The Perfect Print
Hello, my lovely! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season! We are getting closer and closer to launch and I, admittedly, have not been including you as much as I would want (a lot of what happens behind the scenes is deliriously boring), so I wanted to take a moment to check in with you and share a little about a challenge I accidentally presented myself with: creating a custom digital print. I wanted something that would stand out and really represent the spirit of our upcoming Spring/Summer 2022 collection, and so my first thought was to create a special print that you couldn’t get anywhere but here. Oh, was that a journey. Below, I’ve included some of the development progress photos!
During the Spring of 2021, I spent an awful lot of time looking up at the storm clouds breaking apart during sunset after one of our rare rainy days here in California’s Central Valley. I hadn’t really thought about relaunching the brand at that point, but the more I saw the colors, the grays and deep blues and pastel pinks, the more I was inspired to begin a new chapter in life—and in fashion! (Continued after the photos!)
(Photos above: The many iterations of the digital print. Spring/Summer 2022 color story extracted from third photo from left.
I started taking random pictures when the clouds were particularly nice and started compiling my mood board. I started Googling phrases like “storm clouds at sunset” and “Sistine Chapel Ceiling” to get a better tangible representation of my vision. I almost had the Sistine Chapel artwork produced in silk as it is in the public domain, but quickly decided against it. The most striking to me was this photo of these giant multicolored clouds (pictured above) and I really needed to see it as a print. This photo was the basis for the color story for Spring/Summer 2022, and although it absolutely did NOT work out as a print (a theory tested and ended up being a rather expensive mistake—live and learn), it did end up being a jumping off point in terms of the color story.
I still needed to create a print that would work for one of the star pieces in the collection, a bold and feminine belted trapeze dress. So, I kept trying. I tried to manipulate existing photos, photos I took, drawing clouds by hand (never again, by the way) and I just couldn’t settle for something that didn’t make me say to myself, “THIS. This is it.” I stayed awake for hours past midnight for several nights, which didn’t make a full 9-hour workday not as fun.
Then, finally, and right before I gave up, I decided to try something a little different and create a print 90% from scratch. I created a 53” x 36” art board in Photoshop, extracted the colors from the original color inspiration photo and started building the print. Earlier I said 90% from scratch and I mean that I used some pre-made cloud brushes that I manipulated by layering filtered versions of the photos I took to create the print. Thinking back, it sounds more like 96%+ from scratch.
Since I had learned so much with the first disaster of a print, I ordered precisely one yard of the print in a polyester charmeuse and waited until it arrived from the UK. After about a week, a small parcel arrived at our door, and I started the “please don’t be ugly” chant as I tore open the mailer bag. I was pleasantly surprised to unfold a fabric with such a quality look and feel, and although it was much darker and the colors were a little off, it was nearly perfect. If all that needed to be corrected is some light color grading and saturation adjustment to account for the final print, it looked to be the one! (Pictured Left)
The placement on the dress that this print was created for is another long story on its own, but we’re certainly seeing progress in the best direction! I’m quite happy to know that I was able to create a digital print for the first time and even though the version we have today is different from the original vision, I love what it has become! (More inspiration pictures below!)
