Behind the Scenes of our Spring Preview Shoot

At Saachi, we get giddy when the next season’s samples arrive to our White Plains office...especially when they are for our Spring line! Visions of outdoor fun dance through our minds, regardless of the cold weather. To give our customers a visual of the greatest outdoor days of Spring, we braved the cold and shot outside. 

Thankfully our offices are located in an area that has no shortage of parks, trails and waterfronts. For this shoot, the Kensico Dam met our needs perfectly. Lush green field? Check. Water? Check. Old stone walls for great close-ups and contrast? Check. Breezy weeping willow trees? Double check.

View from the top of the Kensico Dam

Crafting Our Vision

Our vision for this shoot was to create a fun, relaxed feeling of someone who is enjoying time on her own while looking fantastic in her Saachi accessories, of course! To create this mood, we felt props would be key. In the past we’ve used minimal props, but we wanted to shake things up a bit to give it more of a ‘day in the life’ feel. 
Lots of prep happened before we set foot on the location. We took our time to figure out what props worked best, what kind of model we wanted to cast, and which locations inside the park we wanted to use. Our photographer was sent a mood board along with our company’s Visual Guideline packet to ensure we were all on the same page with how we wanted the end result to look. 
 

Where we begin...

To keep things running smoothly during the shoot, we scouted the location the day before and took a few test shots. To ensure our outfit concepts looked just as great on a model as they did on a hanger, a style-out was completed before the model arrived, and a fitting was done on her before leaving the office. Shooting outside is a totally different scenario than shooting in a studio location. It’s easier to make these decisions when you aren’t running around a park!  

When shooting outside, it is important to use everything at your disposal, here we used this gated window as a clothing rack

We had a weather forecast of rain set for our shoot date, so the Saachi team spent the week glued to The Weather Channel. Thankfully we had a gorgeous, sunny morning! Locations were set, the fitting was done, and we headed out to shoot! 
Our team spent the day carrying props around the park, setting everything up, breaking it down, styling, doing quick changes and delighting in the beautiful product we were making. Being on a photoshoot is a whirlwind of fun, frenzy and satisfaction. To get our beautiful water shot, the team had to climb a set of 125 stairs to get to the top of the Kensico Dam. It was exhausting, but well worth it. Our model was a total trooper. 

It takes a team to get the photo!  See the BTS vs. the finished product.

Once we had a few different looks under our belt, we broke for lunch and had a lovely picnic. As a member of our team took their last bite, rain started. One of the most important things about shooting a lookbook is the ability to be flexible. Our ‘day in the life’ dreams were dampened, and though we had photographed a great amount of content, we still had more styles to shoot. The team piled into the car and headed to a studio, where we quickly set up our lighting and got right back to work. Even though we were in a different location, we kept the mood the same working to make these images as fresh and fun as the on-location ones. With that, we also knew everything could be tied together during the layout and editing process. And, as it turns out, some of those shots turned out to be our favorites! 
By doing prep work, but staying flexible, the team worked together to show off some of our newest creations; we can’t wait to do it again!