Summer 2012 Collection: Lowlands Overall Dress and Wildflowers crop top

Photography, Post Production and Retouching- Hannah Kelly

Model- Aoife Billings 

Styling- Josie Ryder

Hair- Sarah Townsend

Makeup- Mim Collopy

Assistance- Katherine Ryder

Shoes- Joshua Barber Shoemaker

All photos taken on location at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia.

For the next part in this series on my new Summer collection, I have two pieces to share: the Lowlands overall dress and the Wildflowers crop top. Continuing with the 70s mood of the collection, I was inspired to make this by the many images of 70's overall/jumper dress patterns I am constantly hoarding in a folder on my desktop. I just love the simplicity of them! I find them really cute and eye catching, and yet an overall dress is such a simple thing to wear. It reminds me of being a kid again! The patch pockets are such a great feature too, they just add to the sweetness of the look. I decided to make a crop top as well because I have a bit of an obsession with crop tops in the summertime. I actually think, if you are comfortable exposing a bit of midriff, they can be really versatile in the things you can mix them with. And so very summery! This one is hand printed with a small wildflower design, and each individual flower is printed on one at a time using stamps which I designed myself.

A little change from the printed cottons of the rest of the collection, this outfit is made entirely in hemp. You may have noticed that unlike my previous collections, I haven't used any bamboo this time around. I really love bamboo. I find it incredibly beautiful to work with and has a lot of great properties that make it really wonderful to wear. Recently though I have discovered that although it is a very sustainable plant to grow, the most common manufacturing process used to convert it into fibre involves a whole lot of nasty chemicals, hence my move away from bamboo this time around. I have been using this particular hemp in my last two collections and it has a really amazing, soft texture to it. I think it has to be my new favourite eco friendly fibre! Hemp is very durable and holds it’s shape better than any other natural cloth. It also breathes well, and is recommended for warm, humid climates as the fibre resists mildew and absorbs moisture. It requires no pesticides to grow, crowds out weeds without herbicides, controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces oxygen! I have heard though that chemicals are being used increasingly in it’s production to reduce costs too, so it really is hard to say what is a truly eco friendly option. I do think though that it still seems like a pretty great, thoughtful fabric choice.

The shoes in these photos are from a little collaboration I did with my friend Josh of Joshua Barber Shoemaker. We worked together to come up with a few designs for some clogs, which Josh then took away and turned into these little handmade beauties! You can't quite tell in these photos, but they actually have a hand tooled floral design on the leather. Can you believe he made them entirely by hand in his worksop? They are so amazing! They will be available to buy soon online, but for now you can contact Josh directly here. Watch out tomorrow for another pair of his beautiful creations...

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for the next dress in the collection. For now, you can find the Lowlands Dress and Wildflowers Top in the shop!

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Part two of this series: The Flora Dress

Part one of this series: The Hannah Dress