Moodboard - Frida

This weeks mood board is for a dress we have been working on for a shoot this week in Devon. The inspirations - Frida Kahlo and Gypsy Luxe.
Frida is one of my favourite films and she is one of my favourite artists and women all round. I love the colours, the ruffles, the flowers and the gorgeous sex appeal of everything surrounding Frida Kahlo. Pretty and feminine but tough as nails and beautifully intelligent.
I have also looked at the romantic gypsy, mainly Spanish influences and Flamenco in the fifties. Oh The ruffles!

I recommend watching Frida the film with Salma Hayek and reading books on her as an artist. This taschen book is a great starting point. Her influence is never ending. 

Moodboard - Surf Safari

This weeks board and dress is 'Surf Safari'. Eighties and nineties Californian neon with bright prints, perms, tropical pink lipstick and cut off vests. I love the Venice beach body builders, the original Fat Willy's logo and the Quicksilver girls in thier high leg swim suits.

There is one incredible surf safari print coming up that we're using for the dress, something to brighten up Summer!

Mood Board - Bridal Collection 2012

Monday's Mood board, a little nod towards the new Bridal collection, all of the above ingredients are included ........... candy stripes, blushes, champagne, blue, roses and glitter. The sketches are coming up tomorrow and for a sneak peek behind the scenes take a click over here to the photographer, Laura Michelle's Blog. xxx

Moodboard Monday, the hollywood wedding

This weeks mood board is one from the forthcoming bridal collection. Once again it's about Hollywood, with inspirations from low key romance to red carpet.

The weddings above are, Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher, I love the sheer cowl and hood to her dress.

Bridgette Bardot rocking the bridal basque and veil, this is how I like my brides the dress under the dress, you don't want to ruin the illusion with the beige support pants.

One of the most romantic marriages on screen from Baz Lurhmanns Romeo and Juliet. There should be more secret weddings.

Carrie and Big in Sex and the City (the movie) town hall wedding in a vintage suit.

Catherine Deneuve with a wind swept full skirt and matching knickers, super cute complete with the shoulder length veil.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in Vegas, I love the collar and the prettiest looking cake.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, this is so understated and so unbelievably cool. They were so in love all she needed was a suit. They also have a similarly pretty cake to Paul Newmans, I like the topper with the arch, it's more extravagant than the dress.

Audrey Heburn and Dr Andrea Dotti, looking so chic in a white mini dress with head scarf.

Marylin and Arthur Miller, super sexy in a three quarter length wiggle dress and simple jaw length veil.

Sammy Davis Jr and Loray White in Vegas, these cakes do seem to be quite something! I lover her dress with the pussy bow collar and the waved crown veil. It all looks so elegant together.

And finally Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner in a gorgeous two tone dress with matching shrug to frame the neckline.

I know most of theses marriages ended in divorce but it is Hollywood. I love that the most glitzy industry in the world had such low key, understated weddings.

 

Moodboard Monday

If you don't already know this,  a mood board is a group of images, text, colours assembled on one page to illustrate a 'mood' or theme for a project/collection and gives inspiration/focus when designing.

I feel like I'm constantly looking at images every day and for some reason I never really got into making mood boards. I really struggled with them at uni finding it hard to pin down all the images that inspired and influenced me into to groups that all went together. When it came to being inspired my head was like this massive vacuum sucking up everything all at once and applying it to individual dresses one at at time.

Collection building was nearly impossible for me to concentrate long enough to design ten pieces that worked together instead of ten completely different dresses, which is still something I do today. They are slowly beginning to work together as my style is becoming stronger in it's identity, but I still have to admit that design ADHD is what I have.

I'm hoping by compiling a mood board each Monday will just help me document all of my inspirations.  As a project it will be good to see these in a years time along with the collections to see where they have really influenced.

The first mood board is a Cecil Beaton and Tim Walker mash up as we have been looking at these two photographers for inspiration on last weeks photo shoot. The Cecil Beaton photograph of Charles James dresses in New York is one of my all time favourite images along with Tim Walkers Dress Lamp Tree. They both have this perfect way or making the dress the focus of the images, capturing all the folds, the light reflecting off the fabrics and the drama of the couture dresses. Everything else is almost secondary including the models, it's all about the dresses.