Jacket £220 Pinko, skirt £110 Finders Keepers, shoes £225 LK Bennett all at Harvey Nichols.

Andre Regini

getting the shot

I couldn't resist one masculine tailoring look for the front cover, again all from Harvey Nichols, this deep green velvet smoking jacket set off a wonderfully strong and sexy look which won't have you shivering over the festive period.

Jacket £495 Joseph, shirt £195 and trousers £195 Winser London, shoes £695 Christian Louboutin and ring £195 Alexander McQueen all at Harvey Nichols.

Andre Regini

Hair by Noel Halligan and team at SeanHanna, Makeup Brioney Cleverly at Shu Uemera in Harvey Nichols.

Bristol Fashion Week AW 2014

Bristol Fashion Week is fantastic, and most of all fun. It is the perfect atmosphere to feel like fashion is a friendly, all encompassing art form, and not a spiky, members only club. I was invited as a blogger to go and see what was coming up for all dedicated followers of fashion, the only problem being, my little phone isn't used to all the bright lights and sashaying down the catwalk. My record of events was a bit of a blur (and that's got nothing to do with the complimentary M&S Cocktail on offer.)

I was hoping for images like this:

styletribe.co.uk

but all I got was this...

Hence, I have incorporated the beautiful photos of Style Tribe , the incredible social media and branding gurus to help tell my story of the event.

The stand out moments for me: John Lewis' incredible creative styling of autumnal leaves cascading through models' hair, really nice to see when you are watching strictly highstreet looks. 

The Burberry rug cape is the lusted after item du jour, and if you haven't got your initials monogramed on it, then why bother eh? The lovely root veg colours of autumn are wonderful clustered together, no acid brights to blind your onlooker, do something a little different and find your own way with a muted toned woolen rug, chuck it about your shoulders over an aubergine winter coat, just like the model in the image below. 

styletribe.co.uk

Just as I bemoan bright colours, out this lot walk. 

styletribe.co.uk

But I have to say, Red is my FAVOURITE colour at the moment. Having just purchased a beautiful Jigsaw dress, I think again, using the root veg colours, the beetroot colour on the bottom half of this is what does it for me, and although you can't see it in this image, there is a slick of tangerine piping up the seams. Delicious. I wore it to an Indian Summer September Wedding, and layered up with a sleek black Polo neck from m&s it will keep me going through winter.

For official images of the event click here and find out how you can get your hands on those covetable items.

Where have I been?

So where have I been these past few months?

I won't lie, I've been having some fun. Ant and I have been to the odd festival, found a shepherds hut or two down in Cornwall for much needed intervals in our busy lives.

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

Somersault Festival, after too much sun

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

There has been an awful lot going on in our lives. Many creative excitements and challenges and some personal ones too...

...One of my best mates Polly has been getting through Breast Cancer, she is an incredibly cool, well dressed individual and has been tackling it all head on with an incredible blog. I decided the least I could do was run the Race for Life

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

But I couldn't do it without emanating a bit of Polly's innate style. I LOVE these trainer wings, and I can't believe I got them from a joke shop. They are still on my trainers, a month on.

My human sketchpad, Al, has gone under the pen again for another nautical themed tattoo. This was a halfway through photo but I almost prefer it to the finished result as you can see the pain he is enduring for his art!

I've spent a fair bit of time in London, working on a few shows, that you will no doubt hear about soon. This incredible installation at the SouthBank Centre is all about its LOVE festival. This euphoric assault on the senses is what I think love looks like. A little too painful to start straight in the face, but if you are brave enough to do so, you will discover new hidden delights the longer you look.

Saying that, it was a bit of a grey day when I took the photo!

One of those London shows is one called Fat Man, devised by Martin Bonger and Alex Swift, produced by Little Mighty and Move to Stand. I won't give too much away but it's touching, bloody funny and will completely turn the myth of Orhpeus on its head. Find out more about the tour here

Martin is, by no stretch of the imagination, Fat, Therefore he needed a pretty pimping fat suit to get the job done. I called up Jill Molyneux and Kelly Jago at Jag Props who made an incredibly life like fat suit. I then dressed it, grubbed and sweated it up and, voila! that protruding tummy above is in fact  a prosthetic tummy on a glorious fat suit. 

