I can’t believe it, Paris already, I can’t believe it…
You hardly notice how the days spill into each other and I’ve been literally zombie-ing about backstage for the past couple of weeks working away with a huge flu. Believe me I would love to just lie down right now, right here as I type this, but I’m in too much of a good mood because this Charlotte Free picture above makes me so happy. It was backstage at Louise Gray’s Spring/Summer 2012 show in London and Charlotte wearing Louise’s colours and textures was even more beautiful than I could’ve imagined. It was a beautiful show, we had fun and then….

Charlotte laughed at how we’d met a year earlier. It all started with her card, propped on top of her rail backstage at Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label show for Autumn/Winter 2011, I shot it because there was a lot of dip dyed pink hair running about backstage among the hair crew last season but none on any of the models. I’ll be honest here, it’s rare to find a model with hair like this – anything special or different makes it more complicated for shoots and shows – but Vivienne Westwood and her model casting agent took a chance and cast Charlotte Free, (unusual hair like this can cost a model jobs).

In Charlotte’s case her pastel pink hair with a shocking pink underlayer got her this job and I was thinking to myself ‘how easy would it be to get Charlotte’s pink hair?’ and so I asked and she explained in her Los Angelean draaawl that it was ‘really pretty simple (if not a little time consuming)’. So how did she get it to work for castings? ‘Photographer David Mushegian sent shots of her to the agency IMG and they signed her. It was her own unique look and designers like it.’ Aaaaaaa I LOVE IT!

And it made me extra happy because as we spoke she was mega fun! Can’t you tell? So BAM! foe me instant girl crush. PLUS she opened the Vivienne Westwood Red Label show for Autumn/Winter 2011 with this hair AND she’s only 5’7″. (Good news for girls who aren’t the standard 5’11″).

This season she was back again to walk Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label Spring/Summer 2012 show, and Malcolm Edwards from the L’Oréal Professionnel team worked her hair again (still her distinctive pink).

With a streak of purple.

Malcolm covered her head this time with clingfilm and denim after smoothing it and clipping it tight to her head.

I rarely sit out front, but I popped out for a bit here to grab a shot of how cute Charlotte looked with her hair scraped right back in Vivienne Westwood Red Label Spring/Summer 2012. The show was one of my favourites this season. It was in Smithfield Market and the venue? Total camera crush.

So yeah, we kind of kept bumping into each other backstage. And I like that she’s a bit punk, loose trousers, boots, and that t-shirt the one that became cult because of these reviews on Amazon. She wears this kind of thing most days. I love taking her picture.

It was super cool that she got cast by Vogue’s fashion bookings editor, Rosie Vogel for the Louise Gray Spring/Summer show because….

Luke Hersheson and his team spent hours wrapping and pinning her hair to get that “I’ve-just-come-home-from -the-best-party look” for the Louise Gray spring/summer 2012 show. It was this style which brought Charlotte’s pink hair to another level.

It took ages for Luke Hersheson and his team to achieve this look conjured up with Louise Gray (I know because I stood mesmerised watching).

And then spent another millenium watching the MAC pro team administer that pink eyeliner swoosh (I’ll post their tricks here shortly).

The results overall were very, very beautiful and unique (rather like Louise Gray’s collection and Charlotte Free). I’ve also just realised looking through some old shots that London designer Louise Gray had dip dyed hair before ANYONE oh and just to add that her Louise Gray’s Spring/Simmer 2012 collection is like a dream. You want to see the whole story from backstage? I’ll post it. In the meantime some peeps have set up a Tumblr account dedicated to her pinkness Charlotte Free here

Well that’s it for now, oh no wait one last thing : there were/are a million parties and things to be going to during fashion month but to be honest I don’t go to (m)any. I have a choice to either stand about sniffling and blanket bomb everything with my camera or just make my own little zombieG way and poke out the unique and cool (like Charlotte) for the blog. So I’ve chosen the unique. More tomorrow! Big kisses no more sneezes!!! G