Alexa loves... styling

There is a lot more work going into photoshoots and editorial pieces than you may realise. Clothes are not just put with garments because they look pretty and the images are not just taken anywhere. There is actually a lot work that goes on behind the scenes which you may not realise so I have put together this post to show you where my 70s inspired ASOS photo shoot ideas actually came from and how I made them into a photo shoot.



The Customer
The first thing I needed to was to find out who my customer was because I need to make sure they are going to like what they see in order to buy my product.
Luckily for us ASOS came in to talk about their customer- the twenty something girl. A fun loving individual who doesn't take herself too seriously and might not always have a lot of money but likes to look good. Using different boards to show us how they would style different outfits for different occasions for her.



 Research
As I had designed my product I had already done a lot of research into my theme, the 70s, so I had a rough idea of where I wanted to go with my photo shoot. Hippies were big in the late sixties and the early seventies. In 1970 the most famous British festival began, Glastonbury. As festivals are huge today and nothing says hippy like festival fashion I knew this would be a great idea for a photo shoot but how do I make it look like I'm at a festival in the middle of February? I brainstormed all the things that say festival to me- tent, sleeping bags, rucksack, etc.. and started collecting props adding hints of the seventies with a flower print table, vintage picnic set and records. When I put the tent up and put everything together it looked great creating the perfect set for my festival themed photo shoot. As a back up, just in case the weather wasn't good enough I also did another photo shoot indoors with my model surrounded my records as that was what people used to listen to music on and it is iconic.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 















The Style
I looked a the different stylists ASOS had to see what different styles they created. My favourites were Megan Ellaby and Rachel Bass, who I follow on instagram. I liked Rachel for her edgy, band t-shirt, grunge esque style and I like Megan for her bang on trend looks, especially the seventies vibes she is rocking at the minute, which is great as my product is patterned flared trousers and you can't get more seventies than that.
 





















 




I feel like my style is a mixture of the two so I thought this would allow me to make good styling decisions when choosing what I should team my trousers with. A mixture of this, looking at images from the ASOS thinking about story behind my photo shoot and the place the photo shoots would be held helped me decide on the items I would pare my trousers with. For the indoor shoot- black off the shoulder top because it had a very bohemian feel to it and was big last summer, probably will be this summer and people can relate to it. -Floral headband, to give it a hippy seventies feel and they are really big around festival season. -Elephant necklace, again to give it that bohemian seventies feel. -Black platform heels, platforms were a huge fashion statement in the seventies and they are going to be big again this summer.
For my outdoor shoot I used pretty much the same again but without the platforms because I wanted to give it a more relaxed feel, with a pair of sunglasses as it's a summer collection and everyone wears sunglasses in the summer and a different top. This time black with tassels to show it could be worn with a lot of different things and it had a bohemian feel to it.

When creating my style boards (polyvore boards) I considered my style, the stylists style and my customers style to make my trousers wearable. I choose five different places/occasions my customer could wear them to inspire my customer. I chose festival as they are huge in the summer and customers go to them, party time as my customer goes out and likes to look good, traveling as a lot of people like to go exploring different countries whether that be to a party weekend in Ibiza or sight seeing in Rome, Get to Work as I wanted to show how you can take my trousers from day to night, and Day off because everyone needs a time to relax. I feel all these boards work well for my twenty something girl as it appeals to everyone from the student who has a lot of free time, the party goer, the explorer to the business minded woman. Something for every twenty something girl out there.

 
 






















The models
Believe it or not it is very hard to get models to fit the ideas you have created. Nicole, my model for the indoor shoot, is in my class at college and I wanted her to model for me as she was the right size and had long brown hair which I felt would be the right colour to go with my trousers. For my outdoor shoot I used my sister and my mum as they also are the right size, have the right coloured
and they look very similar too. As a lot of my inspiration to design my trousers came from looking at old photographs, which my mum was in, I wanted to take bits from when my mum was a child, the flowered table and the picnic set and mix them in with bits from Elisabeth, the bunting and the pillows, to create an image that reflected two different eras in one. Modernising the seventies.


                      
                                            
 The Hair and Make up


ASOS GIRL.

As my photo shoot was for ASOS I kept my hair and make up simple as they keep it very simple in their shoots. They want to show the ASOS girl as someone who is care free and doesn't take themselves too seriously so at most they will do a bold lip or a bold eye but they try to keep it natural. Therefore I just kept the make up of the models very simple, a bit or foundation if they needed it, flick of mascara, a bit of liner on the indoor shoot as it was more dressy, and that was it really. The hair was just natural they way it was when they arrived on the shoot if not scrunched up a bit for affect. I wanted them to look natural like a 70s hippie.














Editing
Once the photo shoot is finished you have to go through all of the photographs, I take as many as possible to make sure I get it right, to choose which are the best. Sometimes this can be hard other times it can be easy depending on how many shots work. Adding effects to images can also be fun to give them the look your going for. I experimented with a vintage style.

So there you have it, the things that create the photo shoot. There is more to a photograph than you may think.