Rockabilly-Online

She’s Rockabilly-Online’s sponsor: Kessie and her Lady K Loves pinup clothing shop at the Coast of the UK. Kessie designs the clothes and works out the patterns. She does a bit of everything for her shop.

Photy by Janette @ terribly girly, model Miss Nicole Nunez

When it comes to music, she’s been listening to a lot of Straight 8’s recently, and always loved Tiger Army, though the first album and EP were the high lights for her. Anything from the original stars of the rockabilly scene to more recent stuff, rock’n’roll, swing, jazz, David Bowie! She’s into surf and covers. Her boyfriend picked up a great album of covers of everything from Britney Spears to Bohemian Rapsody played on the uke the other day, that always puts a smile on her face.

Tell us about your passions

Loads!! We watch loads of movies in our house, quite a lot of them are horror. I love watching classic horror movies for the clothes and hair. I wouldn’t say I was faithful to one era, I like the glamour of 40’s, the colour and optimism of 50’s and little bits and pieces in between. I love a good cocktail, it really can complete any outfit. Fabric and surface design, patterns can engross me for ages, I’ve got masses of books on patterns, fabrics, prints, wallpaper, hair styling, overall look, everything!

Photy by Jon at Strobeme, model Holly Jane

I started the company just under two years ago now, I’d been wanting to do this for ages, so when we moved to the coast it was the prefect time to get my head down and get on. My Dad gave me £100 so I bought some fabric, made some samples and then put them out for sale. At first I took orders via Myspace, then facebook and a couple of other networking sites, I picked up wholesale orders here and there, did fairs and shows. When the web site went up properly at the beginning of this year with an actual shopping cart it was so exciting! From then on we’ve been getting busier and busier, we now get our stock manufactured which was a really big step. We’re stocking more and more shops and getting closer and closer to the goal of getting fabrics made just for us.

Kessie and her boyfriend

Tell us about your latest collection.

The latest collection has a much more 40’s feel than  some of the previous ranges, there’s a couple of bits of knitwear, some factory girl wide legged pants and a flirty pencil skirt with goring at the back. My favorite piece is most defiantly the faux fur cat, it’s extremely glamour, cut with folds of fabric at the front and back. I feel like my designs have become a little more sophisticated, though the main aim for me is always to make wearable clothing. Items you can feel great in but also move, dance, walk the dog, do the shopping, whatever it is you do everyday. Just feel great doing it. So for me the combination of Oh Gosh skirt with the Annette jumper is great, practical yet stylish and flirty.

What’s your favorite daily outfit?

It depends on what I’m doing. If I have a busy day I’ll normally go for jeans and a tee with a cardigan, if I feel like I want to look a bit better I’ll go for a pencil skirt, jersey top and cardi, it’s windy where I live to while I love full skirts I’m always worried I’ll flash someone! I’m normally towing a small dog around after me when I go to do errands so it needs to be something easy to move it. Plus we live on top of a hill and I can’t drive so I’ve taken to flat shoes more often than not.

photo jon @ Strobeme, model Tennessee Ross

Who is your favorite pinup model?

I like the people who look like they’re having fun! Doris May Day has an out of this world figure, there’s a British model called Slinky Sparkles who has a very nice look. We tend to use people we know and I’m always keen to have new or less well known people as it’s great to give someone a break and it can help to differentiate our brand from others out there.

Do you have styling tips for our pinup wannabe readers?

For me getting dressed in the morning is always about how I feel, there’s no point in me wearing a lovely genuine vintage dress, stockings and heels if it feels more like a jeans day . You can always tell someone who feels like they’re looking good and someone who feels unsure, good posture always helps too!

Anything you want to say to our readers?

We now have a pre-orders page, where you can find this new collection (it’s particularly the knitwear which isn’t ready yet). They’ll be new bits being added all of the time, including a dress we’re working on right now for Christmas.

LKLx

www.lady-k-loves.com

info@lady-k-loves.com