Archives for August 2011

behind the scenes – Phoenix photoshoot part 2 the greenhouse: a microcosm of rebirth

08.30.2011 by btslingerie // Leave a Comment

In Part 1 of our behind the scenes of the Phoenix collection photoshoot we shared the field and what was my original vision for an “amber waves of grain” and rebirth of beauty in the fall. I think the way that nature turns brown and gold and yellow is such a gorgeous backdrop to the jewel tones and brights of fall, and of course to the allure of lingerie. Like Coney Island had fans asking “where is that” because of its ability to appear like almost every other boardwalk while still being quintessentially new york, these fields could be anywhere in the world, but to me they’re a little slice of heaven in New York just miles from the concrete jungle we call home.

So imagine our surprise when this woman approaches us and points us in the direction of a wall, instructing us to go behind it despite the signs to stop. It was a sign. She was the messenger. This was when we knew this location was meant to be.

bts behind the scenes phoenix photoshoot between the sheets

Maybe I’m just into symbolism but for me these represented the abandoned machinery and skills I wrote about in a previous post, here repurposed into a backdrop, given purpose and beauty again. I think what I’ve always secretly wished to portray was that while lingerie can be intimate and vulnerable it can also lend strength and be empowering, it is a foil for the woman within it.

Could we have found a better physical representation of the concept behind Phoenix?! I think not. It was a series of serendipitous events that led to this collection and these photos, and we were just along for the flight. Had we not been there at that time, had that woman gotten a cramp during her jog and passed that point at a different time… the number of events that could’ve happened differently are endless. Had any one of those events not happened these images would not exist, and the feeling of this season and this collection would’ve been much different. It’s enough to make you believe in lucky feathers after all…

bts behind the scenes photoshoot lingerie between the sheets

new life growing from the ashes of old, I love the way this plant is growing the rafters of a once upon a time greenhouse!

hold on just one second… can you hold this… gotta get a bobby pin…

got it!

Always remember to take a little time to play!

A romp in the woods 😉

These boots are incredibly hard to get on and off! I love the outake of her struggling with this, she was such a trooper! Because this used to be a greenhouse the entire area is covered in broken glass, there are count them three greenhouses surrounding these banks of concrete and pipe (if anyone knows what they do I’d love to know!) so while we were shooting she had to wear the boots. For this shot she took them off and sat on a blanket on top of the pipe hovering inches from glass… model’s life ain’t easy folks. Can you imagine treading glass in your knickers in 90 degree heat?! I couldn’t.

There was a sign of caution for good reason, inside the house part of the floor had given out, there was a collapsed stairwell and the roof was caved in. With the recent ravages of Hurricane Irene I’m not sure this location is even standing today. I hope it is, and I hope the next time we visit it will be even more beautifully reclaimed by nature, a living example of how life goes on, no matter what.

you can see from the house through to the greenhouses beyond, here we’re waiting for some passerby’s to move on before we shoot the final look of the day.

oh yeah! that’s a wrap! Stay tuned for the lookbook reveal soon!

behind the scenes – Phoenix photoshoot part 1 the field: amber waves of grain

08.30.2011 by btslingerie // Leave a Comment

In my minds eye the story of the phoenix was one of nature, and so we decided to shoot outdoors once again. What we were looking for was a wide open field where we could shoot without being disturbed, so we started to scout locations in Long Island.

On our scout we basically hiked some trails and Josh took some pictures from angles and locations we wanted to remember. We talked staging and logisitcs and when we spend day in and day out talking about the brand our brains are magically aligned with pretty much the same vision. We don’t sweat the small stuff really, so we honestly wing a lot on the day of the shoot – even more important with an outdoor shoot is that flexibility because of the unredictability of weather. We got lucky bc the day we shot was the least humid of that week, and clear open skies.

Two things happened on our scout day at this location. 1. we saw a hawk fly overhead right when we arrived, we both laughed and said it was a sign. 2. As we were finishing up, debating whether this was the location we wanted, we were heading back to our zipcar & were stopped by a woman who asked if Josh was taking photos. She suggested we go down this path bc there was a cool area we might like to take pictures of. We took her advice and the location she pointed us to will be part of the second post on our photoshoot.

Without further ado some shots Josh snapped behind the scenes that day:

phoenix lingerie photoshoot behind the scenes bts lingerie between the sheets

We did some hair and makeup before we left, the trouble with a location shoot (or at least one on a budget, read: we can’t quite rent a trailer in nyc) is there are no outlets, so again we go with it. In reality a girl on a farm, in a field, or wandering a forest is not going to be perfectly coiffed. I like the natural and earthy feeling, but I do comb things out of the way or retouch makeup in the heat.

http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv301/BTSgirl/blog%20images/FW11phoenix_behindthescenes_00_web.jpg

Gratuitous back view

phoenix photoshoot behind the scenes bts lingerie between the sheets

I love this moment of Jaime caught off guard… ps. do you even recognize her in this setting without the veil and glitz we made her up in for our Specimens of Seduction shoot?! Same girl… super versatile!

not sure what I was looking at here… but it looks serious!

phoenix photoshoot bts lingerie behind the scenes between the sheets

I know there are guys out there who would kill to be the panty-adjuster. It comes with the territory.

Never underestimate the little details like how to tie the robe so it flatters the waist and just undone enough to be natural.

You may notice me holding a video camera in the last two photos… oh yes friends there will be video – things to look forward to!

