Spring Avant Garde

Theme: Spring Avant Garde

Fashion Stylist: Myself

Assistant Stylist: Arionne April

Photographer: CJ Murr

Photographer Assistant: Raymond Palas | Ritchie Hernandez

Hair: Hair Styles Amy ( HairBy_Amy)

Make Up: Marlene Lopez

Model: Camri Wiley

Partnered up with model / photographer CJ Murr for an avant garde spring inspired shoot. His first thought was to include wardrobe with evening wear. Personally, I find it tough to make evening wear avant garde and styling it. Some ideas came to mind, but he shared with me the inspiration images similar to the a shoot I had at the time recently just did. The LACE AND TULLE shoot with Zack Adams. I shared with CJ, I was going to get back to them and look into some other spring editorials for inspiration. A few weeks has gone by, and still nothing until on Instagram, I came across a shoot for Alexander Mc Queen a throw back photo. It was AMAZING!!

Alexander Mc Queen inspiration shoot image

It was exactly what I wanted to do!! I shared it with CJ, and he was immediately on board. I started to look into designers I could pull some dresses from. As for mimicking the inspiration… you can’t mimic greatness like Alexander Mc Queen, but I wanted to come as close as I could.

Zac Posen dress pulled for shoot.

I got the itinerary and the team for the shoot. I haven’t worked with Amy before, but I’ve seen her work. She is very creative and avant garde hair stylist. As for Marlene for makeup, never worked with her before neither. With a background working with Zappos and MAC, that was exciting for me enough (side note, would love to work for Zappos as a stylist for their e-commerce or their couture department). Looks like we were shooting in the Wetlands Park with a short window of time set aside for the shoot. To use Alexander Mc Queen for inspiration, and to style the dresses like that in the image above, that was a going to be tough. I knew, if I couldn’t style it the same due to short time frame, the dresses had to be that much more amazing! Of course with it being spring, I was leaning more towards lighter tones for color. I was also given an opportunity to pull a Zac Posen dress!!! INSANITY!! Personally, I feel Zac Posen is one of my top 5 designers I absolutely love everything he does. To be given one of his dresses, at such an early stage in my career, I was beyond excitement. Not that my career isn’t experienced enough to be in such great presents, I guess, I just never thought I would be pulling a dress designed by his collection without it being worn on a celebrity or major magazine publication. None the less, I was beyond excited about this dress. The boutique owner advised me to pull a dress size one up, because the dresses tend to be overly tailored in the waist and hips area. The model’s manager also gave us measurements that were a bit odd, a bit larger than what an ideal model should have. Looking at the size I pulled, I was more than sure that it would fit the model for sure. I took the advise f the boutique owner, and went up a size in the dress. Along with Zac Posen d, I also pulled a few other dresses that were form fitting, and elegant as well. I took a photo of the dresses and shared them with the photographer. He was just as excited as I was.

Now going back to the inspiration photo, I wanted to be as avant garde with the styling as I can. At the same time, the window for time slot for the shoot was very limited. The night before I wanted to do as much prep work as possible. Pulling together the fabric, the artificial flowers, etc. I pulled 4 dresses that would be happy to style for the shoot, I also wanted to push myself and make a dress but how I wanted it look and be fitted, I knew I had to pin it and sew it on the model in person. Seeing that I didn’t want to commit to this looks and completely make the dress, I was more so wanting to just pin the dress, so the fabric I could use in later shoots for styling. In my head, it was one my best styling thus far. Once the next day came, on location, I became flustered with what looked like a great idea to a frustrating school project.

First look for the shoot.

When we arrived, I met up with CJ first, shortly after his photographer assistants, and hair stylist Amy, make up, and the model showed up. We had to do makeup on site, which went into time of the shoot. I already was pressed with a short window of time. That took another hour out of our shoot, not having the model be on site ready to go. On top of that, it was a windy day. Which it made it hard for the model to keep her eyes open for the makeup application. It kept running, and smearing. The artist had to keep reapplying repeatedly. It was frustrating on everyone’s part, having to keep stopping. On location, I brought with me some fake flowers. I started to work on pulling the leaves or pedals off the flowers so I could maximize the look and feel of flowers. For the first look with the first dress I added tulle and lace with gathered flower pedals . The tulle gave it a layering sheet over her face, much like I did in my Black Lace & Tulle shoot with Amierah back in December’s shoot. The next dress was lace with added flowers and pedals accented in her face and hair. I chose those dresses to be warm up dresses.

As I was very excited about Zac Posen, I wanted to wait till the model got comfortable so she will be able to deliver in those shots. When I pulled out the Zac Posen, it was amazing. I know I keep going back how obsessed I was with this dress. But it seriously changed the mood of the shoot. The dress was a little oversized, but it was better to be oversized than to be undersized. Then we wouldn’t have gotten to that dress at all, which would of made me more than upset. The model put it on, she started posing. The connection she gave CJ for the shots were creative, avant garde posing, leaning, twisting, it was like the dress gave her life. The team started taking more behind the scenes photos than the other dresses she had on earlier. At that moment, I honestly feel it was the best shot of shoot, and I haven’t seen the final images yet. Just seeing the attitude and her performance was different. I was very happy, overly happy with the outcome of the shots.

Model in the Zac Posen dress, giving LIFE

Then we got to the final look. We had 30 minutes of the shoot left. My friend, Arionne was with us on the shoot. She hadn’t been on a shoot before with me, just visiting over the weekend. We had went to fashion school together, although she is more marketing and PR than the actual creative fashion side. Working with her before on class projects, she kept saying to me, don’t make the dress, skip it. It won’t come out to how you want it, you have 30 minutes to pull it together, or you can pull the extra dress. She knew me well. She said I would be stubborn and OCD about the dress, which was exactly right. I needed to make this dress. I needed to elevate myself as a stylist to be able to create a pieces from different fabrics to something great. I ignored Arionne’s advice, even though I knew she was right. I stuck with my plan and started to wrap the dress around the model. I pulled out the tulle, the lace and the printed fabric. Did my adjustments pinned it in different areas. The final look didn’t meet my vision. How I planned it in my head didn’t play out correctly. Arionne knows me well, we are like brothers and sisters, and she knew time was way too short, and to try to make my vision come to life, I should of waited for another shoot.

Styling 3 looks for the shoot successfully was perfect. Didn’t style it or create the looks to look like that of what was used as inspiration for by Alexander McQueen. One of the biggest challenges was the tight time schedule and not being able to style it to my full potential. Plus with being on site on an outdoor shoot, also puts challenges on the shoot. For the most part, I was happy with the Zac Posen dress. The images will look amazing and great.

Images will be sent in for submission for publication.