Behind the Scenes at the Otto + Ivy Customer Photo Shoot
I hadn’t always planned to have my face feature quite as much on Otto + Ivy socials and the website. But when you’re building a brand from scratch, you wear every hat. This includes modelling; outfit shots in the mirror of my bedroom on a hair-wash day, aerial shots of shoes on my size 9 feet on a greasy-hair day. Besides, it's tricky to find working models with a shoe size above a 7… my own short-lived modelling career 15 years ago had made me feel like nothing more than a headache for already exasperated stylists.
But recently we’ve made it our mission to include more of YOUR beautiful faces, so in September we launched a customer model search. After swooning over all the amazing applications, our Brand Assistant Gabby put on her Nicole Sherzy hat and started combining photos to create a group. It was important to us that we had a range of looks, ages, dress sizes, shoe sizes and stories, to reflect the diversity of women who wear Otto + Ivy shoes, from UK sizes 8-12 (EU 42-46). We’d originally asked for four customer models, but it soon became apparent that whittling it down that much was going to be an impossible task, so we ended up with six. And with our final combo, we were able to showcase every shoe size from 42-46.
After arranging a studio, makeup artist, hair stylist and videographer, Gabby and I hit the road, the car rammed with shoes and sequins, ready to take on the 6-hour journey from Cornwall to London.
The studio looked a lot like a crack den from the outside (Gabby never leaves Cornwall and started having heart palpitations), but once we were in, and our models started arriving, it soon became pretty clear that the day was going to be special.
Our six customer models; Grace, Katie, Karen, Steph, Adaora and Charlotte, aged 23-60, were even more beautiful than their photos had suggested, and each was enthusiastic and kind, and it wasn’t long before everyone was swapping height-related stories and comparing Otto + Ivy collections.
The day whizzed by in a bit of a blur (fortunately we'll have some video footage and of course photos to share with you shortly), but the vibes were LUSH and everything just seemed to click. When the group shots happened, it honestly felt like I was watching six long-time friends catching up, rather than six strangers who'd been brought together in a London crack den photo studio by a shoe company.
And we are determined to do more of these; at least every year. Not just because – wow, the images of six tall and/or larger-footed women together really are so very special – but because everyone should have the chance to be in a room with other women who have shared in their experiences; whether they be height-related or in the form of a shared PTSD from years of unsuccessfully traipsing around shoe shops.
When women who have been excluded in some way come together, a little bit of magic really does happen.
Laura x
