Rococo Reverie — Creating Fantasy Through Hair, Fashion & Storytelling

Every now and then, a creative project comes together that feels less like a photoshoot and more like stepping into another world entirely. Rococo Reverie was one of those shoots.

Created alongside the incredibly talented Kylie Hayes from MoHa Salon, this series was inspired by the romance, excess and softness of Rococo fashion, but interpreted through a contemporary editorial lens. We wanted the images to feel dreamlike and theatrical while still holding emotion and humanity beneath the styling. Not costume for the sake of costume, but characters that felt as though they existed inside their own strange and beautiful universe.

From the beginning, hair became the centrepiece of the storytelling. Kylie’s work has this extraordinary ability to move beyond traditional hairstyling and into something sculptural and artistic. Every look felt intentional and otherworldly. Intricate braided structures woven with pearls, exaggerated textures, powdered shapes, soft pastel tones and floating silhouettes all became part of the visual language of the series.

What I loved most about this collaboration was the balance between softness and eccentricity. Rococo fashion historically was lavish, romantic and overflowing with detail, but we didn’t want the images to feel heavy or overly literal. Instead, we leaned into muted tones, delicate fabrics, tulle, lace and movement to create something that felt painterly and feminine while still carrying a slightly surreal edge.

The set design and styling played a huge role in building that atmosphere. Layers of draped lace, antique textures, soft blush tones and vintage-inspired elements created a world that felt suspended somewhere between beauty and decay. There’s something I’ve always loved about imagery that feels imperfectly beautiful — slightly melancholic, slightly whimsical, as though it belongs inside a dream you can’t fully remember afterwards.

Photographing creative editorial work like this is very different from photographing people in everyday environments, but emotionally the process is surprisingly similar. I’m still searching for feeling first. Even inside highly styled conceptual work, I want the person in front of the camera to feel alive rather than overly posed. I want movement, subtle tension, softness in the eyes, small gestures that make the image feel human underneath the styling.

That’s what made this series so exciting to photograph. Every frame felt like a collaboration between hair, fashion, texture, mood and expression. Nothing existed separately. The styling informed the posing, the posing informed the emotion, and the emotion shaped the final image.

The pastel blue hair paired with distressed makeup and oversized tulle created this beautiful contradiction between fragility and rebellion. The pearl-threaded braided structures felt almost doll-like and regal, while the exaggerated textures and shapes introduced something avant-garde and slightly unsettling. Each look carried its own personality while still belonging cohesively within the same visual world.

Shoots like this remind me why I love editorial photography so much. They allow space for experimentation, storytelling and artistry in a way that feels deeply collaborative. Everyone involved brings their own creative language into the room, and the final images become a conversation between multiple artists rather than the vision of just one person.

Working with Kylie is always creatively inspiring because she approaches hair with so much imagination and fearlessness. There’s a level of craftsmanship in her work that transforms hair into wearable art, and as a photographer, that gives me so much to respond to visually. The detail, shape and texture naturally invite emotion and narrative into the frame.

More than anything, Rococo Reverie was about creating atmosphere. A soft kind of fantasy. A world where beauty could be dramatic, delicate, strange and expressive all at once.

The kind of work that reminds you photography doesn’t always need to document reality.

Sometimes it gets to create magic instead.