Showing posts with label patricia valery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patricia valery. Show all posts

Sunday, November 13, 2011

First set from my shoot with Chelsi-M

This is the first set of pics from my shoot with Chelsi last night.
I am so glad I was finally able to get this dress photographed!  This dress was supposed to be part of my Vitamin Water Zero collection but the zipper broke five minutes before the runway show - luckily I brought a back up dress just in case but wow!  I was so disappointed when it happened that night.  The dress is made of 100% silk poplin and habotai silk lining.  I personally hand dyed the fabric to get this exact shade.  This dress looks simple but it's actually pretty difficult to make.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Magazine shoot at the B Ocean Fort Lauderdale Hotel

Last Friday I met up at the B Ocean Hotel in Fort Lauderdale for a magazine shoot.  I was moving on Saturday and Fort Lauderdale is almost 2 hours away so I was a little hectic when I woke up that morning.  It really felt like I wasn't going to get everything done but in the end everything worked out - I'm so glad I did this shoot!  The whole shoot was planned by MUA Paris Wimbley of  Parisisfashun.com.  I was incredibly excited to work on this since the photographer doing the pics was Diana Santisteban - I'd seen her work before and was just dying to work together.  We shot a total of six looks and used two of my pieces for the shoot.  The model Nadege is new to Miami and I'm really hoping to work with her again - she was gorgeous! 

Here's a little behind the scenes video by Diana Santisteban:



60's from Diana on Vimeo.

Photographer : Diana Santisteban
Model: Nedege (Wilhemina)
Makeup and Hair : Paris Wimbley
Wardrobe Styling: Melissa Renee
Fashion Designer : Patricia Valery
Jewelry Designer: Andrea
Location : B Ocean Fort Lauderdale Hotel












Monday, October 17, 2011

New Photos

I was finally able to shoot a few pics with one of my favorite models this weekend - Sarah Wallace!
Sarah is unbelievably easy to get along with and photogenic - and I can tell she really likes my work which is always a plus.  Sarah and I shot together earlier this year and although we'd been trying to shoot again out schedules didn't seem to line up until this weekend! Here is the first set from our shoot:






Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Brink Magazine Presents Vitamin Water Zero Uncapped

photo by Ben Stitzer
On September 30th I was part of the Brink/Vitamin Water Zero runway show in Orlando, FL.  I made six ready to wear looks inspired by a Vitamin Water Zero color palette.  I initially thought to do Vitamin Water Zero "Drive" (blue/orange) but after a little research I chose "Glow" (turquoise/pink) because it promotes healthy skin.  I also found a larger availability of fabrics in the Glow color palette.

Here's one of my sketches for the collection:

photo by Ben Stitzer

I feel this collection is my best so far.  As a selected designer I won a flip cam to document my progress, a six month supply of vitamin water to get me inspired to work on the collection and $400 to make six looks.  Having a budget gave me some economic freedom and I was able to work with materials and use techniques I hadn't been able to do so far.

Here are the six pieces I did for the show:

photo by Jessica Castro
You might notice the light dress worn by Raven (blond model) is a dress that's been featured in my Etsy store for a few months.  This is because I brought it along as a backup dress.  And I am so glad I did because things went very wrong in the hour leading up to the show.  
I made another blog post recently on how I'd been having a hard time with Coats and Clark zippers.  I've had a few of them break on me and at this point I'm really blaming it on the quality of the zippers over bad luck since it's too many zippers...I'm at five this month.  About an hour before the show one of the zippers for one of the most time consuming dresses I've ever made broke!  I really tried to save the zipper but I didn't bring a sewing machine with me (bad idea) and hand sewing it was taking too long.  

Here's me trying to fix the zipper:

Picture by my friend Frannie

Once I realized this zipper was not going to be fixed I scrapped the dress and fit the Rococo dress for Raven.  It worked out well since I had made a beaded cape which didn't go with anything else.  I think the cape and dress looked amazing together.

photo by Ben Stitzer
Photo by Julia Arielle Cox

The first dress I made for the collection was the teal blue and pink sequined dress.  This was the simplest of all the dresses but the fabric was around $50/yd so I had to be super careful making it.  It's a simple strapless dress with a sweetheart bust line and a gathered dirndle skirt.  It is fully lined and interlined to keep it's form.  This might have been the most eye catching dress because the sequins made the whole dress sparkle.  It was beautiful!

photo by Jessica Castro
The next dress in my collection is a pink sweet sixteen style dress.  I've been making tons of party dresses lately and I really wanted to include something that would work well for a young crowd.  This dress is made of a large vintage scarf I picked up while antiquing a few months ago.  When I finished making the dress I realized there were barely any scraps...I had just enough for this dress.  I also added a cubic Zirconia band around the waist and a small Zirconia cabochon at the center front of the band to give the dress a little sparkle.  The scarf fabric was a silk/cotton blend so it gave the dress a really cute drape.  I lined it in a very lightweight 100% cotton broadcloth fabric.

