Naina.co Luxury, Travel, Fashion & Lifestyle Photography + Contemporary Art Brooches Behind The Scenes of Content Creation: An Example

Uniqlo’s PR Agency got in touch sharing news of the online store launch & discussing a possible collaboration. I’m not going to get into those details but the brief was basically for me to go through the store and pick out a look and then photograph myself and share those images as a piece of content on the dates of the launch.

I wanted to create a fun look but not too casual and I wanted it to be something I had not explored previously. My usual go-to is jeans and a t-shirt. Then, I progress to jeans and a white collared shirt. But this time, the two pieces that made the look come together, were the skirt, which is part of a JW Anderson & Uniqlo collaboration and the bra top, which is part of a Mame Korogouchi collaboration. I have not worn a bra top previously and while I was nervous ( showing cleavage isn’t considered kosher by more Indian brands ), I thought, “Fuck it. One life. Never too late.” Besides, I knew Uniqlo wouldn’t mind, since they are an international brand.

Photos of the pieces before they were sent to me.

I didn’t want the bra top to SCREAM though, so decided to add a loose, Italian-Mafia style linen shirt on top. In my head, I knew exactly how I was going to style it and now that I can see the final result, it worked. I have also been feeling a bit more self-conscious than usual because of the ten kilos my body has gained during the pandemic. I didn’t want too much of my body to be seen. And yet, I wanted it to be attractive enough that it would encourage the viewer to read the caption and find out what I was up to with this look.

Once the garments arrived, I tried them on to make sure everything fit. Everything was then hand-washed individually, which was a good thing because the bra top bleeds colour. Some of it go on to the shirt because I dried them close together and the shirt stuck to the bra top. Which I then had to remedy by dipping those sections in a bowl of Vanish ( which is a stain-removing liquid I use for laundry ).

I picked out the shoes – it had to be heels, which I own exactly one pair of, so no choice. The jewellery was to be minimal – more focus on my brooch ( which is from the Bhojpatra series, so already muted & elegant ). The ear rings are simple gold and pearl danglers.

Since I have pink / red hair currently, I thought those would work well in favour of the Uniqlo brand colors. Uniqlo’s logo is red and white.

Below is the edited photograph that was used for the final product. Images were shot in my busy desk area. Shot on the Nikon D8100 with the 24-70mm f 2.8 lens and an on-camera speedlight. The remote clicker is in my pocket – in the skirt pocket.

The images were taken into Adobe Lightroom where I selected 3-4 final images and set to working on them in Adobe Photoshop – skin clean up and then cutting out myself from the scene and placing the cutout onto a solid colour. I picked out a subdued hue because of Uniqlo’s overall garment colours and also because it compliments what I’m wearing AND matches the background curtain of the original screen.

Then, I tried several video options to see which one would work best. One of the things mentioned in the brief was that the Uniqlo.com store would be offering more than 12,000 items to customers to shop online. For a shopper, that’s a great opportunity to go through a lot of choices and put together a look that works for them. Or even to put together an entire wardrobe with separate pieces to mix and match.

This led to a particular choice of video where the image is pixelated and then comes together into the above photograph of me. For the the purpose of this video, I used an app called MirrorLab, which I have been using for a few years now and it is usually relegated to experimental ideas.

Some screenshots from the video to give you an idea of progression. I though the red bits were a nice nod to the Uniqlo logo colours.

Once I was satisfied with the video – and had made sure that I had a 30 second version for Instagram Reels ( which can now be 60 seconds long! ), I had to pick music. I did a bit of light digging online to see if, perhaps, there was any music directly associated with the Uniqlo brand. And there is! Uniqlo stores play two separate playlists during the day and the night. Some of these lists are country-specific but the most popular ones had a couple of tracks that worked perfectly ( IMHO ) with my video.

The same tracks were also available as music on Instagram Reels!

I typed out the caption for the Reel and saved it in Drafts within the Instagram app. Which was a bad idea in retrospect. Drafts can be a bit iffy and unpredictable. Luckily, I had saved a copy of the caption on the notes app on my phone.

I posted the Reel, quite chuffed with myself and there was *some* engagement but nowhere near as much as I’d imagined! Maybe I should’ve used a popular Bollywood track hah.

After a few hours, I posted the final still image from the shoot as a static post on my feed, with pretty much the same caption and this one has had good engagement and responses. The bra-top is popular.

Also sharing some additional image from this shoot. Some that I played around with and some behind-the-scenes.

The brand gifted the garments to me. This blog post is not part of that exchange. I’m documenting for my blog. It is a big deal that there’s an extensive Uniqlo.com store now though – I shop Uniqlo personally – all my inner / thermal wear for winters is Heat Tech from Uniqlo!

So, there it is. A behind-the-scenes peek into how my brain works and how I go about creating content. What else do you want to know? I consult with individuals and businesses to help them figure out their brand’s journey online by way of a consulting call. I also have a ton of video clips on my IGTV and longer videos on my YouTube as well as audio-only on my podcast, The Naina Redhu Experience.

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