My theatre company Dot and Ethel is going from strength to strength, with Heidi and I just about keeping up. We have secured Arts Council Funding for a national Tour of our christmas show the Little Match girl, now transformed into the universally seasonal 'MATCH'.

Photo Chris Collier

That scraped the surface of the past few months. The pace still hasn't let up and at times it feels like I'm keeping just out in front of the tidal wave. I'm sure many of you feel like that, but we all keep coming back for more.  I look forward to sharing all that comes with you in future posts.

Play Hair

I've been working with the uber talented photographer Carly Wong rather a lot recently. A few months back she shot and I styled for a new Hair extensions company Play Hair, set up by stylist Mia Stronach.

Here are some of my favourite looks from the shoot; a young, playful image. Items from Miss Selfridge, Quiz and Oasis. Three highstreet shops I haven't been into for years, I was extremely pleasantly surprised!

Mia adding extensions to model Amy Burnett

 Here is a behind the scenes video of the shoot, made by the brilliant Joe Murphy

Behind the Scenes: The Beautiful and the Damned Photo Shoot for Molly Mishi May Couture Collection

back in Autumn of 2013, our dear friend Molly was hatching a plan for a gloriously gothic and dramatic shoot, including some of her most breathtaking gowns. Here is the story of that day in pictures

After meeting with Molly to discuss themes and designs, I came up with this Pinterest board, Byzantine embellishment was kicking in on the Dolce and Gabbana catwalks and would soon filter out to the hughstreet, (we even managed to find some rocking earrings in Clare's Accessories of all places!)

Photo Amanda Thomas

As you'll see from the Pinterest board, I was rather keen to add a contemporary element to the rather 'overdone' debauched banqueting table shoot idea. I was really taken with the close parallels that Baz Lurhmann found in his R+J between the bright colours found catholic imagery and commercial neon signs. I was searching round for a neon Jesus for a while, but to no avail. Until I found out about a tiny shop on Muller Road in Bristol called PML signs. A lovely guy in there lent me a restaurant sign...a bit random you may think (so did I to be honest) but it ended up being a playful dimension to a rather rich and luxurious shoot. It also did no harm that the set up was of a dinner table when there was a glowing restaurant sign in the background!

Amanda, summoning up all her modelling experience

Molly has some beautiful friends and family who all featured in the shoot. Amanda Thomas was heading up the team as photographer, with Inma Azorina and Becky Simpson on Hair and Makeup. I was assisted by Rebecca Wood and Amber Hards, two very talented designers in their own right.

Becky, Amber and Amanda

The location for the shoot was All Saints Church in Easton, a beautiful church with a fantastic bunch of people who let us move a LOT of rather priceless artefacts around to get our debauched banqueting scene

photo Amanda Thomas

Photo Amanda Thomas




Creating the Look: we got our hands on numerous church candles, and ornate tableware from Charity shops and friends, teamed them with the red velvet curtains and crisp white linen table cloths. For set dressing we drenched every surface in abundant grapes, sparkling jewels and wine filled goblets.

As featured in New York magazine CREATIVE SUGAR

http://issuu.com/creativesugarmagazine/docs/creativesugar_issue_8

Team credits

Photographer: Amanda Thomas
Dress Designer: Molly Mishi May
Stylist: Harriet de Winton
Stylist Assistants: Amber Hards
Rebecca Wood
Make Up Artist: Inma Azorin
Make up Assistant & nail tech: Grace Kingsley
Hair Stylists: Inma Azorin
Rebecca Simpson

Models: Molly Lewis-Smith
Arabella Lewis-Smith
Rob Norbury
Emily Breeze
Becky Mercer
Adam Coombs
Louis Lewis-Smith