Flowers

Floral Hairpieces – Behind the scenes with the DK team

Dennis Kneepkens and Mick Stubbe from DK – Dennis Kneepkens share with us what went on behind the scenes of a hair-raising flower masterpiece.

DK – Dennis Kneepkens touts the ability to make dreams a reality and paging through the portfolio it’s easy to see why. The level of commitment and creativity required by everyone involved in making even some of the “smaller” pieces is rather astonishing, but when you’re led by someone who’s extremely prepared and brimming with such positivity and vision, it must not be so hard to give the project your all. During our recent chat with the DK team, Dennis shared a behind the scenes story from one such project and provided some insights about where the idea came from and how it was executed.

Floral Hairpiece DK- Dennis Kneepkens

Floral Hairpiece by DK – Dennis Kneepkens. Photography by RayzorSharp © Image subject to Copyright

The project was actually Kneepkens final year graduation project for his university. His idea was to replace certain accessories in the outfits of models at a few upcoming fashion shows. Since flowers are like jewels in their own right, why not remove the jewellery of the models, replacing it with beautifully crafted flowers as jewels to create something extravagant? The result was stunning and photographed well.
The pieces themselves took a relatively short time (a few hours) to make because a lot of the work that goes into such pieces is done in the beginning during the design phase. As Dennis would say, creating it is not actually the hard part. The hard part is to make such pieces practical and stable on the head of the model. The pieces should remain wearable when the model is walking around, as Dennis said if it’s on and the model is walking, and the piece is there after three steps it should be there forever. Keeping the flowers in place can be trickier than you think, considering the head is flat and slippery, and you wouldn’t want to stick something on a model’s head that would make her cut off all her hair once the shoot is complete.

Flower hair piece

Floral Hairpiece by DK – Dennis Kneepkens. Photography by RayzorSharp © Image subject to Copyright

During the actual shoot, there were a few moving parts to direct and work together with including the model, hairstylists, and makeup artists. The team worked together so well that not even historically small architecture could stop them. Dennis, who is no slouch himself and measures at 6 feet 2 inches tall, was working with a model of just about his height. She was, however, not yet in her high heels stilettos or the Mohawk, which itself measured 40 centimetres tall. By the time she was ready for her close-up, she measured about 2m 20cm to 2m 30cm tall (7 ft. 6 in.). While the model could still be considered of slightly average height by model standards, the photo shoot was to take place in an older European hotel.
Dennis and the crew were using an upstairs hotel room to get ready and would be conducting the shoot just below, in the hotel’s lobby. What they hadn’t been prepared for was the final height of the model, who then had to go on hand and knee, crawling out the door and inside the elevator, and then having to crawl outside the elevator and into the lobby or else her height would have ruined the entire headpiece. Just one of those crazy things that can happen behind the scenes when you’re in the high-octane world of floral design. Thanks again so much for sharing it!
For more information on DK – Dennis Kneepkens then check out his website: www.denniskneepkens.nl
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Original interview and writing conducted by our lovely team writer, Kali Simone.

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1 Comment

  • Reply
    Stephanie Ross, CAFA
    May 2, 2016 at 8:49 pm

    How creative and what a beautiful use of colour, texture and depth! I love it! Stephanie Ross, CAFA

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