Alice Vol. 1 No. 2

[62] Alice April 2016
After the clothes, painting and
theme are finalized, the girls then focus
on creating a set design, choosing
models, and booking photographers
and locations.
“It really takes a whole month,” Ashleigh
says. “It should be our full time
job. Like with school, there’s no time.”
In the weeks before shoot day,
Brooke is hard at sketching, painting
and hot gluing, and by the time models
arrive for hair and makeup around 10
on shoot morning, she says she’s usually
still frantically touching up the
canvas. While Brooke is creating the
canvas, Ashleigh meets with boutiques
around Tuscaloosa, including Effie’s,
Canterbury Clothiers and Mobley and
Sons, to secure clothing for the models.
On shoot day, the girls get up early
to start gathering materials: lights, set
props, makeup, accessories, clothes,
cameras, and the canvas. Everything
they’ll need for the production
takes about an hour to transfer to
the shoot location. By 10:30 a.m. the
models are gathered and prepped for
hair and makeup, and by 12 p.m., the
shooting begins.
For February’s collection titled
“Love Not War,” inspirited by the idealism
and fashion of the 60s, the girls
went all out. In addition to the painted
canvas, which depicted Twiggy holding
mementos from the 60s including
a Rubik cube, lava lamp, Woodstock
logo, and Neil Armstrong on the moon,
the set featured a TV made of polyurethane
foam and 7” painted vinyl
record covers. By 10 p.m. over 800
pictures were taken, and the shoot was
wrapping up.
After the shoot, the work for Ashleigh
and Brooke isn’t anywhere near done.
They are then tasked with the project of
setting up the collection online.
“With the amount of pictures we
take, we basically build a website every
time,” Ashleigh says. “So after the
shoot there’s a whole entire process. It
starts with dropping down the number