Want s’more behind the scenes info on our new catalog? Well, I’ve told you that the trend concept is Grunge Princess. This idea is how the inspiration for the artwork came about. All of the little drawings and color swatches are done in crayon and colored pencil. They are slightly juvenile looking to me, the way I might have doodled in my notebook the first time grunge was cool. Very Sassy magazine like. And the swatches of color also relate to the idea of patchwork and afghans. Then there are all the scrolling designs and flowers, to meet up with the “princess” part of the trend.
Our photo team took a bunch of cool photos with a Holga camera just for fun. The photos turned out really cool and we ended up using them to border a lot of the pages. These are all the negatives and the images with the blurred edges you see along the sides and in the backgrounds throughout the catalog.
The July catalog is coming! We called the trend concept “grunge princess” The video is already up on our site, so check it out. Our assistant creative director wrote this little note for you, to tell you all about the shoot…
ironically enough, it was a posting that our fpgirl put on the blog that led us to vintage vacations. (remember??)
that’s the name of the “camp” on the isle of wight – just off the coast of southern england – where we shot our grunge princess catalog…
helen, the woman who runs vintage vacations along with her husband, bought an airstream trailer from ebay and had it shipped to her.
and then vintage vacations was born.
situated on a plot of farmland (owned by farmer ted, I think) on the isle, the property now hosts 5 trailers which folks can rent out for friends/families/photo shoots.
we spent a lot of time photographing on vintage vacations’ property, in and around the airstreams which helen kitsched up herself with help from local flea markets/shops.
she and her uncle drove us out all around the island, too…full of hills of sheep, endless fields of flowers, beautiful rocky cliffs.
it’s an amazing place, for sure.
and no day was complete without helen’s tea and scones with clotted cream (absolutely delicious).
The last time I thought about scrunchies, I was watching Sex and the City. Carrie was criticizing Berger’s latest book because he portrayed a fashionable New York woman wearing a scruchy. At the time, no true hip New Yorker would wear a scrunchy in public. We think it’s time to bring back the scrunchy. Check out our Tanzania Scrunchy in four tribal prints. There’s a little extra FP touch with multi colored yarn detail…
I’m sure you’ve noticed all this talk about “homestead” on our website the last week or two. What’s homestead? It’s the name of our latest trend concept. Since we didn’t do a catalog inspired by this trend, I thought I’d give you some of the info we use in the home office to connect to this idea. Check out this poem written by one of our girls on the creative team…
land of buffalo bones and tumbling stones.
old guns and whispering ghosts,
forbidden love and untamed hearts.
old time desperado and willful maiden.
lonesome prairie and wild frontier.
across the wide, open, airy fields,
running,swimming,swiftly
through tall weeds and wild flowers.
plaid skirt, dusty wind blown hair,
dandelion petals in your eyelashes.
my senses obscured by white lace and
a curling trail of gun smoke.
lay your blouse across the chair
let fall the flowers
from your hair
and kiss me
with that country mouth
so plain
and shop for pieces inspired by homestead here!
Dittos are our newest denim brand we are carrying in the stores on on the web.(check em out here) Dittos was a hot brand in the 70′s that has recently been revived for the benefit of our generation. The fit has that 70′s classic feel to it. They’re a little bit high waisted. The denim is thin, super light and flowy and the leg is really long. The back has a double yoke (with a really cute shape) and no pocket. And these puppies don’t stretch much and you should wear them 70′s style, super tight. Like, maybe you should get out your pliers and lay down to button them…
Here, the sales girls at our Paramus, NJ store try on the white dittos (the security tag is hot, right?) and get silly, Backstreet Boys style.
I wanted to point out how great these bags we have are by A. Kurtz. We have this awesome cargo backpack and a fieldbag as well. A. Kurtz makes all these amazing military inspired bags with really great details, like leather trim and cool hardware, screenprinting and stitching. They’re both made of canvas. The backpack has tons of useful pockets and even has an extra handle on the side. And check out the A. Kurtz philosophy…
Wanted to show you some of the great photos you’re posting in our free (people) style flickr group. I love how much effort some of you are putting into this, with amazing styling and creative composition.
But, I’m also loving all the snapshots too! This one is definitely a favorite!
Post your own photos here and get creative! We wanna see more photos!
The girls at our Paramus NJ store were having a “fit session”. They do this frequently to try on all of the newest styles to see how they fit and what you can wear them with. That way they can let customers know all the details and help them put together great outfits. This time the girls decided to make a mini photoshoot out of the event. I’ve posted some of the photos and I’ll put the rest on our flickr group free (people) style…
Any readers in the Sydney/Gympie Australia area? We have a special project for you. Please comment with your name and email address if interested and we will contact you with additional details. (I won’t publish your email address, so no need to worry.) Thank you!!!
I am so happy we got some response to our new flickr group free (people) style! I wasn’t sure if people would be into it, but a bunch of you have started posting photos and comments. It’s so cool to see how different everyone styles their individual pieces. So the above photo is definitely my favorite so far. I know she’s not exactly wearing Free People, but she drew this design inspired by the henna tattoos on our models from our India-inspired catalog!
Check out our new May catalog!!! Keeping along with our travel theme, this trend concept is inspired by Asia. Here’s a little blurb written by our assistant creative director describing some of the process for this shoot…
our asia collection was inspired by quintessential asian-themed prints and colors…pattern and color everywhere…
we decided that, after returning from puerto rico for the africa book, we wanted to keep this shoot more local…(and besides, didn’t have a budget to travel to asia
to document…well…asia). so, we gathered up inspiration pix and, with the help of our creative assistant, learned how to make huge tiled backdrops from them…
which you’ll see we’ve been utilizing for a lot of our recent web shoots.
gathered these backdrops up, and headed to our wholesale showroom in ny, where the shoot was based. ransacked chinatown for lots of additional props – fake flowers, kites, lanterns, fans…
and spent a lot of time rigging them up with fishing line and binder clips!
we also threw in a new concept – karaoke – which is why you’ll see song lyrics (penned by our communications coordinator) and microphones popping up on a few pages of this book. the models sang along to our ipods while we were shooting those images…
for the shot of the chinese dragon, the team packed up and headed to a karate studio (located above our photographers’ studio) in the lower east side of the city.
The above photos are of the book our creative assistant put together for inspiration for the shoot. She gathered all kinds of images, photos, fabrics, yarns, and then layered on her own drawings and notes to start to piece together ideas for the finished catalog.
I promised I’d share the goods in the latest (sorry, I managed to get newspaper smudges all over the cover)…So this issue made me start thinking that the crew at Lula has gotten into my brain. Featuring an ode to defunct teen wonder-mag Sassy, Henry Darger, Bat for Lashes and Grey Gardens, they just know what’s up.
My absolute favorite part is a pull out poster illustrating a tap dance by Zooey Deschanel. You will love it.
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