Styles: Ablaze by Kristie Kesic, Australia

Marrakech, a place where you are surrounded by pops of beautiful colour all around the city. You slide out of your hotel and walk down the uneven corridors painted all shades of blue. You look around at the walls lined with coloured hanging pots, overflowing with green leaves.

Yves Saint Laurent once said “This city taught me colour.” He was talking about Morocco and it’s easy to see why.

It is a photographic paradise.

You leave the streets behind you step into the magical world of the Moroccan Souk.

The walls are hung with hand woven carpets and bunches of coloured string. The mosaic-patterned steps guide you from one place to another.

You gaze wistfully at perfect pyramids of coloured powders, wondering how on earth their owners keep them looking so pristine. Material drapes from ceilings with lanterns peeping through. Circle ceramics are hung to somehow not fall from the walls

With this collection I wanted to give a sensory wander through the Souks of Marrakech. It evokes a sense of taking a walk through a colourful, chaotic, and mysterious place.

The colours represent the multi-coloured mishmash of these markets.

Each image is a visual representation on its own, yet as a collection, it’s a vibrant story.

The hair and hairstyles represent the textures of layered rugs hanging and blowing in the breeze, the spices piled high within pots and flowers hung upside down to dry alongside bunches of chillies, all juxtaposed against the alluring, vibrant showcase of powders.

These are colours and textures that clash yet work so perfectly together.

In the Ablaze collection, the blue background represents the street colours. Glowy skin depicts the sun shining through the broken wooden roof slates of the markets and bright clothing is a further extension of the hair providing a bright, yet contrasting pallet.