Silk Hat Studio

Albums Categories: Storytelling Portraits

  • Fern as Prince

    Fern as Prince

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    by

    Alan

    I started a project a couple of years ago considering what would famous 80s guitarist have looked like had they not been men. It wasn’t intended to be a simple gender-switch or putting women or non-binary in a man’s costume, but to explore it further. When thinking of Prince, Fern was the obvious choice; a…

  • Northern Riviera

    Northern Riviera

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    by

    Alan

    I had the idea a few years ago of an editorial shoot, based around the concept of a Northern Riviera, i.e. take the concept of French Riviera imagery and make it more Northern England. I wanted to shoot this in Manchester, Sheffield or Leeds, and Sheffield is where I do most of my studio shoots,…

  • Evil Queen

    Evil Queen

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    by

    Alan

    Taking a darker angle on the typical evil queen trope. With Xenia, shot at the Boardroom in Derby.

  • Ashleigh Rae

    Ashleigh Rae

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    by

    Alan

    The original inspiration for this shoot was Subway, Luc Besson’s movie from the 1980s. It was a loose inspiration that let us play with it. I’d also acquired some RGBW LED strip lights since I knew that colour was going to play a major part in the shoot.

  • Black and White Fashion

    Black and White Fashion

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    by

    Alan

    Featuring a bold green and silver striped jumpsuit with such high contrast that we just had to shoot it in black and white.

  • Wedding Fine Art

    Wedding Fine Art

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    by

    Alan

    I’d found a vintage wedding dress and I hadn’t found a model to suit it. Then I heard that Lydia was at Zavod Studio and I thought she’d be ideal. The dress is possibly 1940s; it features pockets and a bolero. The odd thing about the pockets – or at least odd to me not…

  • Show Girls

    Show Girls

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    by

    Alan

    I’ve always thought that idea for anything bespoke starts with the conversation between client and the artist/supplier. So I view imagery as something that needs to be brought into existence, to evolve and be nurtured. So it’s rare that I go to an event where the set has already been designed, the costumes are already…

  • Makeshift

    Makeshift

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    by

    Alan

    Creating a dress by hanging and clipping the fabric

  • Fearless

    Fearless

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    by

    Alan

    This was loosely, very loosely, inspired by Netflix’s adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. That set the theme that we then riffed on and went in different directions.

  • Mobility

    Mobility

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    by

    Alan

    Grace and me had discussed a shoot before, and then accelerated when she contacted me wanting images that featured her modern mobility aids. We’d agreed on a gothic or spooky theme for some of the images, using Lacrimosa as the musical influence. You can see a loose fence that I’d fabricated from older-style walking sticks.…