New Skin for Miss Arabella

I bought this mannequin in the end of spring and was very happy. The matter is, we do not have them in the market, so I had to search for a while and finally bought one from a wedding salon. I was so excited about my luck - we even had a fun photo shoot with her.

I hope this photo does not seem offensive to anyone. I have a lot of respect and love for my mannequin. She was clearly happy to move to my place, too, and leave the dusty salon behind. Her name is Arabella and I think she is beautiful. 

My only grievance was her size. She is smaller than me, and I am not very large; to make pictures of larger size clothing modeled by Arabella we have to pin the items on her, keeping the proportions. But this is what many small shops do, so I was not upset about that.

However, my pictures of clothing for the shop were not good, to say the least. I could see they were not doing justice to the items, but could not quite understand what to do with them. I suffered silently, until the dearest Lana of Lanadearg creations (knitted or felted hats, bags, beanies, scarfs, socks and many other cozy and beautiful things) from the Russian Artists' Team suggested that I replace Arabella's black velvet cover with something lighter in color, to reduce the contrast. Lana has great taste and sense of style, and excellent pictures, so  we decided to give it a try.

We found a old cotton knitted dress, and mother made a new cover for Arabella. Lo and behold - before (left) and after (right):

(listing in my shop)

Now I feel much more confident about my pictures.

I have also changed the style of photos for the shop, but that is a separate story and I will tell it later. In the meantime I want to thank Lana once again for her great advice. It is good to be in one team with people who are ready to give you a hand when you need it. And I cannot say enough about the Russian Team (the uniting attribute is Russian language) that provides great support in a friendly atmosphere.

Arabella is sending her best regards, too.