Fantasy meets finery in wedding photoshoot

‘Most bridal shoots are rather conventional and run of the mill. I wanted something a bit more quirky, to push the boundaries between fantasy and reality,” says Mary Ginnifer who styled this dreamy, offbeat shoot in Henrietta Street, Dublin, with the award winning Polish photographer Michal Zagorski. From Cork and a fine arts graduate from the Crawford College of Art & Design, Ginnifer (the name may be Norman from Guinevere – she’s not sure) majored in textile design and printing, but pursued a successful career as a makeup artist during the Celtic Tiger years.

Fine art weddings are currently in vogue, she says, with many couples wanting art style photography as an alternative to the usual poses and clichéd wedding portraits, although this fashion shoot takes the notion to extremes.

Ginnifer’s fine arts background informs her approach and the concepts she creates for fashion editorials are a fusion of her passion for fashion design, styling and make up artistry. Not surprisingly she cites John Galliano and Alexander McQueen as influences on her design work.

Theatre and performance rather than fashion trends are also motivating forces and she created two dresses for singer Julie Feeney, an extravagant one in paper origami for her National Concert Hall sell-out show last year and another for her television performance in RTÉ’s

The View

. She has also styled three of Feeney’s music videos from her

Clocks

album and designed the headpiece for her performance at the annual Oscar Wilde event at the Academy Awards in LA last year.

Classical paintings affect her style subconsciously too, she says, and the British surrealist fashion photographer Tim Walker, whose dreamscapes and otherworldly romantic style have made the former Richard Avedon assistant a regular favourite of Vogue, has been a huge source of inspiration.

“I like that mixture of conceptual art and contemporary minimalism. Weddings are an expensive business but with creative direction can be made to look modern, cool and inexpensive,” she says.

The clothes features are a creative mix of vintage pieces and creations from contemporary Irish fashion designers.

More recently, Ginnifer has focused her talents in other ways, directing and taking part in performance art shows that bring together her various skills and ideas. Last year her performance piece opened the Designer of the Year show at Cork Fashion Week with video back up visuals by Brendan Canty, responsible for the recent YouTube video of singer-songwriter Hozier that went viral.

Along with Julie Feeney, she has also styled singer Sue Rynhart for her album cover Crossings and for several of her live performances to promote the album in Dublin. "It has taken me a long time since leaving the Crawford to find the direction I want to go in and amalgamate all the skills and ideas that I have and portray them together like an artist would – because that is the core of my being," says Ginnifer.