Go behind the scenes with THTC'S street style fashion editorial

September 30, 2019

Surbhi Jain is a creative photographer from India, who has been interning with THTC Clothing through the BUNAC programme. An experienced photographer who runs her own studio in her native city of Pune, Surbhi has been busy crafting her skills, helping snapshot our products and manage the online shop. Here, she gets her teeth into her first proper ‘fashion’ project for THTC!

Introduction

Our project began with my team mate Selisha and I went to Pure London, one of the UK's leading ethical fashion and lifestyle trade shows. It is an annual gathering of fashion brands and buyers, uniting some of the most creative minds and inspirational collections in the industry.

Pure London Trade show

After working at THTC for a couple of months, I’d realised that the boys were lacking something that many other fashion brands take for granted - an editorial photoshoot! Pure London platforms over 1300 clothing collections ,so it was a gateway to what we were trying to achieve in the first-ever in-house editorial photoshoot for THTC.

We initially went to Pure, to check out the newest sustainable and eco-friendly brands and designers, who might potentially collaborate with us on the shoot. We ended up attending a lot of different talks and presentations, from sustainable fashion styling, to how to make your wardrobe more reusable - all of which helped us develop the styling vision for our shoot. After browsing through the huge grounds of Olympia and hundreds of stores, we found a couple of really cool brands we knew would like to work with.

The first brand we connected with, was Komodo - the founder of which is an old friend of Gav’s. Komodo’s clean style was perfect for our shoots aesthetic. Their clothes are made using premium quality organic, natural eco fibers - and they’ve been innovating with new fabrics, such as green PU coating and recycled PET, reclaimed from plastic bottles.

We then linked up with another brand, who also happened to be old friends of THTC - PO-ZU shoes, one of the UK’s leading ethical and vegan footwear brands. After a brief meeting and exchange of emails, they sent us a wonderful selection of shoes made from carefully selected natural and sustainable materials. PO-ZU’s USP is essentially to provide products that are healthy for your feet and kind to the environment.

Behind the scenes

When I started working on this shoot, I had just started interning at THTC and I wanted the shoot to reflect what the brand stood for. Coming from India, there sadly is not a growing consciousness or focus on the concept of eco-friendly clothing - it’s pretty much a vast sea of fast fashion, with of course a few small artisans selling very expensive clothing!

I loved what THTC stands for, and a fashion editorial would help me tell their wonderful story. After researching various themes that might fit, we decided on a menswear street style editorial.

My first step was to create a ‘street-style’ mood board including the pieces from our other collaborators - Komodo and PO-ZU. Selisha and I created five ‘wardrobe looks’ and began to look for a suitable urban location for the shoot. We chose East London’s Tobacco Docks, due to its street art, canals, abandoned ship, and rustic cafes was ideal. Every photoshoot needs a crew, and we wanted to involve creatives who had an interest in cruelty-free, sustainable and eco-friendly clothing and makeup products. Our make-up artist Andrea Dumitrescu, had a deep connection with eco-fashion and sourced cruelty-free products especially for the shoot. Selisha took on styling duties for the shoot. Our model was Gabriel Picu, who had a keen interest in eco-friendly fashion and the right looks for the tone of the shoot.

Shoot day

Our team set up base at a small cafe in Tobacco Docks, where we decided to do hair and makeup. I had scouted the area beforehand, to spot out specific locations to shoot in the area.

We began the shoot with our hemp ‘ The Trip’ tee in black and blue jeans, from Komodo, a classic look for men. Luckily on the day of the shoot, we had great weather as London weather is unpredictable on the best of days. We began our shoot around classic ‘British’ backdrops - the abandoned ships, a British pub, and graffiti panels.

I shot the editorial on my Canon 5D Mark 3 camera, with a 24-105 zoom lens, in daylight, which was perfect for our street style. We shot 5 editorial looks successfully, including some of our top designs; Missing piece, medicine man, THTC’S ink on logo and 'lion hood' hoodies! We managed to produce a wide range of images for our first fashion editorial, which will hopefully be a stepping stone to future collaborations and creative projects, for THTC.