GLITTERMARE
Living in a non-native country where the winter lasts for 8 months of the year and there is only light from 9am - 4pm has its benefits. In my case it meant getting creative because it was way too cold to go outside. Especially because the effort of having to put on snow boots and 5 layers of warm and practical clothes (as opposed to fun outfits) was not always appealing.
Finding the sample shop at my work which was selling bags of sample jewellery in beautiful and sparkly faceted stones, iridescent gems and intricate costume jewellery in radiant colours and unique hues. Initially I began collecting them because they were soooo pretty to look at and I just wanted to own them. But after the collection began to grow I decided to put them to use.
After extracting all of the individual stones and gems from their settings I colour coded them into separate containers which was a really satisfying exercise for my mild OCD. I had an abundance of colourful gems and stones and studs and crystals. It then felt like the right thing to do to when I began sticking them onto a clutch bag. This continued in a new colourway onto a pair of heels that I couldn’t walk in, and another clutch bag I had found. This was the start of months of collecting and extracting, placing, retracting and re-positioning until I had a collection of 3 stacked heels and two clutch bags which made up the GLITTERMARE collection.
The term GLITTERMARE came from one of my best British friends who had an aversion to shiny things and would become psychologically distressed by the sight of shiny outerwear. She coined the term in response to some of the items of clothing I wore. It was admittedly quite enjoyable to provoke her with my shiny outfits, and the GLITTERMARE collection was the perfect way to really impress her with my glitterising abilities.
Iridescent faceted stones, crystallised shades, studs, thin glitter, chunky glitter, black and white glitter all came together to make up the components for the GLITTERMARE aesthetic and not only helped me through some cold and dark winters, but also laid the foundations for establishing the foundations and aesthetic for MAUDE Studio.
Image Credits
Photographer: Will Leach @williamfotograf
Model: Miranda N, Mikas Stockholm
HMUA: Sandra Bensoussan @sandrabensoussan
Styling/Creative Direction: Courtenay Tyrrell
With Special thanks to Kay Barker <3
