Floral fashion shoot – Gypsophila dress
This Floral fashion shoot is our first in a series of backstage stories about floral themed shoots we did earlier this year. Our team for this shoot consisted of:
- Sandra Welte – freelance floral designer Divergent Flowers
- Lianne Veenstra – model, member of Team Studio 78A
- Sjoerd Banga – photographer Studio 78A
- Vera Wapstra – junior filmer/editor Studio 78A
- Patricia van Es – intern, film
We take you behind the scenes of this shoot.
Flowers are my passion…
Three years ago, I realised that what I was doing, wasn’t making me happy. I made computer animations, but I couldn’t find my passion in it. At that time, it seemed quite hard to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
Creativity marks my life. I was asking myself how I could further develop this creativity. Flowers seemed the best the way to express this. Eventually, I decided to work as a flower stylist.
I’m always looking for the limits in my work, with regard to technique (how I can be renewing) as well as to colour (the possibility of colour combinations), but also to form (in what ways I can show the flowers differently).
I’ve been looking for the challenge to combine fashion with flowers for a long time. Thus, my next challenge was to process flowers into a product that someone wouldn’t have thought of initially, but that eventually surprises you about the kind of things that are actually possible with flowers.
A dress made of flowers, that was my big flower project. Although my style is colourful and expressive, I wanted to make something more sexy and delicate for a change. A dress made of gypsophila. An important factor to take into account when doing a photoshoot is how long the flowers will endure. The gypsophila was sponsored by Alkemade and originates from Klaver Flowers in Ethiopia. It’s nice to see people get all enthusiastic when you tell them you want to do something else with their gypsophila. Suddenly, you start to look at a flower, which is usually just used to fill up the spaces in a bouquet, differently. It’s a very delicate flower to work with. There’re a hundred branches of gypsophila in the dress and I’ve sewn small pieces manually on it. It really is a lot of work, ten hours to be more precise, but the result is impressive.The moment that the model, Lianne, put on the dress, was a magical moment for me. It was a very delicate dress, so I had to adjust some flowers again before the start of the shoot.
Sjoerd had found a very beautiful location with a big mysterious tree. The gypsophila dress, Lianne and the location fit together perfectly. Sjoerd knew how to emphasize the right atmosphere by putting on some music, which made me also really enjoy this photoshoot.
Sandra Welte
The first photoshoot that I did was on the exact same location in the forest as this one. Near a huge tree, on an open spot, fairy tale like due to the rays of sunlight beaming through the leaves. The dress made of real flowers that I was wearing, and the surroundings contributed to a dreamy, romantic effect. The weather was to our advantage; it was sunny and warm (unlike that first time on a cold November day when I was walking barefoot through the forest). At the end of the first part of the shoot, I had to lie down in the fallen, remaining autumn leaves, blending in with my dress as it were. This was quite a personal victory, considering some big spiders I had seen crawling the earth earlier.
Lianne Veenstra
Besides theme, the group of people in this shoot made it special to me. I know Sandra Welte from a Trash the dress photo hoot I did of her and her husband for Banganimation. During that shoot we found out that we are both the creative minds. Sandra made beautiful 3D animations during that period and we have been able to inspire each other for some time. At the beginning of this year Sandra approached me about the idea to do photoshoots with floral art and if I wanted to brainstorm with her about this.
It quickly became clear that the location was important for both floral fashion themes. For the gypsophila dress we chose a non-public location. So we could work quietly on the photos and it was also less stressfull for model Lianne to step in and out of the dress.
Sjoerd Banga
