Greta Larkins works as a fashion forecaster in Australia.
But on Tumblr, she’s the one leading a hot new trend.
Over the last year and a half, the 27-year-old fashionista has created more than 500 GIFs, turning still frames of her favorite fashion designs and models into surreal animations. Her Tumblr, FASHGIF, is a must-follow account for fans of fashion aficionados and thousands of people have praised her creativity and quirky sense of humor.
With such a robust portfolio, the Daily Dot asked Larkins to curate her top five GIFs and explain why each was special.
1) “CÉLINE FALL 2011 RTW”
“Initially I was looking at this outfit with the intention of turning it into floorboards, maybe having footprints walk over it, but I just couldn’t get my head around the best approach. Anyway, a few years ago I had to use an electric sander (it was very hard work!) and suddenly that memory popped into my head! I changed the colour of the sander so it matched the mood of the outfit and then branded it. The ‘wood chips’ coming off the garment are just a simple brush tool in Photoshop but in slightly different shades and opacity levels. Voila!”
2) “ELIE SAAB FALL 2012 COUTURE”
“Looking back I probably should’ve made this GIF with a Chanel outfit. In a very light way, I’m making a nod to how many labels survive (and thrive!) not from the sale of clothes but from the sale of perfume and make-up, thus a Chanel No. 5 bottle might’ve had a greater impact. But Karlie looked so striking and almost like a perfume bottle in this gown, I couldn’t resist. Sometimes I have to ‘act out’ a GIF to work out the number of frames and for this one I was running into my bedroom and spraying perfume to see how the bottle really worked.”
3) “STELLA MCCARTNEY EVENING 2012”
“I love trompe l’oeil concepts in fashion and how this dress, at this particular angle, appears like a shadow of another figure. This GIF was pretty simple; it took only about 15 minutes to do, with my focus being on trying to get the black silhouette profile to match the face of the model once it lands in the final position. Suddenly, another woman appears!”
4) “MARY KATRANTZOU FALL 2012 RTW”
“I get so excited every time a Mary Katrantzou collection walks because she’s famous for her trompe l’oeil digital prints and her parades are always such a great source of inspiration (and potential GIFs). As soon as I saw this dress I knew how I wanted the animation to work, though I think I’d approach it a little differently given the chance to do it again. I often review GIFs and make a mental note of what I’d change or update; this ensures I keep trying to improve my technique with each new one. I’ve since had a play on a typewriter and I can see I didn’t quite replicate the mechanisms, but I think the gist is there!”
5) “LOUIS VUITTON FALL 2011 RTW”
“I have a terrible habit for removing models heads or adding eyes where they shouldn’t be, but I think this is a better example of this practice! It’s great fun to make models blink as you need to manually rebuild the makeup and lashes over their eyelids. Same goes for anything skin-based, blending the tones and adding shadows plus light highlights is surprisingly therapeutic and rewarding if you can make it look real. Sadly this means I’m terrible at my own make-up, as there’s no undo button on my face so I rarely wear it.”
GIFs by FASHGIF
