So which are the 3 key pieces of this part of the our collection and what do you need to know about them? Well the three pieces in question are the gorgeous and sumptuous comb FIrst Shoots, the beautifully textured Gardenia tiara and the simple but elegant Daisy Chain double headband. And this is what inspired me to design them.
First Shoots
One of the things I love about going for a walk in spring is walking through a park and looking at the ground and plants and just noticing the tiny green shoots and leaves. It always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that no matter what is going on in your world, the world in all its glory carries on as usual. So when I began drafting for the collection I decided that I wanted a piece to represent this.
One of our most successful design styles for our couture clients from 2009 were large combs which could be worn asymmetrically as a bold statement piece or which could be worn pushed into a french pleat. And I wanted to use this style of design in the new collection simply because of its versatility. So when thinking about themes for spring I remembered a piece that I had designed for a couture client which was a wonderfully textured mix of curled wire finished with freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystal and had been shaped like an ice cream cone (one of the posh waffle ones). As I looked at the images of this design I began to see the concept behind First Shoots. I decided to cut the design in half and elongate it whilst taking the curled wire with freshwater pearls and crystals theme and make a more compacted base than the original as the basis of First Shoots.
This beautifully textured base represents the sleeping earth, waiting for the spring to push new "First Shoots" through into the new season. And these shoots were achieved by pulling curled strands of wire finished with pearls or crystal pulled up about above the more compacted base. Whilst a fully compacted base gave the piece a heavy, dense feel, by simply adding these extended strands it gave it an altogether lighter feel. This piece is beautifully elegant and extremely versatile. Whilst it looks fantastic pushed into the crease of a french pleat, it also looks amazing worn asymmetrically as it was worn on the catwalk at the National Wedding Show at Olympia earlier this year.
It is a beautiful piece with fantastic texture and depth as well as a gorgeous natural sparkle. It is the ideal accompaniment to a multitude of gown styles and with its versatile styling it allows the bride to show off her personality even more.
Gardenia
My favourite type of garden border is one where there is a mix of plants and flowers which interweave with each other so you can see lots of different colours and textures all intermingled and I so look forward to the spring as this is in when the first of these borders appears in our garden. And when it comes to designing pieces I always think that this kind of technique - where colours and textures all intermingle - is ideal for tiaras. I love tiaras to have texture. It gives them more of a personality, and rather than just being a piece of bling, it gives them depth.
Taking the idea of a mixed garden border I decided to design Gardenia, a traditional style tiara (one of the only traditionally styled tiaras in all four of the collections) which was based on layers of branched wire, curled and finished with freshwater pearl or crystal to give a beautiful texture and depth. This almost allows the piece to breathe and allows light to penetrate all around. This gives the piece a wonderful sparkle and adds warmth to the creamy pearls. Although Gardenia is quite busy it has quite a light, delicate feel whilst retaining a rich air as well. It is a wonderfully elegant design which takes a simple idea, adds a twist and creates a piece which is much more interesting and complex. This makes the piece ideal for spring weddings to accompany beautiful gowns in rich, soft fabrics or worn with textured, embroidered bodices. But it will also look fantastic at any time of the year as the varying lights will either enhance the sparkle or add richness to the pearls to suit weddings all year round.
Daisy Chain
You don't need to have a fancy, elaborate design to be a key piece in a collection. In fact simple designs are often the hardest to do as there is nowhere to hide! And Daisy Chain is no exception.
What I love about late spring is that after the lawn has been cut from its winter slumber, the tiny white dots of daisy heads begin to appear. I used to love making daisy chains as a child and now that I'm an auntie I get to make them all over again with my nieces and nephews. And having made one with my nephew and actually looked at it more closely through his fascinated eyes (read into that he asked alot of questions usually starting with "Why....?"), I noticed a beautiful pattern.
When you make a daisy chain the stems always seem to slope down to the flower head and the more I looked at this the more I began to see a headband. So I decided to think about what I love about daisies. Quite simply I love their radiance - they almost have the ability to add sparkle to your lawn. Sowhen I was looking at materials to use in this piece my immediate thought was to use crisp diamante for the centres of the floral motifs and beautiful freshwater pearls for the "petals". Then to provide continuity I used these freshwater pearls for the interconnecting "stems". This gives a lovely rich motif which can be repeated to form an elegant, striking design. And of course what gives this piece such presence is the fact that it is down on a double band. And the fact that it is on a double band allows for an additional amount of interest in as much as the motifs on each band are offset from each other so the sparkle is more evenly distributed.
It is a beautifully simple piece which looks amazing on and has of course spawned a number of spin offs. There is Daisy, the single headband. The Daisy combs - simple combs that use the simple motif and soon there will be Daisy hairpins. The motif can even be made into jewellery. But whichever version of Daisy Chain you choose, you are always guaranteed to wear a piece which is elegant, rich and sparkly whilst maintaining an unfussy feel. And this makes the piece ideal for so many styles of gown and hair style and also makes it ideal for weddings at any time of the year.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about these pieces. Of course there are other pieces in the collection which are stunning in their own way and I would strongly advise you to check out our website at the end of January when there will be a couple of additional pieces making their way into our 2011 Spring Collection. But for now I hope that reading this has made you feel a little warmer in the midst of this cold weather.
So until next time........
You can see our 2011 Collections by clicking here
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