I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You'd be sitting somewhere here with me.
These wise words are from my all time favorite song by Pet Shop Boys, called
"Being Boring". In one phrase there is so much hope, confidence about being who you are and love for your friends for life. To me it is the ode to growing up and enjoying life and all it has to offer even when bad things happen. It also describes how I feel about East Berlin. It was so wonderful to notice a (half) city celebrating creativity and uniqueness and acceptance for others personalities/style. It was overwhelming. The East Berlin punks (ostpunks) that I wrote in my previous post was the styling inspiration to our book photo shoot called Outsiders. They were the original trashionistas. They made their own fashions with any materials available and discarded mass fashion all together. I believe in finding your own fashion personality by browsing old magazines, visiting flea markets and history books. Not on celebs.
Two days before the shoot three of my models had cancelled so I was just waiting for more shit to go down and already making a powerpoint for plan C. Recently I have learned not to worry and stress about things not going as planned and just concentrate on what I have to work with. This has helped a lot. The weather yesterday was horrible and we were forced to camp out (12 persons) in a dirty and cigarette smelling band training basement since our plan A (to shoot outside in an industrial area) was not happening. But everything turned out perfect. The light and space in the garage was stunning (the pictures you see in this post are original and not photoshopped) and we were able to take all the shots we needed and even more. From now on garages are a beautiful place to me. This book thing has truly been a loooong project for me and sometimes there are days when I´m just so tired and bored of the whole thing. Summer vacation is cancelled. And then I see the pictures from our shoots... It just gives me so much inspiration, motivation and energy to finish what I´ve started. And believe that when it is done others will like it as well. So enjoy. We did.
Hair: Jere Tienhaara, Johanna Helke
Make-Up: Iris Lindholm
Styling: me
Special thanks to
Sideshow Scandinavia modeling agency and the boys from
Manboy, for letting us invade your training basement for one day. We washed your dishes and cleaned the tables. :P
