Photos by Paola De Paola Photography
A 1980’s inspired kitsch photo shoot…
When the wonderful Lau from Frenchmade, (an amazing cake baker and Mr & Mrs Unique supplier,) asked me to feature this kitsch, eccentric, fun photo shoot I was like; YES please!!
Not only did it feature some other amazing MMU suppliers including The Vintage Floral Company, Paola De Paola and Jo from The Couture Company, it was jam packed full of detail, colour, glitter and sequins… my kind of shoot!
Here Lau tells us the inspiration behind the shoot and a bit about each supplier that took part.. Enjoy!
Lau from Frenchmade…
My inspiration for this shoot was some French 80’s artists I grew up admiring.
There was a huge ‘kitsch’ trend in France at the time with artists like Lio, Rita Mitsouko but also Pierre et Giles and their collaboration with fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and British singer Marc Almond: bright colourful costumes, lots of sequins and glitters, a bit twee, a bit ‘anarchic’ but with a touch of cabaret glamour, fun and open-mindedness.
This was the inspiration behind our styled shoot, with an emphasis on equal marriage.
Paola De Paola couldn’t be more ideal for this project. Indeed, as well as being a super talented photographer based in London, she specialises in same sex weddings.
Paola “When Lau first mentioned to me the idea of this shoot. I was literally over the moon. Eccentric, OTT, colourful, alternative? Oh, yes please. I adore kitsch, I love quirky and diversity. Putting the shoot together was a lot of work and a lot of fun too. We couldn’t stop giggling away.
I loved every minute of this project. I am crazy about everything visually unconventional and creative. Being able to work with talented artistic wedding suppliers on this styled shoot was very inspiring. Our focus was on bright colours and eccentricity, reminiscent of the 80s. The retouching was very extreme to give the skin a plastic feel, very surreal.”
The video put together by Digital Bohemia reflected Paola’s images perfectly. They managed to capture the essence of the day, showing the team of suppliers without whom this crazy magic wouldn’t have happened.
So super Kitsch we went and boundaries we pushed. For instance, our flowers were rather fake and exotic. Gwenda from The Vintage Floral Design Co created the flowers for the shoot
Gwenda: “The artists who were our inspiration for this shoot typically used a lot of artificial flowers in their compositions, so this was a good excuse to go faux! Fusing two of the prevailing themes, I chose a mix of exotic orchids and ferns and garden roses. From these I made two bouquets for our brides and officially the craziest tablescape I have ever had the pleasure of creating – complete with a light-up bunny and reproductions of the retro classic Featherstone flamingos for the ultimate injection of kitsch!”
Our second stylist Lou, from Beyond Vintage who worked in the fashion industry for 14 years did an amazing job at arranging the props together and even creating the stationery!
Lou: “I love Lauren’s passion for the 80’s and it quickly grew to seeing the vision for the shoot. I really loved creating the stationary, it was so much fun pushing the boundaries, with my normal clients being quite pastel vintage here I got to use colours and still use vintage inspiration from the 70’s and 80’s. It became quite surreal adding in gnomes and tropical flowers like a hallucination or psychedelic dream.”
Oversize is often associated with Kitsch so, Cathy from The Origami Boutique created a single stem statement bouquet, a truly over the top piece which is just perfect for a quirky couple.
Cathy: “When I was invited to be part of this shoot I was really excited, the ideas came flowing and I knew it was my chance to try a few different things.
For the bouquet, I went for an oversized version from the existing giant rose one.
For the backdrops I kept it simple. First, a heart wall with different sizes hearts, which brought to life the simplicity of the bricks behind it and symbolises the truth nature of love. Secondly, one of the themes being under the sea so the contrast of the white waves against the blue was just what I was looking for and the fish, stars and shells made the sea come to life.”
Cake-wise, I made 2 matching tiered cakes in the colours and themes we chose.
Plastic flowers and other props such as religious icons and other unexpected characters were used to accent the cake and drink table. At French Made, we usually specialises in rustic inspired designs such as naked cakes but my love for the alternative also drives me towards some more ‘out there’ creations.
The girl models wore beautiful dresses by Jo from The Couture Company.
Jo says: “We always love to get involved in creative wedding shoots and this one had us hooked from the start, we do love a bit of kitsch and also love the images thrown up by religious iconography , it proved a really interesting mix of colours and textures and enabled us to get down and gaudy with the embroideries for the frocks”
The Hair and Make-up team, Mel Kinsman, Philippe and Nina Bains made them all look so gorgeous!
Nina: “I was the makeup artist to the beautiful Emily and Lukaz. With Emily the look i went for was an OTT theme based look. The base quite fresh and luminous and a little contour and blusher up to her temples.
The eyes i did a cut crease which deepened towards the end and extended with glitter liner on the bottom lash line and a bright pink lip. With Lukaz I wanted a very polished sexy dreamy look. I covered any imperfections, groomed the brows and beard, added mascara to the lashes and contoured the face.”
And look those glittery lips by Mel!
Myriam from La Dame au Beret our Millinery Extraordinaire sourced a variety of items: The handmade floral headbands (using vintage flowers exclusively) and halos, like those found in religious iconography, for our brides, Emily and Yaourou as well as some vintage headwear (military/navy pieces and traditional fez hats) for Lucaz and Jon, our grooms.
Myriam: “Having been part of the French alternative scene in the 80’s too, Lau and I were on the same wave length. I was overjoyed to join the creative team again. We had so much fun during the shoot,especially with our two male models who were the stars of the show! I hope those good vibes will bring inspiration and also a smile and some gaiety to everyone who sees Paola De Paola’s images.”
Thank you so much Lau and team for sharing these with us… we love them! Big Love Xx
