As a commercial photographer, a lot of the lingerie editorials I shoot tends to be samples for next season’s campaign, so images can spend quite a bit of time in the archives before I get to release them on the blog. An example of this is today’s images of Laurie Hagen for Holloway Smith Noir’s latest luxury teasewear collection, which I have genuinely been itching to share with you all since the day they were shot!
Flash back to June 2013 and cabaret sensation Laurie Hagen has just landed from Burlesque Hall of Fame, having won the award for Most Innovative Performer and doing us Brits proud. Having been a fan of Laurie’s work for years, it would be fair to say she’d been on my ‘photographer’s wish list’ for a while at this point. So, when Holloway Smith Noir approached me to photograph their second seasonal campaign with them, Laurie and Neil Brodrick, it was an instant yes.
Holloway Smith Noir – as you may recall from our previous Holloway Smith Noir shoot with Bettsie Bon Bon – are a female centric, pro pleasure luxury teasewear brand based in London, UK. I originally met sisters Sophie and Alice through The Wam Bam Club, where they had a residency selling their beautiful nipple tassels and eye masks. The brand have gone from strength to strength this year, having recently had their beautiful nipple tassels and pasties added to the Coco De Mer collection. The girls are on the fast track to success, with plenty more up their sleeves for the year ahead already!
The campaign shoot took place at Kettner’s in London, originally four Georgian townhouses in the heart of Soho that have been turned into a restaurant and private bar. We were given access to a number of rooms on the first and second floor, each with their own stunning decor, accompanied by a baby grand piano, vintage sheet music and even a red gramophone. I fell in love with one of the rooms on the first floor which had a feature corner of dark wood panelling. Setting up my Elinchrom Quadra kit, Laurie went off to get her hair and make up done ready for the first look.
The main feature of the shoot was Holloway Smith Noir’s bespoke white silk kimono, which sat perfectly on Laurie’s figure and floated effortlessly as she moved around the venue. Working on a range of static and dynamic dance based poses, the dark wood really complimented the floating white silk. This was one of my favourite images of Laurie, using the lines of the wood panelling to draw focus her figure. I’m thinking I might even get one of these printed up for the studio walls.
Moving up to the second floor for our next series of images, we found a vintage mirror that worked well to show the ‘relationship’ between Neil’s and Laurie’s characters, whilst adding depth to the narrative. Once again the Quadra proved to be particularly handy as the space in the bar was incredibly tight to get this particular shot – the bar that you can see Neil leaning back onto blocked the majority of the room, so I was kneeling in the very corner of the room trying to get every extra millimetre possible! The great thing about shooting on location is it really does test your shooting skills!
For our final series of the day, we took Laurie into another of the top floor rooms, where this golden chaise glowed in the afternoon light and proved to be the perfect spot for some demure shots of her in the silk kimono. Using the Quadra to add just a hint more light, there was something so peaceful and relaxing about this room that moved everyone to complete silence. I’d love to go back and shoot their again one day, there are still so many corners of the venue I haven’t yet explored!
Looking for new images to promote your next lingerie or teasewear collection? Let me help you – get in touch via the contact page and pop me an email!
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