When we first started doing swimwear, I was a bit angsty about how to fit summer-holiday-sunshine into our dark aesthetic (no we are NOT goths please shut-up now). Then I remembered PIRATES and relaxed for a bit. Another season, another photoshoot, and this time round I remembered a beautifully illustrated book I had a child of The Little Mermaid, paintings by Edmund Dulac.
For those of you who only know the cheerful Ariel version of the story, the original, By Hans Christian Anderson, is frankly strange, macabre and sad. The mermaid dreams of exploring above sea until she comes of age, rescues a prince, hears about immortal souls, and in pursuit of both prince and soul, gives us her beautiful voice for legs and dancing.
One slight catch... her feet feel as if she is dancing on knives, and bleed accordingly. Oh, and the prince marries someone else. She can be a mermaid for 300 years again if she kills him, but instead she throws herself into the sea, and finds herself becoming a “daughter of the air”, who can attain immortal souls if they do enough good deeds and if children behave well.
What to make of this? Christian or Victorian morality? Rite of passage story? A feminist warning not to tolerate abuse or lose your identity? An early campaign against body snark? Or a heavily disguised gay love letter?
I have no idea, but I’m certain of one thing; no self-respecting Deadly would make a deal like that without using their legs for a damn sight more than entertaining a man they met once.
So here’s the deal;
Get yourself.
Dream up what YOUR deadly mermaid would do once she had legs (you know, and a great KMD swimsuit).
ENJOY YOURSELF. Anyone mentioning the words “bikini body” in anything other than a criticism of the idea will be summarily executed, because I’m having that sort of day.
Then send us a picture of what your deadly mermaid gets up to.
And/or a video. Can be a Vine, can be a full on short film!
Now, for full on creativity, and also the sorts of skills you’ve previously shown, you need time, so you have until the 21st June 2013.
We’ll pick the best picture and the best video on the 24th June and each of those will get a £400 KMD voucher.
3 runners up in each category will get £75 vouchers each.
Last year the standard of entry in our Shoot Yourself competition was so high I ended up sending everyone a voucher of some sort... so I guess I’m hanging that out there as encouragement!
Tips, hints and ideas:
Remember, you don’t have to show your face. Though swimwear is nowhere near as risqué as lingerie, I can fully appreciate that some of your have jobs where it wouldn’t be ideal to be seen in even a very maxi bikini publicly.
You don’t have to wear swimwear as swimwear. We actually do a fabric that's sold for dance and swimwear as the base for our Van Doren range! So like Jess here, it’s perfectly possible to wear a bikini top as, well, a top – though a revealing one at that. I’m contemplating putting skirts over swimsuits though, I think it could work with the new deluxe swimsuit, especially in the lace print. Plus, the swimdresses and deluxe bikini come with pull down skirts anyway!
Our bikini tops don’t work for your size range? Why not mix and match? For full busts, take a look at Miss Mandalay, or for petites, what about Paolita?
I’ve got a leopard print one from Miss Mandalay that happens to have some turquoise in like our bikini bottoms!
Love the hair accessories? You can find the spangly starfish here, the spangly actual seashells and so on here, and how to make your own headdress here.
You can have as many entries as you like, though I really recommend not sending us 20 shots from one shoot – I know it’s hard, but honestly, try and pick just the best as otherwise you lose the impact.
If you do a video we will ask you for the file so we can upload them all to the same place!
Do make sure we have a way to contact you, because people have lost out before by not giving us an email address, or not answering their emails!
You can send your entries to info@kissmedeadly.co.uk, or post them on our Facebook.
