In July, we went to the Lake District to shoot a selection of our new pieces with photographer Hermione Hasell-McCosh and her sister, Beatrice - a wonderful figurative painter - as model. Hermione's photographs are extraordinarily romantic and she plays with light like an angel. For her part, Beatrice was utterly at home in the wild lunar landscape of the hills - particularly with her sketchpad on her at all times, shoot or no shoot.
The veranda
We stayed in a gaslit lodge in a remote valley, and spent days moving around the veranda, following the light like a sundial. We had no reception unless we hiked up mossy hills for an hour.
Hermione
The dresses came hiking with us and we shot them along the way with the powerful backdrops of the bracken-covered hillsides. We looked to find mirrors in the surroundings, juxtaposing the weathered greys of a ruined stone hut with the deep stormy chambray of the organic cotton Pieris Dress. Then a meadow of white powder-puff flowers, perhaps cotton we thought, was reminiscent of the white laundry buttons on the back of the same dress.
Wildflowers echoing laundry buttons
We have reception
Even at the summits of the hills in the Lake District you sometimes find lakes in the sky, there known as tarns. After a hot hike we stripped off for Angle Tarn - a surreally beautiful place. Beatrice and Hermione used to camp on its island as children in summer; the water freezes over in winter. Even during this Cumbrian "heatwave" the water was bracing and some of us lasted significantly longer than others. Hermione's Dalmatian knew better than to get in at all.
Angle Tarn
Post-picnic
Back at the lodge, its rich green structure and red roof set the Osmanthus Dresses alight. At golden hour the colours were intense and absurdly well matched. It was really the perfect setting for a dress designed for easy elegance; sitting against an unusual and historic lodge, yet sharing elements of drama and freedom.
Sundown
Check out our Lookbook, Osmanthus & Pieris pages for the incredible campaign shots that Hermione took over the weekend.
See the sisters' work here:
Beatrice Hasell-McCosh, Artist
Hermione Hasell-McCosh, Photographer