playful promises

Playful Promises Halloween Campaign

I haven't written in here for a while as I've been so busy! In the interim, I travelled to Chicago and New York, and have been assisting my partner on some video projects. More about those later!

If we have time, we always attempt to take a Halloween photoshoot at Playful Promises (last year's theme was Victorian Spiritualism), despite this being one of the busiest times of the year, leading up to Christmas. I wasn't quite sure what we could do that would be different to previous years (in 2013 we did a semi-B-movie style shoot and 2012 was cat inspired), and not be typically "spooky".

I started thinking of '70s horror films, in particular the strong colours of Suspiria and some of Lauren Thurman-King's amazing work.

Miss Deadly Red is one of my favourite people to shoot at the moment, and she was such a good sport about wearing smelly fangs, being covered in blood and having a fake eyeball shoved in her mouth.

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Shop for the lingerie featured in the images here!

2014 Through The Lens

I did this last year, so I'm doing it again this year!

As I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of spare time (or the budget) to organise creative shoots, but I've managed to squeeze a few in here and there. I feel like although I've not shot all that much, the quality of my work is getting better! You can view my entire 2014 portfolio (and previous years) here, and let me know what you think.

 

 These are my favourite picks from the "non-work" creative shoots I've done this year.

Very early in the year, I shot the beautiful Suri Sumatra (top left), who I've known as part of the cabaret scene for a while. There was a *little* difference between this shoot and the rest of my work; she was very pregnant! She's since had an adorable baby girl, but it was wonderful to shoot some different pregnancy photos. Suri has an amazing wardrobe full of costumes, and I love the old gold theme she worked with for this styling - she looks like a mythical goddess.

I worked with Miss Betsy Rose (top right) a few years ago, and she's just so wonderfully photogenic! She told me she had some corsets to shoot for Ava Corsetry, and wondered if I'd like to join in. We shot so many different styles, I still have more shots to edit! I particularly love this one :)

I finally teamed up with aerialist and contortionist badass, Jackie Le (bottom left), for a circus-esque shoot at The Aeronaut in Acton (if you haven't been yet, make sure you do!). This was the first time I've shot anyone on an aerial hoop, which was a lot more difficult than I first imagined... but I love the results!

Betsy Rose was back in my studio with fellow burlesque stars Jolie Papillon and Missy Fatale (the 3 of them being Gin House Burlesque). We did some triple shots as well as singles, but it's this shot (bottom right) of Missy Fatale that I love because of her awesome snake!

 

 

I think my Playful Promises lookbook total this year has been 6.. not including the lookbooks for Wolf & Whistle! Some shoots took multiple days! I'm so pleased with the results, both photography-wise and for our brand.

Top left was the AW'14 campaign, where we swapped out elaboate locations for a minimalist '60s inspired look. Top right was for our 10th Anniversary circus collection, so I could be a bit more creative with lighting, and I loved the results (probably my favourite shoot!). Bottom left is our SS'15 campaign, and bottom right was our quirky, creepy Halloween lookbook, inspired by victorian spiritualism!

 I've just shot the AW'15 campaign, which I absolutely love! Three of my favourite models, Miss Miranda, Miss Deadly Red and Veanne, in one of my favourite locations (we actually used this for AW'12, my first lookbook for the brand).

Here's a cheeky preview of two of the shots

 

Here's to 2015!

 

Playful Promises Circus Collection Lookbook

Hooray, another lookbook I can show off!

Normally with lookbooks I shoot them 6 months before I can actually show them, but in this case the production process was shorter.

Playful Promises is celebrating 10 years of making knickers, and to celebrate we created a limited edition Circus-inspired collection, made entirely in the UK. Check out our facebook page to read more!

This is not only one of my favourite lingerie collections to date, but I'm so pleased with the images we shot. As this collection is exclusive to our retail website, the images didn't need to be so commercial, so we were a little more creative, experimenting with lighting. 

I shot in what I'm going to describe as a secret location (you might see it crop up in another way later this year) with Miss Miranda, who did all her own makeup and hair. We actually shot all of this in about 4 hours, because we are awesome ;) 

Click on the photos to buy the extemely limited edition pieces!

 

 

We also shot some mix-and-match images of some of the other brands we carry.

Happy Halloween!

As part of my job is to create visual content, I put together a little Halloween themed shoot!

I got in touch with the lovely SINderella Rockafella, and borrowed some headgear from Pearls and Swine (I should really write a separate post about how awesome her work is!).

We decided to go for two different sets, one with the Tatiana lingerie and one with the Peacock lingerie (and we also did a Christmas set which I'll post later!).

The first set features an awesome spider headdress (stupidly I forgot that Emma, our brand director, is terrified of spiders!), so I thought I'd go for B-movie style puns :P

 

 

For the Peacock set, we had 3 different headdresses, and decided to shoot them all! We used the new wallpaper that's just been put up in the PP studio, which photographed beautifully (much like SINderella!).

 

Daily Outfit: Burgundy and Gold

 

I've been meaning to get around to actually photographing my day to day outfits, that I wear to work etc. 

My daily style is obviously a lot more toned down than when I'm DJing. Miss Miranda describes it as "Victorian Street Orphan" (thanks :P) - I love to wear dark reds and golds, although I'm trying to put more colours into my wardrobe.

This outfit is fairly simple for a slightly humid rainy day. 

Bodysuit - Hella by Playful Promises

Bra with chain - Opulence by Playful Promises

Jacket - H&M

Skirt - New Look

 

I put together that "bookcase" out of apple crates... I needed somewhere to display some of my favourite books! 

 

This weather is great for just wearing jackets/blazers rather than coats, and I've had this jacket for a while. I love the gold stitching.