High Fashion Halloween Bridal by Laura Whitney Couture & Artist Built!

Happy Halloween everyone!  Remember when I said I was working on a big photo shoot?  Well in honor of the best holiday of the year, I collaborated with the leather sculptors of Artist Built, as well as an amazing team of models, hair stylists and make-up artists to create an ethereal yet dark Halloween spread using gowns from the new Laura Whitney Couture bridal line (launching spring 2012!).  I also created a few special pieces for the shoot including an Elizabethan inspired bolero, dramatic millinery, delicate paper wings, and I even got back to my corsetry roots and made an enticingly wicked "Kiss Me Deadly" corset with matching origami panniers!  I must admit, it was such a pleasure to take a brief departure from the light romantic beauty of bridal to take part in creating deep dark imagery.

Quite possibly my favorite photo!  She looks like she's up to something!

Our images followed five themes to show dark spirits of many realms : A wicked Queen of Hearts, the vengeful Corpse Bride, an Angel with a devilish side, the jilted Flapper, and a Fetish Femme Fatale. With an impeccable team of models, airbrush techniques and makeup artist, talented photographer Sasha Landskov captured the feel behind the the collaborative vision beautifully!   Thank you so much to Irma & Sienna of Mixx Salon, Soraya Hatfield of Pinup Stylings, and Dede Franks of Salon George for all their fabulous work on the hair and make-up!  City Pages has also published a slide show of the full set of images so to see more, click here.

All the killer jewelry was provided my Rewind Vintage of Minneapolis!

Our amazing make-up artists painstakingly applied real gold leaf flakes to our fallen angel!

Artist Built did all the custom leather accessories!  Contact them for custom fetish pieces!

I so enjoyed making this corset!  I'd love to do more custom pieces like this! (hint: e-mail me!)

Isn't this mask just amazing!?!  It's like Cyborg crossed with Fetish!

What I'm Working on Now.... Er, 2 days ago.

Heya, just thought I post one little preview pictures from our Tuesday photo shoot!  This was me doing some final tweaking before photos.

Look What I Made!

I was not at my best yesterday but still managed to whip up these babies!  They are paper wings which will be used in tomorrows photo shoot (angel outfit).  Lots to do... ta ta!

Fancy Frillies!

Happy Monday all!  I had a very full weekend; our craft beer party was a smash hit and the next day I picked up our new (well, new to me) car from my brother's mechanics shop and drove it home!  As much as I LOVE the Comet, I am so happy to have a modern car to drive and not need to rely on a retro ride every single day.  

But as it always seems to be, retro design is going to be a big part of my day today.  Among the more mundane tasks, today my work day will include designing pink retro lingerie for a colleague's art/fashion fusion coffee table book. The whole book is a really exciting concept based around the theme of candy!  Irma, who if you recall was the lead make-up artist on our August photo shoot, is collaborating with a photographer friend of hers who is in turn collaborating with many different artists to create unique fashion looks using different candy as the primary medium!   For this shoot Irma has chosen cotton candy (Oh, just think of the possibilities!) and has asked me to create some pint retro lingerie for the shoot!  She told me the model will have cotton candy pink finger curls for her hair style so I'm thinkin' a pair of satin tap panties are in order!   I'm excited to try designing/sewing lingerie for the first time.  Several people have asked me about adding a honeymoon lingerie collection to Laura Whitney Couture so this will be a trial run so to speak!

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And speaking of lingerie, in the process of researching this project I came across an awesome blog called The Lingerie Addict!  Below is just some of the yummy eye candy they've featured recently! 

Behind the Scenes of Yesterday's Photoshoot!

Good morning all!  Whew!  After some much needed sleep I'm ready to share with you a behind the scenes look at the first Laura Whitney Couture photo shoot!  This was probably one of the most exciting and gratifying days of my professional life!  To see all my hard work of the past several months come together was just exhilarating.  We had the most wonderful team of models and hair/make-up artists and of course our talented photographer!  For 5 hours everyone put in 110% and it was really a collaboration of ideas and solutions to unexpected challenges which resulted in such a successful shoot.  I was super busy running back and forth throughout the whole shoot but I did manage snap some pictures with my little Canon Powershot.  Enjoy!

