Kristin Shockley, founder, creative director of studio Lustre Theory
NORFOLK — “Tastemakers” introduces you to the people behind the scenes of the Hampton Roads creative community — whether visual or live art, music, dance, theater, fashion or food. They are the dreamers of dreams. Influencers. Trendsetters. And they’re inimitably dedicated to enriching the lives and feeding the souls of their peers, one delectation at a time.
Today, we chat with Kristin Shockley.
What do you do and where do you do it?
I own Lustre Theory, a styling and creative studio, and I work primarily on the East Coast. I am looking to expand to the West Coast and, hopefully, Europe. I work with private clients in the event industry, commercial clients and editorial clients to fulfill their styling, design and creative direction needs.
When designing, where do you draw your inspiration from?
I draw inspiration from all over the place. I’m constantly looking at social media — Pinterest, Instagram. I always watch all the major fashion brands. I look for different ways of doing things in an industry that has done a lot of things the same way for a long time, especially when it comes to weddings. I’m always looking at what colors are trending and try and keep up with what’s hot in fashion, decor, interior design. I might see an idea that was on a fashion runway that was a color pairing and I liked that pairing so I turn that into a table styling with a specific color of linen and flowers. I look at so many sources, online sources, videos, things like that.
What would surprise most people about your job?
Probably how much back-end work goes into creating a design. When someone sees a beautiful design, they’ll think, oh, that looks beautiful or look at how perfect the flowers. The time it takes to source and find just the right everything. ... If you’re working with a floral designer, you have to
find the right one and so on. If you want the perfect anything, it takes a lot of time to find and then style and set those things up. There’s a lot of networking and knowing. ... It depends on how large the event is, really. For example, for a wedding, I’m contracted out anywhere from six months to a year in advance.
What has been your favorite event or shoot?
I did two major marketing shoots for Dover Hall Estate outside of Richmond last year. One I styled in October was my favorite one in 2020. It was really over the top. We had a horse. The shoot was very high-end. The gowns were brought down from New York City. I loved how all of that turned out. One of the images was featured in a New York Times article recently about how you can still have a “wow” wedding even if it’s small or an elopement.
Is there a style you don’t like working with?
I definitely have my own style. It’s probably more fine art. I’m very detailed. If I have a client who wants a super-modern style,
I’ll do that for them but I think I fall more into the fine art, romantic genre. Bad? I don’t know. I think my work attracts a certain kind of client. What you put out there is what you get back. I do what I love and the clients seem to come to me after seeing what I produce. Social media has made that much more accessible because you have a constant online, updatable portfolio. I’ve been very strategic with the companies, brands and even photographers that I work with. Most of the photographers I work with for weddings are fine art film photographers. It’s a certain look and feel.
What’s your dream styling opportunity?
One of my big goals is to go work over in Europe. There are so many major event and wedding stylings happening in Italy and in Paris. I’d love to get over there with a client or photographer for some overseas work.
Follow Lustre Theory online (lustretheory.com), Instagram (@lustretheory), and Pinterest (pinterest.com/LustreTheory).