Children's Apparel · Studio Campaign
Kids Down Jacket · Studio Collection
A full studio campaign for a children’s down jacket collection, shot in a vibrant geometric set environment in our Shanghai studio. Multiple European child models wore the full range of styles and colourways, delivering e-commerce and brand marketing images ready for platform listing and wholesale catalogues.
The brief
A down jacket is the hardest piece of apparel to photograph badly and get away with, because the thing the customer is paying for is volume. Loft is the whole product: it is the visible evidence of fill power, and it is the first thing flat, even lighting destroys. Light a down jacket the way you would light a shirt and it photographs like a nylon sack, which is exactly the impression that makes a buyer discount your price.
The second constraint is the calendar, running the opposite way to swimwear. Winter outerwear is ordered in spring and summer, so the images have to be produced when nobody is wearing a coat. Shooting it in a studio set is not a compromise in that situation — it is the only way to have the catalogue and the listings ready when the orders are actually placed, and it has the side benefit that the lighting is identical in July and in December.
How it was shot
The campaign was shot in a vibrant geometric set in our Shanghai studio, with multiple European child models wearing the full range of styles and colourways. The coloured set is a commercial choice rather than a decorative one: children’s outerwear shot on plain white reads as a wholesale catalogue page, which is correct for a listing and useless for brand marketing. A built colour environment gives the brand something to put at the top of a collection page and in a feed, while the white-background listing images can be added as a separate per-image pass.
Consistency across the range was the production priority. Every style and every colourway was photographed on the same set under the same lighting, in one continuous production, which is what makes a range look like a range when the images end up side by side in a wholesale catalogue or a platform grid. This is the part that quietly fails when a collection is shot in pieces over several months: nothing is individually wrong, but the line sheet looks assembled from three different brands.
The lighting was set to keep the loft visible — a defined key that lets the quilting read as depth rather than as printed lines, and enough separation from the background that the silhouette keeps its bulk at the edges. Movement frames were shot alongside the static looks, because a down jacket in motion is the clearest demonstration a buyer gets that the filling is light as well as warm. Colour was matched back to the physical samples after the shoot, which matters when a range runs six or more colourways of one body, and two rounds of revisions are included.
Behind the Scenes
Campaign Imagery
What a campaign like this costs
On-model work is booked by the studio day, because that is how the cost actually behaves: the model and the hair-and-make-up artist are a day rate whether you shoot eight looks or twenty. So the figure below is a day, and the per-look price is simply that day divided by a full one.
| Line item | Price |
|---|---|
| Photography and retouching — one studio day, up to 20 looks | US$2,600 per day, or US$130 per look |
| Each look beyond 20 on the same day | US$130 |
| Model, hair and make-up — one 8-hour day, cast in Shanghai | US$1,750–2,250, itemised on your quote |
| Set building, props or an outside location | At cost, quoted before we book |
A full 20-look day therefore lands between US$4,350 and US$4,850 all in — 80 to 120 retouched images, our studio, lighting and grip, the model, hair and make-up, styling, and the signed portrait release in English. Nothing is added to that afterwards. Finished images are delivered three working days after the shoot. The whole published list, including the volume ladder and the white-background and ghost-mannequin rates, is on our pricing page — you do not have to send an enquiry to see it.
Questions buyers ask about this kind of shoot
How do you stop a down jacket looking flat in photographs?
With directional light rather than even light, and with enough separation from the background to keep the silhouette reading as volume at the edges. Quilting has to photograph as depth, not as a printed grid, and that is a lighting decision made on set, not a retouching fix afterwards. Movement frames help too, because they show loft and lightness at the same time.
We have one style in eight colourways. Is that eight shoots?
No, and billing it that way would be the wrong answer. Colourways of one body are shot in the same production on the same set and the same lighting, which is the only way they will look like one range afterwards. On-model work is priced by the studio day with a published per-look rate, so the question is simply how many looks fit in the day — not how many times you are paying to set up.
Do you need the samples in advance?
Yes. Garments need to arrive before the shoot day so they can be checked, steamed and fitted, and so the shot list can be sequenced properly. Sample collection in the Shanghai area is included, along with steaming and preparation of every garment before it goes in front of the camera. If you are producing elsewhere in China, your factory can ship to us directly and we cover that shipping — it is already inside our published prices — and we confirm what arrived against your list before the shoot is scheduled.
Where to go next
If what you need first is listing images rather than a campaign, ghost mannequin photography and flat lay photography are both published per piece, and we will shoot one piece free so you can judge the work before you order — three main angles plus the detail shots, 9 to 11 finished images, no watermark and no obligation. Sample shipping anywhere in China is on us. It covers still photography only, once, for a new client, and not highly reflective or transparent goods.
The rest of our campaign work is in the portfolio, product film and 3D animation are on the video production page, and the studio itself is described on our about page.
Planning a similar project?
Tell us about your products and we’ll prepare a production plan. Published prices are on our pricing page — no enquiry needed to see them.
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