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Eustratia winter collection preview.

For the past few months, I have been thinking, making and planning  for the Eustratia  A/W ’14-15 collection.

As an independent designer, single-handedly running all aspects of the business, making a new collection can be hard. I make one item at a time whenever I have some hours spare in between the rest of my work.

An image or item I make for myself usually sparks the idea and then I make a rough line-up sketch, which usually evolves as I start to create the garments.

anna roses copyAnna Dateshidze in the rose bodysuit.

I usually plan my collections around a theme and often base my editorials on a still from a dream but this time I wanted to tell a more complete story.

charlotte doll 3Harlotte Wonderland in the twist top and high waist briefs.

I always plan the concept and style my own collection shoots as well as making all the props, often with the help of my friends. This time, I decided to go one step further and do the photography myself as well.

This was a big decision for me as I’m not a photographer but so far I think it has helped me get closer to my vision by having control over the composition of the images and the ability to edit them myself.  Of course it’s every designer’s dream to own copyright to their images and I look forward to featuring them on my promotional material.

hazel butterflies close copyHazel in the Moth bodysuit.

I used a variety of props for the fashion story and shot it in 3 parts to make sure it went smoothly.

10575983_848995281786340_339686771_nHere we are on the way to the shoot the first set. (yes the ladder is also a prop)

915679_1525838860966017_1775423054_nCut out butterflies and moths were used for the moth bodysuit images. These were lovingly cut out by my intern, Lindsay.

10475008_299153160256627_2104034801_nWire butterfly headpieces were used in a couple of sets to give the impression of butterflies hovering around the model’s heads.

10611027_936859676339762_158123335_nRik made this door for me to use in a different shoot last year, but was not featured in the final images and fit in perfectly with this season’s concept.

The Collection is due to launch on the 1st of September  on www.eustratia.co.uk and will be showcased several times over the weekend of the “fashion and lifestyle exhibition” in a theatrical live fashion show.

During the show, there will be a slideshow featuring snippets from the fashion story, inspirational images and these little videos I took while shooting:

I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I do and look forward to seeing the rest of the story.

Amber 2 copyAmber in the new harness lingerie set.

 

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Moth shoot publication

In the spring, I collaborated with talented photgrapher SJ Image on a fantasy inspired personal project. I did the styling and make up, though Yuri unboudtable made it look better in the photos. My aim was to get the images published and last week the last two looks from the shoot were featured in issue 4 of Freque magazine.

21 2223 The two final images from the latex look (featuring an outfit from my Persephone range for Eustratia) had already been featured in the latex issue of Delicious dolls magazine.

delicious dolls moth shoot publicationand one of these way also previously used for the front of the Manospychotisches ballroom flyer in May.

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Here’s the full set:biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia1 biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia2biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia3biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia4biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia5biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia6biomechaninabySJimage_eustratia7BLOG SIGNATURE

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New collab and Illustrated pictures

I was recently asked to jump in on a shoot my bf, Richard Ayres had arranged with Beverly Ann photography.

If you haven’t seen a lot of Beverly’s work around yet, I’m sure you will do in the near future. She is a promising young photographer with a clear vision, who also creates props to enhance her concept. I always admire photographers who like to be involved in more than just taking pictures, they are usually edgier with bigger ideas (which in turn means they might like to work with me on some of my big ideas).

For this shoot she had made these oversised demon hands which looked great combined with some black paint that she also applied herself. I love how the image below turned out and the black eyes were such a nice touch.

I was also given permission to edit some of the images from our shoot. I did one set with light pastel colours which I’m holding back until after its publication next month and an other which I can show you now.

I started off by just doing a beauty retouch and cleaning up a few things.

I did actually consider cropping this last one but decided I liked the large white space.

Models: Myself (Biomechanina) and the beautiful Jess Sevensin who you will most likely see featured here again soon!

After editing the photos as you see them above, I wanted to add something extra. I experimented a few times by making the background darker or adding some clouds but neither of these worked for me. I then remembered that I had wanted to produce a set of images with my own illustrations over the top of them for a while and these would be perfect.I did a bit of online research to find some examples that might inspire me. I have posted some on tumblr.

I have been working on some illustrations for an upcoming t-shirt line recently and most of my illustrations feature faces and insects. There were already faces in these images so I decided to draw insects, mainly moths, butterflies and dragonflies. I also added a couple of other natural and dark themes I felt were relevant.

The outcome:

What I really liked about this is that the drawings didn’t have to be great to look effective. Most of them were just quick doodles but they really transformed the feel of the images. I tried quite a lot of different things as it was my first attempt at something like this but I will definitely be doing more in the future and may produce some more concise sets with a preset theme. In these images the illustrations were drawn separately and applied onto the pictures using photoshop but I would also like to try printing the pictures out and painting on them as well as drawing electronically.

If anyone else tries something similar (or does any sort of work combining photography and illustration) I’d love to see!

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Notice board collage

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been getting increasingly bored of my website front page image. I can never seem to find one that I think  fits perfectly so I end up changing it every so often. Today I was feeling like playing around in photoshop and after seeing an images that inspired me on tumblr, I went ahead to create a notice board type collage of inspirational items and artwork that is used in my products and branding.

It features two model images, the first in the top left corner is by Toria Brightside and the second by Jennifer Byron. The other two photos were taken from my university look book. A few of the insects are from stock photos I found online and the vectors were created by me for various projects.

I haven’t made anything like this for a while and thoroughly enjoyed it, I think I need to make room for more not-strickly-work-related art projects in my life. They help to keep my work on track and inspired. One of my greatest fears is waking up in an other couple of years and realising I’ve become one of these people who just make stuff because its their job and don’t have any creative vision beyond what will sell to boring sheep-like individuals.

I also bought an overlocker today so I look forward to starting my leggings collection as soon as I have chosen the appropriate fabrics!