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Many of you may have already seen our new Style Guide for this AW13 either coming through your letterbox or in your local JA store. For those few deprived people who missed out on it, you can now have a flick through it online and not feel so left out. This season we’ve gone for a new look and have spent the past 3 months coming up with a fresh and original concept to represent the season’s collection. Moving away from the clinical studio shots and avoiding the cliche British countryside backdrop, we decided to find somewhere which was rich with colours in a season which can be rather dreary.
Our canvas was the derelict remains of Naval Base HMS Royal Arthur in the very rural countryside of Wiltshire. It’s been over 20 years since the last trainee left (fun fact: Prince Phillip trained there back in the day) and boy do those 20 years show….everything is now hidden under a layer of greenery and buildings are collapsing left right and centre. But you know what they say, what’s one person’s derelict mess is another person’s Autumn photoshoot! It may be crumbling but it’s going out with a bang, over the past few years it’s become a popular canvas for local street artists and now houses some incredible graffiti. Using such an animated backdrop gave us a chance to show the versatility of the collections and the many ways in which you can style an outfit – you could be in an abandoned warehouse surrounded by rubble and still look extremely dapper in a Tiger of Sweden Suit. Whoever said ‘there’s a place and time for it’ clearly didn’t understand men’s fashion.
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It was already decided that we wanted to have a mix of studio based images with location within our new look Style Guide, but instead of using the freakish bright white of a studio background we decided to use our surroundings to bring a little life to the shot. The cracked concrete flooring and painted white brick walls were the perfect backgrounds to show off the basics . I love these images and throughly enjoyed setting each of them up on the day of the shoot, grabbing random props like an old tennis net and a wooden fruit box to help show off the amazing products that are in for this season.
We’ve paired these images together with such care, you can see them symmetry between each double page spread giving you an idea on how to piece together great outfits this season. The Style Guide gives you a taste of what are the big brands this season, along with the important prints and designs that are dominating as AW essentials. The view the Style Guide online click here
