Wednesday 4 December 2013

No.28 goes all 1930's burlesque!

A couple of months ago at the start of October, we set the wheels in motion for organising a 1930's inspired burlesque shoot between Bad Kitty Corsets, Michael Gordon Photography and myself. Despite a few hiccups along the way in finding an MUA/hairstylist and one of our models unfortunately having to cancel last minute due to work clashes, I'm delighted that it all came together spectacularly last Sunday!

We were kindly allowed to hire out the space in what is one of the best hidden jems in Newcastle, No.28, which is just in the entrance to the Grainger Market. The first thing you notice about No.28 is it's stunning decor of vine leaves, classic statues covered in red lipstick kisses, pearls, flowers and fairy lights dripping from the ceiling and embellished with cheeky paintings and art-deco mirrors. With it's varied and quirky choice of seating, it turned out to be the perfect place for our 1930's vintage inspired burlesque shoot!)

Setting up at No.28

The day officially started when I picked our model Millie Parker up from No.28 at lunch time to take her back to the studios for a corset fitting, hair and make-up. I matched some collars and cuffs to the successful corsets whilst Kelly (of Bad Kitty Corsets) laced her in and out of them to find out which ones were most flattering. As the corsets and girdles are very tailored, personal garments, not all of the size 8 corsets/girdles fit but this wasn't a problem as Kelly had plenty of stunning pieces to choose from! We eventually settled on a simple red corset, an ombre-dyed lemon and turquoise corset (which I think she said took her around 7 hours to dye alone!) and a stunning pink corset with vintage French lace with a matching headpiece. We were lucky that Millie had already came with her hair curled and make-up done, as it saved a lot of time and it only took a slick of Kelly's dark lipstick and magic highlighting brush to complete the look.

When we were all satisfied with the corsets/accessories/hair/make-up, we helped our photographer Michael (of Michael Gordon Photography) and Lucie Cox (our photography assistant notably a talented photographer in her own right) transport their equipment from F6.Studios to No.28. After playing around with a few test shots to get the lighting spot-on, we finally got Millie into her first outfit and began shooting. Amazingly this was her first ever time modelling other than head-shots, so being dressed as a 1930's burlesque girl in the presence of those finishing their Sunday lunches was undoubtedly quite challenging, but she done a brilliant job!


Behind the scenes

More behind the scenes

Unfortunately due to our space being booked till 4.30 and having shot for over 2 hours, we only had time for two of the corsets, but we did manage to cram in a variety of looks by switching accessories including a gorgeous head-piece made by Kelly. Here are a few of the final shots:

Millie wearing leopard 'Dusty' collar and matching cuffs

Millie wearing bespoke 'Anita' collar

Millie wearing bespoke 'Marie' collar and matching cuffs

I think it's safe to say that we all had a lot of fun doing this shoot, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the final edits! Here are some links to the collaborators sites:

Bad Kitty Corsets


Michael Gordon Photography



Melanie xx