Behind the scenes with Maria Kelly
Monday was my first day working with stylist Maria Kelly. Part of my amazing prize from the Stylathon at The Ilac Centre is a weeks experience and mentoring with Maria on several editorial shoots. Monday was a shoot for TV3’s Xposé at the Bernard Shaw and it was a great day.
The brief for the shoot was Autumn/Winters tartan, check, punk trend. Its a huge trend for this season moving on from the ‘Chaos to Couture’ Met Gala theme earlier this year where we saw our favorite stars punk it up on the red carpet for Anna Wintour’s annual extravaganza. You can read my post on the Met Gala here. This punk trend was abundant on the catwalks of the most prestigious designers for A/W. There was full on punk at Saint Laurent and a more pared down approach to the trend with tartan and check prints on wool coats and skirt suits at Stella McCartney and Lanvin. The looks that Maria pulled for the shoot were amazing! I can’t wait for it to air so you can all see them.
Saint Laurent
Stella McCartney
Lanvin
Some of the bags and boxes from the shoot
I’ve been on shoots before but this one was very different. Maria is unbelievably organised, her assistant Naomi is a great asset to her when it comes to keeping everything together and in turn the work behind the scenes runs seamlessly. I have been an assistant on a few magazine editorial shoots in the past and I found that filming was so much quicker! I also found it a little surreal because I’m used to being on film and TV sets and when the camera rolls you could hear a pin drop, but because there was no sound on this shoot, music and voice overs will be edited into the piece, we were talking and chatting and Maria and the camera man were giving direction while we were rolling.
The model for the day was the beautiful Gail Kaneswaran from the Andrea Roche Model Agency. Gail has been modeling for fifteen years and it is so effortless for her, she is a really lovely person and was full of tips and advice for the industry and I’m delighted to have met her.
Myself and Gail
Maria, myself and Gail
Naomi and I
Lisa Canon from Xposé joined us towards the end of the shoot to do the talk piece with Maria about all of the looks we had shot. I embarrassingly called her Karen when i bumped into her downstairs at the shoot, I know, they look nothing alike! AND I watch Xposé EVERY day...But in my feeble defense we were expecting Karen so it was the first name on the tip of my tongue.... Following my embarrassing faux pas, I got chatting to Lisa for a few minutes and thankfully she didn’t hold it against me! She is incredibly down to earth and she loved my Penneys boots!! You can see my post these Penneys boots and other foot candy here.
Lisa... not Karen!
Throughout the day Maria gave me invaluable insight into the industry. Tips on locations and models, timeframes, different shoots and briefs. She is a great mentor and I can’t wait for Thursday to work with her and Naomi again. I’m like a human sponge at the minute soaking up as much information and advice as possible!
Unfortunately I can’t show you photos of any of the looks until all of the shoot is aired on TV3. The whole shoot will be broken into 3 pieces and shown over 3 episodes of Xposé, I’m not sure when so keep your eyes peeled! Heres a sneeky peek and some great phots of The Bernard Shaw...
Above Images my own except the runway shots from style.com and Lisa Cannon from vipstyleawards.ie
