5 Terms You Must Know as A Fashion Designer Marketing Your Collection

Being an emerging fashion designer can be very overwhelming. You finally finish creating your collection and need it photographed in order to reach a broader market online. So, you contact local fashion photographers with great portfolios and soon they’re throwing so much fashion terminology at you, you begin feel completely unconfident about your new venture into the fashion world. But fear not, new designer, we will spell out the meaning of several fashion photography terms for you.

1. What is a Product Shot? – A product shot is a very plain image of an apparel item on a model against a white background like you have seen on several e-commerce fashion websites. These images serve to show what the item looks like on a person without any distractions. These images help customers imagine what the garment would look like on them.

2. What is a Lookbook?- A lookbook is a collection of images that show models styled and wearing the items of your collection paired with other items from your collection or with other designer’s items. The point of the lookbook is to inspire customers with your brands aesthetic and give them ideas about how to wear your collection. A look book can really help illustrate you intended audience and aesthetic direction to buyers.

3. What is a Buyer?¬- A buyer is the person who picks designers and their items for their stores to carry. These buyers create a look for a store and predict trends in order to make their store profitable.

4. What is a Fashion Campaign?- A fashion campaign is a fashion photographer’s dream. Only the larger (and generally, more expensive brands) have fashion campaigns. These are the images that use only the best photographers and most in demand supermodels. The point of a fashion campaign is to inspire customers with the fashion designer’s viewpoint for the season and their couture creations. These are the ads you sometimes see in magazines like Vogue or on billboards.

It is important to familiarize yourself with these terms before stepping into the world where fashion meets commerce. New York is a very competitive city for fashion so it is best you prepare as much as possible before meeting with a fashion photography studio. Since it is a big city, New York fashion photographers are often very experienced with shooting lookbooks and product shots but it is best you know the terms too so you can communicate what you’re looking for to them. Best of luck to all you fashion designers and your new collections!

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