ASOS SS14 PREVIEW

The mighty ASOS has truly outdone itself for next season.

This is a brand who, many moons ago when I started my days of work experience in the industry, was a small, lesser known label called As Seen On Screen, and did rather cheap-looking copies of Paris Hilton's party frocks.

Cut to about 12 years later and this brand is leading the way in young British Fashion. Up there with Topshop, ASOS is creating it's own trends from it's observations of music, travel, culture and everything cool in Britain, and around the world.

I really love this brand.

I may have started to drop out of their demographic (the amazing ASOS magazine for which I used to work really is aimed at a younger audience than a thirty something like me) but from a Fashion Editor's point of view this is one of the best brands to be shooting right now. Exciting, standout and fun.

Their fantastic SS14 collections that we previewed at the Press Day today saw a few of the favourite ASOS themes remain; a heavy sporty influence, plenty of neoprene, colourful ethnic print (Indian and Hawaiian this time), digi patterns, but the grown-up ASOS White collection was a little modernist haven for the more demure dresser. And the new ASOS Salon collections were beautiful Summer wedding outfits sorted.

Accessories were also show stealers. Cool-as-they-come sunnies, crazy chunky sandals, fun logo bags, and then also more delicate, fine-looking jewellery for those of us that don't necessarily want to scream trends. (Although why not?!)

I cannot wait to see this stuff hit the site and start shooting it. Well done ASOS.

Here are a few phone snaps from the day...

Love this!

ASOS White

ASOS Salon

NYC | Coney Island Shoot

The first of the NYC shoots to be published came out about 5 days after it was shot - a super fast turnaround even on a weekly magazine. It was one of my first shoots whilst there and it was a location shoot on Coney Island. What a cool place.

The story was about mixing up texture and turning sparkle and shine cool, rather than glitzy.  Here are some phone snaps from the day, about 2 weeks ago now.

Our gorgeous model Kelsey

Photographer Ezra and colleague Kate

These are a few screen grabs of selects from the day (unretouched please note!) . Check out Look magazine for the full story!

Barbados editorial | Neon story

One of my favourite stories from our recent trip to Barbados was out last week in Look magazine, the neon story.

When we were location scouting around Barbados there were so many brightly coloured properties that we could have shot against (apparently it is the thing to have a neon house over there, how very on trend!) but in very busy or residential areas. So we were very chuffed when we came across a whole village of just-built vacant houses in every colour under the sun. It was a new government housing scheme - the equivalent to a British council block basically. I know what I'd prefer...

The derelict site gave an almost futuristic feel to the shoot, almost like an eerily empty movie set, hence the head "The Girl Who Fell To Earth".

Here's the finished story:

All pictures © Look Magazine

Behind The Scenes | The making of a Press Day

Whilst away in Barbados, PR agency Lee Publicity contacted me to ask me to work with them on their upcoming Autumn Winter Press Day for one of their biggest clients, Littlewoods. 

They wanted me to edit the new Autumn Winter collections (including their regular celeb ranges from Myleene Klass and Coleen Rooney), style up all the mannequins for the show, and select what goes on the rails for the London Fashion Press to view at the show - which was held earlier this week.

It was a really great opportunity to help the PRs understand what we as Fashion Editors want to see at events. You'll often find journalists snap/Tweet/Instagram/Facebook the same pieces at press shows, that's because we are all looking for the same things - key pieces that really represent the new season, items that will photograph well - whether on a model or on a still life shopping page - and things we know readers will want to buy. 

So it was fantastic to have the chance to work with an agency to select the winning pieces and style them into outfits that will catch the press' eyes. And I really wanted the Littlewoods product to look as cool as any High Street fashion brand.

When I arrived at the venue, The Hopsital Club in Covent Garden, the day before the event this week, my first task was to get to work on unpacking the huge trunks of clothes. I needed to establish and understand visually the brand's 3 key trends for AW13; Campfires, Full English and Urban Uniform. From there I worked the rails into outfits, and then had an edited rail of selects to sit next to each visual display for the press to browse through.

Each trend had it's own area at the event space to tie in with the trend. 

The first trend, Campfires, was all about comfy check shirts, chunky knits, navajo details and lots of denim, so had an area covered with patches of canvas and littered with tea lights in mason jars.

The next, Full English, highlighted traditional British looks like wax and quilted jackets, mixed with vintage-looking tea dresses and quirky prints and had a stand decorated with old books and vintage lampshades.

The final, and biggest, trend, Urban Uniform, was a modern urban collection with a monochrome and khaki palette, big on stripes, including maxi skirts, combat trousers and cool jersey. It had it's very own zebra crossing to work with.

The event went brilliantly the following day with lots of compliments on the styling. Hurrah!

It was a busy day so just some phone photos to show some behind the scenes of the making of a Press Day...

Hello ladies!

Starting the set-up operation

Unpacking and sorting into trends

Campfires

Steaming

Full English mannequins

Campfires and Full English mannequins done - props getting added

Books 

The Urban Uniform girls await their set

The making of the zebra crossing

In their place!

Urban Uniform

Myleene Klass suit and shirt

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