That and stay tuned for the amazing location that fate guided us to and the second part of our photoshoot behind the scenes.

inspire – phoenix

08.30.2011 by btslingerie // Leave a Comment

For this most recent collection I wanted to share the travels of my design eye, the thought process and the research that I put into my inspirations and how they are distilled into wearable luxury lingerie for everyday. My inspiration began with something I’ve collected for years, feathers. Ever since I was little I have found and brought home feathers, crow feathers, pigeon feathers, dove feathers… it never mattered to me as long as they were pretty. I thought they were special, and at one point I also thought the birds left them for me for good luck! I started to look into this personal superstition of mine about a year ago, when one day I found a feather cross my path and felt the inexplicable urge to pick it up. I battled my inner censor who warned me about the bird flu and in the end the childhood awe won out. I started to search for feather stories to see if I could trace back where this belief I had found stemmed from, and quickly came to the realization that it was the story of none other than DUMBO. How could I forget?! The thing that struck me was that my takeaway from this story was that feathers are lucky, when truly the moral of the story is about believing in yourself and in the end Dumbo can fly without the feather. But perhaps I fell asleep part way through and never got that, and as an adult its often hard to shake those long held childhood beliefs.

I’ve always believed that the best designs come from something personal and unique to the designer, and the same could be said for art or artists. So I decided i would embark upon the task of creating my first textile. I thought about prints, but what I love about Between the Sheets Collection is its simplicity and minimalism, the focus on texture and opacity is what I like to play with in this collection. So my mind immediately jumped to a material I had not considered – lace. I am sure many of my fans/followers know of my affinity for lace. I had a professor who said she could never forget a lace, and I must say I think I’ve picked up that character. So far with Between the Sheets Collection the idea of lace seemed too “ornamental” for the brands minimalistic aesthetic. I love lace for my luxe collection, but the challenge of creating a lace that could be both textured and monochromatic is where my journey began. I’ll document that journey in a future post, because in the full scope of designing a new season it was a fraction of the journey.After my discovery of the symbol of the new season, I delved deeper into the meaning of feathers, different birds and their symbolism. I wanted to find one that spoke to me, and one day I saw an image and one word popped into my head “phoenix” and the idea of a feather as a symbol of a mythical bird took hold. I found the story of the phoenix fit my personal outlook on life, that nothing is final and that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Also the idea of distilling an animate object or creature into its simplest form is a concept I was introduced to in art history studies, and when other teenagers were freaking out over the backstreet boys my friend and I could hardly contain ourselves on a field trip to the Norton Simon in Pasadena when we saw Brancusi’s Bird in Space in the hall next door. Since then I have visited as many museums with a copy of this sculpture- big and small, silver, bronze, gold, or marble I stalk this sculpture! I had Josh stand guard on our trip to LACMA while I took pictures of their not one, but two copies for my personal stash. Yes, I have dared he wrath of many a museum security guard in my hunt for my brancusi-fix.

designer Layla L'obatti at MET - Brancusi bird in space sculpture in white marble

me at the met, I know the way to this one [brancusi’s Bird in space] by heart. It’s not the biggest version I’ve seen or my favorite but t has a home in my heart bc it is nyc’s own and the only white one I’ve seen. bracusi bird in space at the norton simon

bracusi bird in space at the norton simon

this version is by far the largest I have seen in my travels, and I think dislayed the most beautifully under a large skylight and dominating the center of the room so that it takes center stage and looks like it could fly through that skylight at any moment. This was the one me and my friend freaked out about like it was a rock star! Art nerd, right here.

So now I had one fabric – which will equal one new group… which needed a name. For those of you who are loyal fans you know that all of our collections have the word “PLAY” in them. It was an intellectual challenge I chose to set for myself and inevitably each season coming up with a new range of names with play in them is a word game I relish. First two things that popped into my mind were “Birds of a feather” and quickly following that “Birds of Prey”… now this was a stroke of luck and coincidence, prey sounded so similar to play that it just jumped out. The next step is my focus group – family, friends, bloggers, other designer friends and everyone who heard it smiled or laughed – the desired reaction!

So now the challenge was what comes first, the chicken or the egg… the fabric or the collection. I knew I wanted to design two new groups – but now the other had to sit next to and harmonize with Birds of Play. I went through my fabric library and nothing called out to me until I came across a mesh sample I had pulled a while before. I had introduced mesh last fall and it didn’t sell, we dropped the styles before they were produced. I wasn’t sure what exactly it was that kept me from truly loving that previous group… but I decided to take another stab at it. This time I would focus on flirtier sexier styles… and I think that was the key.

Wait… we’re still not done. I needed a name! The previous mesh group was “open to play” so that was retired. I won’t list the thesaurus list of words I went through and or the other options I didn’t choose because I’m holding them in my back pocket for some future groups, but suffice it to say that the words bird and air and flight were batted around, before we settled on “Airplay” It just seemed to fall into place with Phoenix and Birds of Play… and so our fall collection was born from the ashes of all the failed attempts at mesh, from all the not quite right play names, and from the many not quite right fabrics. I think what we have is a complement to the rich and luxurious loungewear styles that we already make, and the result is a merging of the sexy everyday underlayers with the soft and inviting sleep and lounge we are known for.

Stay tuned for some behind the scenes from our photoshoot, and also for the full lookbook coming up!

xo
Layla

behind the scenes – Phoenix photoshoot part 2 the greenhouse: a microcosm of rebirth

behind the scenes – Phoenix photoshoot part 1 the field: amber waves of grain

inspire – phoenix

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