Birds of Paradise

South Coast Fashion Week is coming up fast, it is on 9th, 10th and 11th May and as well as showcasing our garments we want to promote our accessories therefore a photo shoot was needed.  This time I wanted to direct a little more so I contacted the AUCB and found Tara a photographer who wanted to expand her portfolio. To show the kind of look  I wanted for this photo shoot, I prepared a photo mood board using Pinterest (search for Emily Braz or miimiikins and you will find all of my pin boards) and here are a few photos I pinned.

         

The next step was to find models and I was really lucky to have Chloe and Stefani who were both perfect for this shoot.  They looked amazing and were game to having big hair adorned with sticks.

All photo shoots are a team effort, my sister Jessica is our hairdresser and is always willing to try anything, I could not imagine a photo shoot without her help and my mother, Debbie, is chauffeur, collector of sticks in this instance and can always be relied on to notice when something is out of place during a shoot.  My mother is also my business partner, does a lot of the basic sewing and is always researching new and better techniques to improve our garments and accessories.

You can see we work as a team, I am putting on Chloe’s makeup as my sister completes her hair (Jessica was really good to come this time as she had a very busy day herself and you can see had to come in her rollers), my husband is in the back ground as he acted as a chauffeur as well, picking up Stefani early in the morning and my mum is taking the photos.  These are not the official photos, my mum usually takes the photos for this blog so as to tell the story of the day.

The location was Bournemouth gardens, halfway between Coy Pond and the Square, a beautiful place both to take photos and just generally walk.

          

Originally I thought that bare shoulders would be a good look but you can see from these photos which we took whilst waiting for the photographer, that the girls just look too naked.

 

Fortunately this had crossed my mind the night before and I had packed some tulle which really softened the look and either made the girls look like the Birds of Paradise or as my husband said ‘angry woodland nymphs’, either works for me.

We moved along the gardens following the sun.

Adjustments to the tulle and hat changes were needed, although I did layer up the various crowns and fascinators to get the look I wanted.

I also added a few fresh flowers and leaves at times.

Photographic direction:-

  

Reflectors were needed now and again:-

We finished with two very different small hats :-

I love this last photo, I think it reflects the great time we had and I can’t wait for the official photos to arrive.

Enchanted

A spectacular event in any Kawai lover’s calendar is happening on April 5th in London – Enchanted Event and Tea Party. Unfortunately I was both unable to get a ticket to the event or be a vendor as it is such a popular event but I am pleased that I can participate in a small way by offering a prize for the raffle. We at Shinkurose like to make to order so that each dress is totally individual and fits its owner well  so we have offered a made to order JSK in colour and size of choice for the lucky winner. The JSK is a dress made to wear over a blouse and this one is made in a cotton drill which is great to wear and stays looking good even after washing.  We used the same embellishing techniques as we did for our returning customer, Holly, pin tucks and lace but this time used a contrasting lace.  The back of the JSK is elasticated for both comfort and good fit. Suzanne the lovely owner of Elsie Harrhy in Westbourne allowed us to take our photos in her beautifully decorated vintage style coffee shop. You can see in the above photo the great little leather crowns we make, these can be in any colour and decorated to order, they are light, easy to wear and stay in hair well. I love this fireplace and the comfy chairs are great to sit in and enjoy coffee and cake (look at that derp face though, not my best photo!).  We did have some great Victoria Sandwich cake but it seems to have all gone here! You can also see my gorgeous red shoes, they are by Irregular Choice one of my favourite brands, I have over 25 pairs and am hoping to add to that collection this year. Tilly came to supervise, Elsie Harrhy’s is her favourite coffee shop she told us and you can see she is right at home.  At the back of the cafe is a reading area where there are great books and here you can see Tilly’s favourite selection.  Now she is at school she misses her outings with her mum. As an independent coffee shop Elsie Harrhy specialises in wonderful homemade food.  The soups are made ‘like mother used to make’ full of vegetables and served with doorstop sandwiches or chunky bread.  Breakfast paninis are filled with freshly made scrambled eggs, bacon etc and the cakes are delicious.  Above is the menu for Mothers day and you can see the different types of cake that are available in this superb cafe. A Lolita teaparty would be great here and I would love to organise one, watch this space.

Heirloom Sewing

We were commissioned to make a dress for a returning customer, it was to be in black and feature pin tucks and lace which reminded us of old fashioned heirloom sewing.

Heirloom sewing nowadays is mostly worked by machine but it used to be fine hand sewing usually on white cotton which was trimmed with lace, insertion, pin tucks, narrow ribbon and smocking.  The dress we designed would just feature tiny pin tucks, wider pin tucks and lace trim.

This is a quick sketch and you can see that it is really a basic JSK in a plain colour with the interest coming from the texture of the trimming.

Practise the pin tucks before adding to a garment.  They need to be as straight as you can  make them, evenly spaced and the same size.

When you are confident try them out on a piece of the scrap fabric you are using for your garment and below you can see the tiny pin tucks we used on the bodice.

We tried first of all to sew the small pintucks with a twin needle but found that it just looked like two rows of stitching next to each other and not like a tiny tuck.  Therefore it was easiest to mark the actual fold on  bodice  with a tiny cut in the seamline and then press this and then carefully sew.

On large pin tucks you can mark the first one and then use the width of the presser foot to space the pin tucks which is what was done on the skirt.

It is often suggested that you make your pintucks on the fabric and then cut out for example your bodice.  We chose though to pattern draft my pin tucks on the bodice, cut out the shape and then sew the pin tucks.

To make this more like heirloom sewing after sewing the pintucks some lace was added to frame the tucks.

Here you can see that the pintucks are bigger, approx 1 cm wide, on the skirt.

The finished garment looked like this: –

These are  only snapshots, taken during construction as we always like to keep clients up to date with how their garments are progressing, but  you can see that the finished look is a good one.

I am going to make myself one in burgundy and we are offering one of these in colour and size of choice as a raffle price in an upcoming international Lolita meet.