Paris Le 4 Mars 2010

Nina Ricci Le Show

This "Flower Door" was soooo beautiful in real...

and

Voilà my tiny little inputs for the show, hope you like

when I think about the hours and hours of work that

those belts took me.... But they look hot on the

runway, definitely worth it :)

I'm in love with this picture... pretty happy about

my flowers framing her face :)

Ylonka actually posed in front of my lens :) unreal...

she looked so pretty and my flowers suited her perfectly

I really love this picture of Frida backstage...

I was really happy to be a tiny part of this show...

I'm quiet pleased with my 3D bouquets

combined to the perfectly tailored and draped

pieces, I enjoyed seeing my tiny flowers blooming

on a shoulder, around a hip,

on a bust...

and for the first time in my life to see

something by me on a Parisian catwalk

on beautiful models like this made

my year actually :)

some of the pictures are "borrowed" from

Style.com and Dazed Digital

Peter Coppings Gardens...

The final line up for the show

My favorite picture...

I was happy to see that my first belt made it to the show

3D Flowers around the hips...

On the bust of this beautiful dress

Thank you Maria for posing :)

those are pictures of the two other belts that I made

but they didn't make it to the show...

The table with all my flowers in the showroom

where the stylist were picking up show pieces...

Here you have some pictures I took of the Nina Ricci

showroom a day before the show, they were making

the final looks and I was happy to see

my flowers blooming here and there...

"Flower Girl" # 4

a lovely person aka "Beautiful red head"

working on something tiny :)

some lovely persons needle "head"

another lovely person aka "Adonis the DJ" helping hands

someone working on some beautiful flower pieces...

and as you can imagine those are her feet :)

They all arrived beautiful and sexy

in high heels and ended up barefoot around midnight...

Peters desk abandoned since he was working on the lineup

of the show in the showroom... I must admit this beautiful room with

view over Avenue Montaigne made me dream a little... :)

please notice the most beautiful perfume bottle ever made

"L'Air Du Temps" in Lalique...

Hmmmm wonder who works here...

Yes that's my corner with hundreds of beautiful flowers...

Moving into the studio 4 days before the show was really a great experience, I arrived in the morning D-Day -4 and spread my flowers all over "my" desk, it was a nice moment when I finally started to discover the collection in the studio that until then was unrevealed for me, and the studio could discover my work, I was asked to make a couple of propositions for the belts and Peter decided we were making all 4 of them, I was really happy, exhausted but happy... working in the studio was so much fun for me...

I guess Nina Ricci is one of few fashion houses in Paris were you have a good ambience, they were working hard yes, late hours yes, but with a smile and a lot of humor... and that was really nice to see for a change, gave me hope that maybe one day I'll be working with my own team in such a great harmony... I was amazed to see a head designer highly respected by his team and no one "feared" him, for those of you working in this business you all know how horrible some "AD" can be, well Peter isn't, and I guess it's what gave us all such a nice environment to work in...

"Flower Girl" # 3

... So I ended up with this beautiful palette of colors... the "bouquets" were taking shape in front of me and I honestly fell in love with these... the color palette from the Nina Ricci collection was so beautiful, unfortunately quiet often when you see the pictures of a catwalk on Style.com or other sites they loose a lot of details and sometimes a lot of colors... In the belts for example I even used flowers in velour, taffetas and a hand wrinkled fabric that I shaped myself all in different colors so the result was really a color and texture explosion... something you loose in a picture of a catwalk...

After several days of cutting meters and meters of silk chiffon, organza, tulle, ribbons and organdy, all my flowers for Nina Riccis beautiful "Winter Garden" were ready I could finally join the team in the studio and the best part of the collaboration started there... 4 days before the show...

"Flower Girl" la suite

Coming Soon...

"Flower Girl" #2

Beautiful organzas cut out to shape my flowers

... I was amazed by all the things that are possible to do, being a young designer working all by myself creating with very little and with whatever I can find in common textile stores I was glad to discover a new world of possibilities of choices of freedom...

Once we decided what we wanted to work on, we had to wait for a couple of days to get all the materials that I needed dyed in the right colors.... I ended up working with more then 6 different materials dyed in minimum 7 different colors so I ended up with over 40 different references... and what was I making exactly with all those materials and colors??? Flowers, Flowers and more flowers :)

So there I was 10 days before the show, knowing that I would probably end up making more then 200 flowers all different and unique... Time was ticking away quickly and I started cutting the thousands of shapes that I needed for my Nina Ricci gardens ...

"Flower Girl" #1

My Premise for Peter Copping / Nina Ricci...

When the house of Nina Ricci contacted me a month ago I had no idea why the head designer wanted to meet me... all I knew was that someone in his studio had discovered my work, and that he liked it, a dear friend of mine who happen to work in the studio shouted " I know this girl" called me up and said " Rita, Peter want to meet you"...

Of course I answered yes immediately... I was curious but afraid of getting disappointed because I only except to work with people for whom I have a "heart beat"... Yes I am an old-fashioned romantic all the way...

well I feared in vain because my first impression of Monsieur Copping made me accept a collaboration with my eyes "wide shut" because he is one of the most polite fashion figures I've ever met, a real english gentleman, I am impressed by him and I feel lucky that our roads crossed for a second, by observing him I learned a lot... He knows exactly what he wants and isn't afraid of facing a challenge, the fact that he wanted to collaborate with a young designer like me shows that he is open minded and honest, I also like the fact that he doesn't suffer from the "Big Ego" problem most designers have, they create things that are impossible to wear or to commercialize just to give themselves the satisfaction and in the end the whole thing falls apart around them... Monsieur Copping I felt knew where he was taking Ricci, I admire that.

Peter kept the collection unrevealed for me, I thought that it was a wise decision, he didn't want me to get affected by what they already had started, I vaguely knew what the "story" would be about with one picture of beautiful dancers wearing silk dresses in colors that ended up to be the palette of the collection... That was pretty much the only information I got... He wanted me to make a premise quickly... In one week cause we only had three more weeks left before show time. Based on certain things he liked in my work I had to give him something he could use, and so I did... Unfortunately fault of time and in the need of answering what could be possible in retail we left out a couple of ideas and I ended up doing flowers only, I don't feel that it was a great challenge creatively to make those flowers, but they sure took a lot of time to do...

So there we were two weeks before the show with my first propositions, me not really knowing where we will end up, but I know that he knew exactly what he wanted from me and that was quiet a nice feeling because I could just relax have fun and create my gardens as if I was doing it for my own line knowing that he would make all the right decisions for both of us :)

Nina Ricci & Flower Girl

My lovely friend Kinga working on a last tiny bow :)

Picture of Peter Copping on Love Magazine Blog today

All the bags of fabrics I was receiving at home :)

I'm so excited...

I can finally share this information with you!

I have been working on a special little project

for the last couple of weeks...

I've been invited to collaborate

with Nina Ricci Head Designer

Peter Copping for the upcoming

fall 2010 collection ...

Can't wait till the fashion show tomorrow evening

when I can finally share some images and

tell you more about this.

It has been a great trip,

I've had really fun working with his team

and I'm extremely impressed by

Peter Copping himself.

I will carry this experience with me forever

it has been a lot of hard work but so much fun,

and I feel really great to have worked with

such a lovely team.

You can follow the

Peter Copping's Diary on Love Magazine Blog

Click Here!