Shooting the Collection

Hello and welcome to The Foundry Design’s first blog post!

Here at Foundry HQ we are really excited about starting our little blog as we thought it would be a great way to keep our followers up-to-date on all of the team’s latest news, as well as being a platform for us to share the story behind the brand.

We really hope you enjoy hearing about life at the Foundry. As a small business we think it’s really important to share our passion for handbags with the fashion and design community in a personal way, sharing all the love we put into our brand!

So, to kicks things off, here’s what happened at our latest photo-shoot with the gorgeous Holly (Instagram: MissWoodhams) who did an amazing job modelling our collection. For the occasion we enlisted the talented photographer Tom from The Humble Photography Co. It was our first time working with Tom but he did such a great job capturing the essence of the Foundry, despite being relatively fresh to fashion photography.

For the shoot we headed to Pivaz, a popular Turkish restaurant in Brentwood high-street which was the perfect location to take some snaps and which incidentally, serve the best porn-star martinis (the Foundry team can personally vouch for this).

Pivaz is somewhat unassuming from the outside but has super-opulent interiors brimming with crushed velvet sofas, flamingo-print wallpaper and chandeliers that illuminate the space with an aesthetic glow. The back room, where we shot first, has this amazing botanical and retro-feel to it; all chairs are upholstered with a sumptuous forest-green velvet that sit under a canopy of lush palm trees; think 1920s speakeasy vibes but with a touch of Arabian Nights glamour.

When it comes to photographing handbags, it can be quite hard to get naturalistic shots, especially as it is easy to run into the pitfall of looking overly showy or contrived. Especially as Foundry bags are designed to be highly versatile and workable accessories, it is important for us to capture this in our photos.

Tom and Holly worked so well together though and really rose to the challenge. Our model Holly, (all-though you wouldn’t know it) is fairly new to the modelling game but took each outfit and location change in her stride. She had such an intuitive sense of how to pose and produced some absolutely stunning photos. While the Foundry team happily handed-over creative control to the pair, we made sure to keep the flow of ‘‘props’’ steady (aka glasses of Sauvignon Blanc).

For Holly’s outfits, it was important for us to get a good style range that worked well with our bags to give polished day and night looks. Stand out pieces included a golden sheen bodycon dress that we paired with our metallic Marcia clutch; it was such a glamorous outfit that looked incredible with Holly’s post-Greek-holiday tan. For more of a relaxed vibe, we opted for an oversized checked blazer with a pair of distressed jeans and some strappy black heels which worked so well with our satchels and pouches.

As I’m sure many bloggers would agree, it is so nice when you manage to take photos that perfectly capture your vision for your brand and we are so thrilled to be sharing them with you!

The Foundry Design team x