Elizabeth Rhoades modeling Katy Flynn’s bamboo dress image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

If you ever get a chance to work (or just hang around) with Katy Flynn, take it!  You won’t regret it.

I’ve been fortunate enough to know Katy for a few years now, and we have worked together before.  Katy is a talented fashion designer, emerging into the Seattle market and beyond with creative, innovative garments that are simultaneously stunning, effortless,  and practical.  Many try to achieve that trifecta, but few make it happen as effectively as Katy has with this design.  If you know her, you also know that succeeding is part of her nature.

Katy is also a whirlwind of enthusiastic positivity, and it is contagious if you are in the vicinity.  When the chance came to spend the afternoon and evening collaborating with her on a photoshoot for a VIVAFASHIONISTAS feature, well, I was all in.  We exchanged phone calls, emails, concepts.  We met at her studio so I could see the designs, colors, future* pieces in work.  We met to plan over a meal before attending a Seattle Fashion Group International trend event.  We laughed a lot. Katy did some casting and fittings with models to find the best suited to present the “cut for curves” aspect of this design.

She found Elizabeth Rhoades.  This was great news for me, as Elizabeth and I had never met in person, but had been looking for a chance to work together.

We all clicked right away, just the right mix of enthusiasm and professionalism, with a touch of silliness in the mix to keep it lively.  French Fries were eaten.  Someone double dipped in the ketchup. Everyone got all the Seinfeld joke references. Someone else remorselessly took the single largest french fry ever seen for themselves. Someone ‘honked’ someone else’s nose. Someone calls ‘honking’ someones’s nose ‘booping’ someone’s nose….  Someone may think that ‘honking’ and ‘booping’ noses are two entirely different things.  The Who’s and Whom’s, well, that’s our secret….

For this shoot, we were featuring Katy’s innovative Bamboo Dress: a spectacularly practical design that is four garments in one: cut to be front-to-back & inside-out reversible.  We set out to show this concept using only one dress for the entire shoot.  The dress is available exclusively at Sassafras in Seattle.

We headed to the ferry and enjoyed the sunny, warm summer day (and the light!).  We shot into the twilight, took a bit of a break, and then headed out to the marina around midnight (it gets dark late in the Pacific Northwest this time of year) to get some night shots for the set.

*Katy’s fall collection is, in a word, stellar!  What has two thumbs and will be photographing Katy’s fall collection soon?  This guy!

Here are some of my favorite images from the day.

image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

Katy & Elizabeth seemed to hit it off! image © Bret Doss All Rights Reserved

Katy Flynn         Elizabeth Rhoades         Sassafras        VIVAFASHIONISTAS

Katy is also an instructor at New York Fashion Academy in Ballard, WA