Packing up the car early in the morning & heading out. Clearly I am both tired and nervous!

Getting organized at the studio in St, Paul.

Irma and C.C. doing hair & makeup!

Finishing touches ...

Our photographer Ali begins shooting!  Beautiful! 

Switching out accessories...

And my crazy busy week continues...

Another new gown is finished!  Woot!  I'm not going to show you a picture but I will tell you that it's not white or ivory.  It's blush!  I just love how pale blush pink is becoming more popular for brides.  It makes sense since it compliments just about any skin tone!  What else is there? ...Oh, one thing that is sort of sad is that I am having to discontinue my current incarnation of my Buttercream Bridal Bolero.  The dotted fabric that I bought was discontinued which is such a bummer because it was just adorable!  I searched high and low for it's replacement and couldn't find another dotted brocade.  BUT the style is just too darn cute to get rid of so I'm keeping the design alive in silk dupioni which is great because it will be available in many colors!   I have enough of the original fabric to make just one more bolero so if you want it, snatch it up!  Okay I better get back to the sewing studio now!  Ta ta! 

What I'm Working on Now.

Okay so I've been awake for 19 hours as I type this and I've been working about 16 of those hours.  That's not an exaggeration.  BUT progress has been made!  I finished the gown I started on Monday and also started a new gown this evening after a very strong cup of coffee at about 8:30pm.  It really helped me power thru a few more hours of work but now I've got that really odd mix of wired and tired.  So just real quickly here are a couple pictures I snapped this morning (tuesday) and then I'm going to bed. 

I spent a couple hours like this hand stitching tulle fringe.

Ok, it's a grainy not so great picture but you get the idea. 

Monday Monday

It's Monday.  I am well rested and ready to work.  I'll be workin' my butt off all week actually because our first big photo shoot for Laura Whitney Couture is on Sunday!  As such, I've issued a self imposed ban of friends and alcohol.  Friends, because I need to spend my evenings in the studio working with no distractions, and alcohol so that I have the most possible energy and also because even one drink with dinner could cause me to slip into a food coma and lose an entire evening of work.   So yeah, harsh but justified.  Also, I may or may not take the time to blog every day.  Sorry but it's crunch time! 

As I begin my week of highly focused heavy production I may need some inspiration when frustration and fatigue hits.  I will keep these things in mind.

*I want to have this poster in my studio when I start hiring employees*

And perhaps most importantly...

What I'm Working on Now.

It's been a really long time since I've posted any progress photos of the new collection.  I've been super busy this summer with my normal wedding season work as well and making time for building the Laura Whitney Couture collection.  So I thought I'd put up a few pictures I have taken in the workroom this week showing the progress. 

my label sewn inside a dress! 

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone. I have a TON of work to get done before Monday & it's also CouchFest so this is not going to be my most relaxing weekend to say the least!  With that in mind, a few scenes from the workroom over the last couple weeks.

Little Hercules, we had to eventually give him away to a friend, sadly.

My desk on a rare occasion looking very clean and pretty!

Thank you card sent out with a veil order

New Packaging!

Getting a couple veil/hairpiece orders ready to ship.

Testing out glittery bunting as a photography prop. Still not decided...

A gown for the new Laura Whitney Couture collection, very much "in process".

Monday Monday

Nothing but bits and pieces and snippets from the workroom over the weekend.

Recent Work

Good morning all!  I can't talk too much about it but I've got some BIG stuff going on!  In the following weeks I'll be giving you, my readers, little sneak peeks of some of the lovelies I'm designing for what is sure to be an exciting launch!  Today is probably one of the more generous previews of a new gown design.  I'm just too excited about it!  I don't have a name for it yet, I've been tossing around the phrase "TR fan dress" for obvious reasons.  The drama on the back of the gown is a 3-D origami technique known as transformation reconstruction (google it!).  Anyway, I'm lovin' it & I hope you do too!

If you have questions about the availability of this gown please e-mail me at laura@uptownurbancraft.com