This Vogue Editorial features bags in a visually inventive way and the shoot was great fun!
Photographer Simon Eeles is an Australian photographer who has been working and living overseas. Simon has a great sense of humour – full of life, and I love how his work has a sense of play to it.
Cynthia Swanson, a visual artist who recently had also returned to Australia, would also be adding her unique vision to this story.
Cynthia would be using a form of collage as the basis for the design of the pages.
Vanessa Axente, our model for the story is based in New York but spends a lot of time in Sydney because her fiancé lives here.
I’d worked on some big ad jobs with Vanessa but never any editorial. I was going to enjoy giving Vanessa who is very beautiful and has that classic beauty a slight edge.
I loved Fashion director Jillian Davidson‘s concept of using a body builder in some of the shots – it reminded me of the Greek statues of the body builders flexing they muscles. A big man to show off the big bags!
Matt Beer, our body builder was the most divine person, and exceptionally patient. I don’t think Matt had ever had blue or red arms before but he was up for it. He felt more comfortable with the very brown tan that I put on him – he does that a lot for the body building competitions that he enters.
It was a studio shoot at PIX STUDIOS and not too early a call time. Always easier in a studio, no weather elements to deal with. Great light and tea and coffee on tap – love it!
I’d always seen Vanessa with eyebrows and sometimes quite dark brows and I’d done them previously on her myself. I thought to give her the edge I was looking for, the best thing would be to remove the brows by lightening them.
The only way really is to bleach them light, then at the end of the day to return them back to their normal colour by tinting them with hair colour. Some models get a little nervous about this, to put it mildly, but Vanessa was a good sport – she knew it would be fine.
I made sure before applying any foundation that I’d given her skin a light scrub good hydration as I wanted the skin to glow.
With the eyebrows gone I put the strength into the lips. I chose to go very matte with the lips using a LIQLIPS™ Classic Red Matte Liquid Lipstick with very clean lines around the lip line. There’s no eye shadow, no mascara, no contouring. Sometimes the look can be about what you don’t do.
Sophie Roberts, the fabulous hairdresser, complemented the look by slicking back the hair, keeping the lines clean and bold.
We all had a great day – it all flowed beautifully and I love this editorial, one of my favorites of 2019.