Fashion Editorial: Let me be a mermaid

Let me be a mermaid, is both a performance about the dress and the mini story created from the photo-shoot. Firstly about the dress, Julie du Fabularium, the stylist, and designer of the embroidery dress was inspired by famous name such Michelle Carragher, embroidery of fabulous outfit seen for example on tv show Games of Thrones. The idea was to create at the same time a dark and fabric atmosphere, inspired by underwater colors and creatures, this part of the mythology that both fascinated and scared us. Julie wanted to create an attractive and intimidating mermaid. For the creation of this dress, the most important for her was the embroidery.

She wanted to recreate with beads and sequins the rough texture of fish scales, which implied that she put them one by one with a needle by hand !It took hundred of hours of work but the result was really rewarding. The shape of the dress is still a regular dress, who makes the model still looks like a human with legs and not the typical fish tail we could have expected.That’s how came the story of the photo shoot part because the dress is unique it has been made on the measurement of a model who was about to move to another city, we needed to rush to pick a location set. We didn’t want to make a typical studio shoot so we opted out for the city of Gruissan, that the photographer Fabrice Meuwissen used several time for fashion photo shoots.

The weather was cloudy but not windy, we found a little fish market very quiet and we started to shoot in a cool mood. The best way to promote the stylist was to create a story… a day in the life of a girl who doesn’t want to be a human anymore, so we started to shoot from the land to the sea.With post processing help of the gradient color and shape details, we turned the human into a mermaid by adding the final touch of liquefying process on her face and profile view. Traveling from left to right such cinematic stories and movies, we let move quietly the girl into a mermaid using the unique landscape of the area and the clouds reflection on the water.

We have tried both cobra flashes and natural light rendering, but we kept this editorial in natural light, it was the best option to preserve the mellow mood. About the Photographer, Fabrice Meuwissen,he is specialized in fashion, lifestyle, beauty for hair and makeup artists. “I don’t shoot outdoor that often as it is always a lot of stress to manage the weather, the crowd, the location availability and all little details we can’t anticipate.We have been truly blessed not to have direct and hard sun for this shoot.The dress sequins aren’t sparking as they could have with direct sun, but it still gives a unique mood”. About makeup, the team wanted a real harmony between every element . So Cyrillia Deyre, the makeup artist, tried the makeup before the photo shoot on Clara wearing the dress in order to see the total look. As the story told, it is a metamorphosis, so the makeup should be scalable.

First, the makeup artist decided to do a nude makeup, she wanted to bring out only Clara’s blue eyes. So after making a natural face, she chose to use an orange eyeshadow and a black eyeliner to contrast Clara’s blue eyes.In this way, we can understand that the character is a human, the makeup stayed neutral, enough to “ beautify” the model. Furthermore, orange brings an interesting contrast between the coldness of the light and landscape. Throughout the story, the main character is attracted by the sea and strat to be a mermaid so the makeup had to change.

Cyrillia decided to intensify the makeup on the eyes. The look became darker with highlight blue and black smoky eyes. The aim was to do a makeup that matches the dress and the fish scale. With all these elements, the transformation is complete. With all these elements, the transformation is complete.

FASHION CREDITS:

Photographer: Fabrice Meuwissen
Female Model: Clara Verdier
Makeup Artist: Cyrillia Deyre
Stylist: Julie Fabularium