Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
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Here’s some exciting news. A beautiful combination of fashion and photography. Congratulations!
R. Brooke Priddy and her custom gown studio and showroom, Ship to Shore, will be relocating to 43 Rankin Avenue in downtown Asheville. This location is also the gallery and studio of world-renowned photographer, Parker J Pfister. A grand reopening is planned for Friday, July 18 at 7 p.m., where the creative duo will debut new photographs and gowns from their recent fashion shoot adventures. The reception is free and open to the public.
Ship to Shore will begin hosting current clients in the new studio in July. Although her 2014 bridal season is booked, she is accepting new clients now for 2015. The new location features a natural light sewing room, where each gown is built in the true sense of couture – by hand and one of a kind. The studio will also feature a large exhibition space with future plans for public open hours for retail and reception.
Parker and Brooke have collaborated on many epic fashion and photography projects. Their most recent coastal shoot features model and actress, Amanda Swafford and the talented work of hairstylist Amy Grooms. This creative team traveled to the Southern coasts and places thereabouts in April for a three-day immersion shoot. The gowns were built expressly to be shot by Parker amongst the spanish moss, live oaks and bone-like trees of Botany Bay. This new work will exhibited at the gallery at 43 Rankin, alongside the gowns.
R. Brooke Priddy, Bio
R. Brooke Priddy is a designer and dressmaker that specializes in one-of-a-kind gowns built by hand, by commission. Her design label, Ship to Shore, was founded 14 years ago. She has been published widely, and created commission for two museum exhibitions in the recent past.
“Collaboration and cross-disciplinarity define the otherwise indefinable practice of artist, designer, dressmaker and entrepreneur R. Brooke Priddy. She moves fluidly across garments, sculpture, installation, performance, and social practice. Priddy makes every garment a conversational process. The ensuing clothing becomes both a vehicle and signpost of passage. Her work re-introduces the timeless rites of real ceremony back into contemporary experience. For it is in the gathering that comes with costume, that the social fabric underlying her work can be woven.”
-S.Matijcio, Curator of Contemporary Art, CAC Cincinnati
Parker J. Pfister, Bio
Parker J Pfister Is a 30 year photographer and director of vision that draws a line and stands firmly on both sides. One side filled with fine art fashion, conceptual portraiture and personal projects, while the other is filled with stylistic wedding and portrait photography as well as other commissioned works. Over the last few years he has been published worldwide many times over, named one of the “Top 10 Wedding Photographers in the World” by American Photo, was on the cover of NikonWorld magazine, was on the BBC’s Style Network, Entertainment Tonight and The Food Network just to mention a few.
The camera fits comfortably in his hands and through it he shares the way he see’s the world in which we all live.
