The idea
The cover dress again was made in close negotiation with our sisterMAG-mom Evi. Ideas flew back and forth. During the conception phase we even wanted to make a dress out of glasses (probably from IkEA). But then I stumbled over Julie Richey on Pinterest and her sculpture “La Corrente”, made from marble, glass smalti and seashells.

She produced this piece for the 2011 Mosaic Arts International, an annual international juried exhibition of contemporary mosaic art. I was thrilled, enthusiastic but also uncertain: would we be able to do such a piece for our cover? We decided: yes, that must be possible!

Making of the dress
From Mixed Store we then ordered over 4 kg of mirror mosaic stones (1x1cm) as well as so-called Bycantic Stones in different blue and green shades. The dress itself was sewn out of terribly sturdy fabric, which must have caused a lot of cursing at the sewing machine. The silhouette was created through this fabric but also by putting a ring shaped pillow around the model’s hips underneath the dress.

Coming from the cocktail shooting in Berlin I was only home for merely 4 days and we HAD to finish the dress in this time. Without further ado we started gluing the little pieces! We ended up gluing over 4000 stones with uncountable sticks of hot glue onto the dress. We only ever were interrupted by half-sceptical questions from my father, who asked unsettingly: “Do you think you’ll finish?” – “I am not sure, but will the stones hold up?” ;). To our own amazement only a few stones fell off when moving it around!

As you know: you should never force someone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. Thus I tried on our cover dress myself and let me tell you: it was incredibly heavy, felt a little bit like an armour plate and I really did not envy Anke!

Protagonists – model, photographer, stylist etc.
That leads us to our protagonists of the garden shooting on 30th June when the cover was created.

A first big Thanks goes to Anke who was a perfect model and even left alone her little daughter and family to stand around in a 4 kg heavy dress in our garden :). Just as our motto goes to show “real people” we want to quickly tell you that Anke in ‘real life” works as a surgeon and can handle a horrendous family van even in a little parking spot (I witnessed this myself ;)!

As photographer we were able to get the talented Cris Santos. Maybe you can remember our contributor profile from January 2012 (click here to read that post). If you wonder how these two stories fit together since we told you that he is a Canadian photographer: Well, Cris decided (almost over night) to pack up his stuff and move to Berlin for a whole year. There he does not only assist artists, studies German and learns a lot about German folk festivals but is incredibly (and unselfishly) helps us with sisterMAG. That is why you do not only find one, two, no three shootings in the current sisterMAG where he was our photographer!

Sometimes a job stays in town. That was the case with our stylist responsible for hair and makeup. Christine Donath has a hair salon in my hometown (and by the way: she is responsible for my dad’s hair! ;)

The setting
It promised to be a wonderful day when we looked out the windows on this Saturday in late June. We however did not expect the two rain showers which drenched our fabric backdrop almost entirely during the day. In the shadow zone of our backyard we set up our little photo studio becaus sunlight still is the best when thinking about an outdoorsy summer issue. And as soon as Anke stepped outside, many thousands of light points were dancing on the ground. In the end the stylist – wearing red trousers – even had to hide in a corner of the garden because otherwise we would have had a red cover dress! In conclusion: a crazy dress and a crazy day! Thanks to Cris, Anke didn’t have to sweat too long in the sun, because he shoots fast and well!

We hope you liked our glance behind the scenes and are looking forward to hearing your feedback. How did you like it – the cover of sisterMAG N°3!

P.S. In the end we had strawberries with cream – even the model ;)!