Photoshoot day!

It was a long journey to get here. I don't mean miles to the studio, I mean getting to this point. After 18 months of blood, sweat and tears, never having any money because I was investing everything I had into what was just a personal project.. finally it was photoshoot day for the collection!

Our shooting space was at The Cre8tivity Hub in Ashton, which is a fabulous, homely building with lots of creative rooms, dressing areas and studio space. That would have been more than enough, but we were lucky that the sun made a rare appearance in Manchester that day, which allowed us to go outdoors for the lifestyle shots that you see on the website. 

Seeing my clothes on the models was the first time i'd seen them on anyone other than myself and was totally surreal for me. I could see my drawings coming to life and they were exactly how I dreamed they would be. At one point when Naomi came out in the cream maxi dress, I cried! Everyone looked so good. 

It was so humbling to hear the girls' responses to the designs too (one said 'no disrespect, but when we first heard the concept we were expecting the clothes to look more practical than fashionable, but we love them!') and it was nice that they enjoyed wearing them. It meant there was a great vibe and everyone just had a fun day which I think really shows in the pictures. 

All in all I had 3 models (4 if you include myself), 3 photographers, 1 make up artist, and my incredibly talented technical artist Parveen, who has done all my patterns and stitching. There was so much hard work and talent going down on my first shoot, and it went better than I could have hoped. Thanks to Kim, Naomi, Elle, Lee, Amy, Jeanie, Dani and Parveen for bringing my vision to life! 

I hope you all love seeing the collection - a lot of love went into it x