aestheticcontradiction

Chimera: Behind the scenes

I recently found some behind the scenes shots from the chimera shoot and decided to share them as I think they show off some aspects of the garments that weren’t that evident from the final images. The majority of these were taken by Phil Nicholls and a couple by myself.

The garments featured in the shoot are available to purchase at www.eustratia.co.uk. Sale on till 22.1.12 so hurry!

I also took this opportunity to better showcase some of the accessories from the shoot with some still life images as I feel most of them didn’t stand out enough in the final images. These will be added to the online store as soon as I have some more suitable images back

Certain items from this range are already available at Birds yard in Leeds and all will be available very soon at www.eustratia.co.uk .

The will be priced as follows and can also be ordered via email to enquiries@eustratia.co.uk.

Perspex inverted cross necklace: £12.50 on black chain or £16 on thick gunmetal chain (pictured).

Latex, studded inverted cross necklace £20

Latex, studded cross hair clip £18

Latex, studded shield necklace £20

Nutmail choker £50

Nutmail cuff £38

The nutmail chocker and cuff are available in two styles, one solid and one with holes through the middle. All aspects of this item, down to the smallest links are hand-shaped! A truly beautiful item, worth every penny.

aestheticcontradiction

Unicorn inspiration

I’m currently in the process of planning a shoot with Jennifer Byron, featuring a unicorn mask by Tom Banwell. After seeing his black rabbit mask around so much over the past year or so I was quite excited at the idea of a unicorn one.

Tom Banwell unicorn mask, complete with leather eyelashes

I’m not totally sure how much masks suit me so I’m going to make extra effort with the rest of the outfit to make sure it looks good.

When I started analysing the options I realised I didn’t know that much about unicorns and their origin so I decided to read up on them a bit. There is plenty of information online but one of the most interesting things I found was on wikipedia. Though unicorns were fist mentioned by the ancient Greeks, they are not found in Greek mythology but rather in accounts of natural history. Greek writers of natural history were convinced of the reality of the unicorn, which they located in India, a distant and fabulous realm for them. The earliest description is from Ctesias who described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn, a cubit and a half in length and colored white, red and black. Being from Greece myself I was quite suprised not to have heard this before but then again it isn’t really the kind of this they would bother teaching in school.

unicorn moodboard

I put together a vague board of unicorn-related inspiration but was actually surprised by how little I found that was to my taste. I think this shoot will be a good opportunity to create some unicorn-related imagery and accessories that aren’t overly childish or classic fantasy inspired.

I would like to keep the look with the mask quite close to the original depiction of the unicorn as possible so its going to be all white but I also like the idea of the black unicorn so I may do a second, darker look that I can play around with more.

My favourite items from the moodboard are the origami unicorns, I’d love to be able to make some of these for the shoot (especially a life-size one) but I gave it a try this afternoon and actually found it quite hard. If any origami experts happen to read this, please get in touch!

aestheticcontradiction

G3 magazine feature

Last month I was contacted by singer/song writer Laura Steel who had been invited in as G3 mag‘s November issue guest editor. She was looking for designers for her fashion feature and wanted to focus on independent female designers who are making it on their own which is an idea that really appealed to me.

They ended up using two of my outfits in a double page spread. I think the image and the clothes look great but was slightly disappointed to see that the blurbs for Eustratia (my label) and Andrea Billard had been printed the wrong way round so people who don’t read the the whole thing and realise it sounds wrong are going to end up looking for underwear and visiting a latex site and vice versa.