GRANNY'S CLOSET

WildFox Resort 2012/13 Lookbook via ilovewildfox.com

Wildfox have a tendency to generate excellent lookbooks and their latest named 'Granny's Closet' comes up trumps. It's gold lies in its naive and slightly simplistic approach, it is a story about re-living our grandparents youth, their quirkiness and their eccentricities. The story maybe built from stereotypical fundamentals about a certain form of oldies - the rich kind - but I guess manor house backdrop and lavish garden surrounding beats fusty floral bungalow visually. What I love about this shoot is the maverick, witty undertones (or overtones, there pretty obvious) making things fun and modern, after all my Nan would never have rocked tousled blue locks. However, it isn't about making these young models look archaic but to showcase how misinterpreted old folk can be, at heart they don't feel their age and they have lived a life full of the same mistakes, mischief and mayhems as we have. Wildfox denote their shoot pretty well with this;

'Going to Grandmas house as a kid you don’t really think of her as a young woman, you see her as she is, old and maybe a bit crabby, hilarious and totally picky, wearing outfits she’s had since the 60’s mixed with incredibly funny 80’s sweat suits and orthopedic shoes. You see her napping with a book on her chest, glasses slipping down her nose, her cat perched on the edge of the sofa like a sphinx, it smells like an antique store mixed with something sweet, you try to imagine your mother growing up with her, going to bed in this house, maybe you stare at those sun bleached pictures Gran’s got stored away under her huge, white vanity.  Her cat ornaments fill the edge of the glass table, you try on her pearl earrings and polka dot bangles, sparkling costume diamonds and dark red lipstick, looking in the mirror for a second you can almost picture her, 18, summertime, crushing over the Paul Newman look-alike lifeguard at the lake, or 21 years old laughing with her girlfriends over gin martinis in nude thigh highs and pin curls. It’s hard to imagine that granny, but when you see one of those old photos of her it can be fantastically over whelming... this is where you came from!'

Starring Mila De Wit and Nyasha Matanhodze

Photos: Mark Hunter

Photo Assistant: Stephen Meiers

Photo Edit: Kimberley Gordon

Make up: Carlene K

Hair: Tyron Dupre

Styled by: Kimberley Gordon and Meredith Leyerzaph

Executive Producer: Jimmy Sommers