Endings

Aside from the stress that accompanies the final days before a deadline something wonderful happened this week. I had been contemplating how I was going to photograph my finished dress after remaking the bodice. The truth is I had made a complete mess of it, in my haste to have it ready for my NTU photoshoot. I was also not happy with the lack of volume in the skirt as I had not had time to make a crinoline and consequently in the photo’s my frock looked like a deflated balloon.

Sindy, Simone and Phil in The Boardroom Studio

I needed some images of the dress to finish off my website and had been thinking of ways of acquiring photo’s that would do justice to my final Party Frock. However, I needed to do that cheaply and quickly, which meant I would have to do the photography and maybe just find a location for a shoot.

I thought about contacting local national trust properties or maybe just using the Derbyshire countryside as a backdrop. In some respects, outdoors could have worked with the whole sunshine cyanotype thing but I didn’t feel that would look right with the imagery I had been capturing over the course of the MA. Unless I was lucky enough to discover a field filled only with Cornflowers, I needed an alternative.

Simone bringing my Party Frock to life.

Last bank holiday whilst scrolling through Instagram I saw an image posted by The Boardroom, a photography studio based in derby that another photographer who hired the space, told me about a few years ago. I thought my dress would look perfect against the white painted walls of this beautiful Georgian room and called immediately to check availability, thinking I had probably left it too late to make a booking.

But not only was I able to make a booking, (someone literally cancelled during our conversation) my room hire quickly escalated into a collaboration. So instead of me taking shots on my phone of a dress on a mannequin, I had a professional photographer, a model and a beautiful Georgian backdrop with the most amazing light for an afternoon, 2 days before my deadline. That to me was serendipity at work.

And as I saw my dress brought to life for the first time with a wonderful model and photographer it really did feel like it was meant to be. In the midst of the stress of collating the remainder of two years’ worth of work, this afternoon I was reminded what it was all for, the culmination of my creative journey, the realisation of all that research, experimentation, exploration and discovery.

As I watched my model elegantly displaying my Party Frock, I realised she was wearing not only the results of that but my memories, my values, my connections, the most personal piece of design I had ever produced. It was almost too much emotionally.

The perfect end to my project. At least the perfect end to my masters, for this is just the beginning.

Simone & Sindy with Sindy in the corner overseeing proceedings.