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The Magnificence Collection: The Story (Guest Post By Paisley Of London)

The Dress Up

The Magnificence Collection: The Story (Guest Post By Paisley Of London)

We invited the lovely team at Paisley of London to fill us in on the creation of the Magnificence collection.

THE BEGINNINGS

As before (see our Serenity collection: Behind the Design post here), we begin with what we’d love to create. What would we love our kids to wear, or be seen wearing ourselves when we were younger? What would be the dream dress or perfect shoes?

 

There’s no beginning without first having inspiration, then aspirations for what the collection should achieve.

 

We consider beauty, femininity and elegance. These words create an overarching theme for how we want the collection to be perceived. The words, of course, represent different things to different people. We considered something tangible that fit with what these words mean to our team.

Ballet struck a chord with us. It is the epitome of elegance. A culmination of beauty, femininity and elegance entwined into a single beautiful art form. Ballet was the perfect place to look to for inspiration and base the collection on.

 

The inspiration we felt best suited to our thoughts was the timeless Swan Lake. If you’re not familiar with the iconic ballet, here’s our version of the story told countless times over the past 150 years along with the imagery we loved so much about it.

SWAN LAKE

Swan Lake is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875. It is a timeless love story which interweaves magic, sorrow and romance into four acts, although it was originally comprised of two acts.

 

The story tells of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by day by an evil sorcerers curse. She spends her sunlight hours swimming on a lake of tears, but by night she reverts to her beautiful human form. Odette meets Prince Siegfried the night of his 21st birthday when he comes to the lake after fleeing his birthday celebration because of a sudden realization of future responsibility.

 

When Prince Siegfried arrives at the lake, he spots the most beautiful swan he’s ever seen, swimming with a crown on its head. He waits and tells his friends to leave him so he can be by himself. As night falls, the swan turns into the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid his eyes upon; Odette.

 


Inspiration Continued...

In true fairy-tale fashion, they quickly fall in love. Just as Prince Siegfried is about to confess his love to Odette, the evil sorcerer appears and commands the swan maidens he has cursed to dance upon the lake until dawn when the spells befalls all the girls for a new day.

 

The following day, Prince Siegfried is forced to pick a bride at a formal celebration, but alas, he cannot choose since he loves Odette. To satisfy his mother’s wishes he dances with prospective princesses. Whilst he dances, the sorcerer arrives with his own daughter, Odile, whom the he has enchanted to resemble Odette. The Prince is captivated by her and proposes marriage, thinking she is Odette. Odette is watching from a window as this happens and runs away thinking she has been tossed aside, but the Prince sees and chases after her.

 

The two young lovers run back to the lake, closely followed by Odile and the sorcerer. The sorcerer tells the Prince he must abide by his promise of marriage to Odile, but Siegfried refuses and says he would rather die. The ballet ends with the Prince and Odette jumping into the lake together holding hands, breaking the spell and freeing the maidens under the sorcerers spell.

 

Swan Lake has a bittersweet ending with the Prince and Odette ending up together but at the cost of their lives. Odette is always portrayed as poised and fluid in her swan form, but rather uncomfortable in her human form showing that inner beauty shines brighter than mere physicality’s.

 


Inspiration Continued...

THE MIDDLE

With the inspiration set firmly in mind, we wanted to transform the imagery into reality. The idea behind the Magnificence collection was to make every girl feel like a ballerina. We wanted to channel the concept of exquisite, beautiful ballet styles and the breathtaking moments of Swan Lake.

 

One of the first things that come to mind when we think ballet is the tulle tutu skirt. This is one of the most iconic pieces of ballet clothing, possibly apart from classic ballet pumps. The layers of fabric with a thin mesh top layer add volume to a skirt, whilst being light enough to be floaty. Along with a range of shorter layered skirts, we wanted full volume skirts with ankle length. To us, this style of skirt screams femininity and aplomb. The bodice of the dresses followed a similar thought process; we wanted tulle, layers, and elegance, but with variance for each dress.

 

The silhouettes portrayed by these dresses needed to be feminine and elegant. We explored different shapes and styles to ensure we had the perfect collection for every girl to feel like the princess she is. There are the designs we came up with:

THE FINAL COLLECTION

The dress illustrations transformed to fabric and thread perfectly. The collection came together and portrayed the aesthetic we had in mind. The dresses were decided to be pure white and ivory, with a few exceptions like the blush pink Victoria. The dresses don't range in colour to keep a continuation of the Swan Lake theme, but the silhouettes and shapes are far-reaching. The Jessica features a gorgeous organza waterfall skirt, while the Martha features a knee-length skirt with a tulle upper layer.

 

There's something for every girl to love in Magnificence. Here are a few photos of the final collection - we hope you enjoy Magnificence as much as we do!