Photo by Jessica Castro
The next dress in the collection is my absolute favorite dress ever!  I am probably keeping the sample for myself and plan to offer it in both Magenta and Emerald.  This is a complicated dress!  The pattern itself is simple - but it's made of 100% silk chiffon and 100% silk lining.  All of the fabric had to be pre-washed and flat dried - then ironed.  The dress was then sewn using silk thread.  After sewing I had to hand dye the dress to get an Ombre effect.  After dying I had to wash it to get rid of any excess dye.  Once I did this I had to re-iron/steam and finally I had to hand sew every single paillette around the neckline, arms and hem.  It took about 20 hours to make!  But I loved the result and got so many compliments. 

Photo by Jessica Castro

photo by Jessica Castro


I also wanted to include a skirt/top/jacket combo.  I made the skirt with crushed velvet and added front pockets.  The top is actually made with sheer upholstery fabric...looking back I don't know how excited I am about the top but I loved the skirt and jacket - I made about 3 different tops for this look and they were all pink except for this one - I really liked this fabric because it had small hints of pink in the print.  The jacket is made of silk satin, with silk lining and I hand sewed paillettes all over - this jacket was incredibly time consuming and I feel like I should have just made a cape instead of a jacket since it would have had the same effect but taken less time to make.  I was really lucky to have Rain Miller model this outfit - she was perfect for it.  I really love this picture Jessica Castro took of the outfit:

picture by Jessica Castro

The final dress in the collection is one of my favorite dresses ever!  I actually used the top of a vintage pattern I found and made a few modifications.  I then added a long gathered full length skirt.  This dress was made with vintage fabric I bought on Etsy!  The best part is that if fit the model really well - I didn't have to change the length of the dress - which I originally thought I'd made about 6" too long!
This dress is one of a kind since I can't get any more fabric to make more - but I plan on re-making it as a wedding dress, with silk chiffon, english lace and hand made chiffon flowers!


Overall I was very happy with the collection.  I meant to take photos so I could list the dresses on Etsy but I just didn't have time.  I have a photo shoot scheduled this weekend with model Sarah Wallace and will be available next week.  I'm already working on a new collection of wedding dresses that I will have available in early January.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Pictures

With all of the craziness of trying to finish my collection for the Brink Magazine/Vitamin Water competition and trying to get a batch of six bridesmaid dresses shipped I've barely had time to edit pictures for some of my new items.  
I just finished editing a small batch of pics I took last week with model Rebecca Oros. 
We met up at Starbucks in downtown Naples and looked around the area for cute spots to take pictures.  These are the first three pics of the set, but there are at least 20 pics left to edit!  I had never been to downtown Naples - such a cute area!
Rebecca is wearing a mustard version of my Andrea top and a burlap look linen skirt.  These items will be available for sale in a few days.

I'll post a few more tomorrow



Friday, March 12, 2010

Outtakes from my last photoshoot.

I always like to show what was happening behind and around my photoshoots. Here are a few outtakes from the last shoot.

Here's the backside of Church Street Station. This exact corner is mentioned in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. All the Townspeople gather here as they put up the first street light - purchased from Sears. With the overpass and construction it's not much to look at, but historic none the less.


If you look to your left you get the image above, not very attractive. However, if you take a few steps to the right you get this very historic looking back alley. The haze from the sun was in just the right spot to give the pic a very nice washed out look. This shot was taken with a Nikon D40 set to P+.03 with a flash dampener. This pic will be in a six page spread on my new collection in the April issue of Brink.




My boyfriend took this (and many other) snapshots from behind. You can see me, the model, and the make-up artist approaching the train. We weren't looking for a place to shoot, we were trying to get out of the freezing cold wind. Don't be fooled, it isn't always warm in FL. Here it was about 48 degrees.

The train is the famous Orange Blossom Special which ran from 1925 - 1953. Most people probably know it because of Johnny Cash who named his 1965 album album after it.


Here's a look at the shot. We worked the suitcase in to kind of give it that 'traveling' feel. Once again, it might look warm and sunny, but it was about 48 degrees and we had to fight with the wind. It took forever to get a shot where the model's hair wasn't blowing all over the place.









Another one of my boyfriend's candid shots, this one actually ended up being very useful. Here you see all kinds of clutter and unattractive stuff. I'm in front of the model with my trusty gold warming reflector. The make-up artist is helping to set up the shot. There's even a random pedestrian in the background, BUT, if you scroll down you'll see that, with a little bit of cropping, this turned out to be a good picture of the back of the jacket.



Here it is cropped. Luckily he was using a very high setting on the camera. This way I was able to crop it and still maintain decent image quality. I know this isn't exactly a great pic, but it shows the back of the jacket in action. It looks like the model is dealing with the hustle and bustle of traveling in the big city.












Speaking of the big city, sometimes working conditions are less than perfect. Here Dez Leto fixes the model's make-up just a few feet from a busy road. I gotta tell you, men just can't behave. You have no idea how many guys interrupted us by honking and yelling.



Many of the shots were taken in the garden at Orlando's Social Chameleon. Bret, the owner, saw us out front shooting and invited us back to check out the garden and it turned out to be the best spot of the day. If you're ever in Orlando and you want to see where the locals go for chow, this is a good place to start.

Here's our home base. Etoile boutique provided all the accessories for this shoot. Katie Reynolds was a big help too. Etoile is on Robinson St. in Downtown. It's now called the 'milk district' by some because the TG Lee plant is right across the street. On this strip you'll find skate shops, pool halls, indie record shops, and all kinds of fun stuff.