Spring is coming slowly to Yorkshire, but with the coming of warmer weather comes a new collection for Conscious Apparel. Once again, we photographed the collection at Ruth’s house, which has just come out of being trodden by hundreds of people for York Open Studios. It is still single-handedly the most fascinating house that any of my friends inhabit (and I have friends that live in a Manor!), so it is always a joy to photograph there.

For this collection, Sylvia, one of the brand owners, gave the brief of capturing the models in different artistic/creative ways to show that the spirit behind the clothes is for the women wearing them to be empowered to be whoever they want to be. Luckily, Ruth does nearly every form of art, and her husband plays every instrument, so there were no shortage of props! Ruth is also great at styling people (her job as a jewellery maker surely helps with this!), so she made sure that the models looked great.

Some of my favourite shots from the time were of my friend Jen, who is an artist in her own right. It was fun to capture her creating both as a model and as an artist.

As usual, Renee also modelled for the shoot. It’s been fun to see her over the course of several different seasons with Conscious Apparel. She’s definitely grown in confidence and experience as a fashion model!

And of course, it was really fun to be able to photograph new models, as well, especially as the former saris that have been turned into the Conscious Apparel designs were from their native country. They knew the history of each of the prints and could tell us where in India the saris had come from!

There was so much colour across the house, which had the perfect neutral backdrops. It was so good to create in Ruth’s house again!