Behind the Scenes at a Laura Thomas Linens Photo Shoot November 2013

On Friday I was on location with Jess Burges of Exposure Photographics to shoot my new hand embroidered range. The new range, coming from Vietnam, using 100% Vietnamese Cotton is hand embroidered by skilled specialist crafts people. I’m delighted with the all white collection. One design uses the technique of cutwork with a contemporary twist, which after much research I know is hard to find and will be exclusive to Laura Thomas Linens.

My Vietnamese supplier and I have built up a relationship directly through email. He speaks little English. Initially this proved very difficult. My polite British manner came through the emails and often he had no idea what I was waffling on about. Regular lost in translation moments. However finding the wonderful tool of Google Translate changed that. Direct, short and sharp one line sentences translated into Vietnamese made going through all the stages before production much easier. Designing, sampling, design tweaking, correcting and more correcting (it’s an arduous process) was made much easier when I could converse in Vietnamese, cutting down the amount of emails sent by almost half.

The collection was shot in The Bach at Driftwood. It was wonderful to work there again and although the shoot took a good few hours, the view and ambiance of this stunning Bach, in the Bay of Islands was invigorating and calming. The killer views surrounded by budding vines and bees hard at work in the lavender bushes make it a wonderful holiday location. Both Jess and I agreed that we could easily park up right there and then and just relax..

The new hand embroidered collection will be available January 2014.