Carbon Soldier, forging their own path.
As Carbon Soldier’s content partner, we are excited to share this story of creativity, collaboration and trust. Meet Barbara McCamish, the woman behind this luxury childrenswear line. Designed to be passed down through generations, each collection is brought to life through beautiful content created in our studio. The simplicity of our technology allows our collaboration to extend to product photography and the creative interpretation of the brand.
Working closely with Carbon Soldier has allowed us to truly understand their purpose and vision. With Barbara’s trust, we took this knowledge and experimented with a new and playful way of bringing her brand to life. Here are the results along with insights from Barbara on the evolution of Carbon Soldier.
Who is Carbon Soldier?
We have backgrounds in womenswear, but there has always been a passion for childrenswear. In the early days I would get stopped in the street and asked where I had bought the outfits my daughters were wearing (I would have been sewing them late into the night). Slowly, we built up Australasian stockists, but always had an eye on wanting to crack the Northern Hemisphere. Several years ago we rebranded and switched our seasons around to match the North. We attend four international trade shows twice yearly (or will again soon) and are lucky enough to be stocked in some of the world’s most beautiful stores. It’s a gift, to be able to have a career pursuing your passion is incredible.
What inspires your collections?
I’m inspired by a lifetime of experiences. Sometimes I will find a childhood photograph or book, and while looking through it we realise that an idea seen decades ago has morphed into a collection! Growing up with family and friends who were true creatives, and being encouraged to experiment. And menswear, always drawn to menswear.
How does that translate to your visual presence online?
We love the simplicity and continuity of Asset Factory. The content we produce compliments our aesthetic and vision for Carbon Soldier.
How does content help you express the brand and share the story behind each collection?
The images are so important, especially now that we can’t get our clients in front of the collection. Our stockists are confident to place orders from the images taken on the Flat Lay Machine as they are so accurate. Being able to show how the looks can be styled is invaluable to our agents, retailers, editors and the public. One of our images, taken on the live machine, which was displayed in our booth in poster size, was named one of the best visuals of the entire children’s international trade show season.
What’s next for Carbon Soldier?
Expanding our global stockists. Continuing with our local Pop Ups.
The image taken on our Live Machine named “one of the best visuals of the entire children’s international trade show”.
Step 1: Display your looks!
To create cohesion and to ensure that the content could be used alongside the current on-model content, we chose to use the same beige background for our shoot. The wooden stand was handmade to emphasise the uniqueness of the Carbon Soldier Brand, it’s truly one of a kind. To make your own custom stand, you can buy a wooden pole and a block of wood at your local hardware store. A couple of screws and a bit of glue will do the trick. It’s as simple as that!
To give the clothing body, you can stuff certain parts with anything from bubble wrap to issue paper. Giving the clothing this structure makes it easier to style, but also gives off the illusion of how the outfit would look on a person.
A handy tip is to always keep a handful of pins, clips and fishing wire on hand to help you style each piece and ensure everything is sitting in the correct place. To make the arms float, we simply attached some clear fishing wire to a bulldog clip and tied it to one of the side panels of the Live Machine.
Step 2: Make your outfits fly!
A similar technique is used for the hanging shots. We slotted a coat hanger into the hole at the top of the Live Machines roof. Fishing wire was then tied from the coat hanger above, to the coat hanger that was holding the outfit. In post-production the hangers and wire were removed to give off the illusion that the outfit was floating entirely on its own. This is a great way to create a sense of movement and excitement within your images.
Step 3: Get moving!
GIF animations are another way to give your content an edge. This is especially important when you consider that Instagram and Facebook are favouring moving images and video more and more. To create a GIF, simply capture a series of still images and edit them together in Photoshop or an online website resource. This can be done with two images, or with hundreds.
Note: You can’t upload animated GIFs to Instagram, but there are smartphone apps that will convert your images to video files, or you can drop your images into Windows Movie Maker or iMovie to edit your animation and then export it to the right format.
