I can sing a rainbow

As I reflect upon this colourful shoot, ironically, I am surrounded by blackness. I came home tonight from my long weekend away to find that I had inadvertently forgotten to inform my electricity company that I had been issued with a new visa card and as a result have without warning had my electricity cut off due to the direct debit failure.

Sitting in the darkness, with nothing but candlelight, (thank god I buy a lot of candles,) it is blatantly clear to me that colour is a vital part of life and a vital part of a wardrobe.

No person is entirely black or grey and the colour that we choose to adorn ourselves in is a reflection of our colourful character and there are a lot of very colourful characters out there. Whether you consider yourself one of them or not though, I can sing rainbow, is the motivation to try to see your wardrobe that way.

I can sing rainbow, Le Magazine Issue Three’s cover and title shoot was born from my own love of colour. I used Le Black Book’s most vibrant garments as a foundation and stared at colour wheels for days building harmonious and analogous top to toe outfits around them. Layered one on top of the other, pink, orange, blue, yellow, purple and green all confounded to contrast and compliment each other.

The background of the shoot was a process of trail, error and endless debate with my wonderful and very patient photographer Kent Johnson, who eventually won me over with the simple inspiration of Paolo Roversi’s nudes, with all this in place strong images began to form.

Then the Wednesday night before the shoot I awoke with a start in the middle of the night and knew I had to have those adorable colourful little clips we all used to wear as little girls and the model had to have her hair in those famous nineties Princess Leia buns on top of her head, (you know the ones I’m talking about!) Easier said than done. I searched high and low, up and down for those clips and apparently like the buns they had gone out with the nineties. I could not find the right ones anywhere! I even resorted to making my parents rummage through their storeroom for my old ones. No luck. But like every great stylist I wouldn’t let the vision go and so on the morning of the shoot, around the corner from the studio, on my last ditch attempt to find them, I succeeded and my vision for the shoot was complete.

Our talented young model Emily Page, from Viviens, got right into the spirit of her colourful little buns (she knew what I was talking about from the start,) and our visionary hair and make up artist Lisa Sciberas developed some bold make-up from the inspiration pictures I had shown her to ensure Emily’s face was as vibrant as her hair and her clothes.

Voila, my rainbow was sung and painted and here it is for all of you to share in. I hope its lyrics of colourful childhood magic linger in your head and leave you smiling all day and hopefully encourage you to paint a rainbow of your own.

And with those words, a waning laptop and phone battery and not even a battery radio to put me to sleep I leave you, to blow out my candles and put myself into a sleep of colourful dreams amongst the darkness.