If there’s one time of year we always look forward to with a mix of excitement and anticipation, it’s catalogue time!
For those who don’t know, every year we produce a printed catalogue that we distribute to our retail partners. It’s a chance to showcase our latest Fair Trade creations, and share news and updates with our stockists.
For the Laundromat team, the ritual of putting a catalogue together is a great opportunity for reflection and goal setting. Our catalogues often set the tone and direction for our year ahead.
From the photo shoot to the graphic design, the product codes to the styling, creating a catalogue is a team effort. It’s a lot of fun—but it also involves an incredible amount of hard work!
Have you ever wondered just what goes into making a fashion catalogue? Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of our 2019 Catalogue, narrated by Laundromat Founder and CEO, Francis Dube.
The making of the Laundromat 2019 Catalogue
There is always a fair bit of anticipation and fear associated with a new edition of our catalogue. From the moment we start working on planning the catalogue we simply cannot wait to have it done! That’s because we want to admire and enjoy the final product—we want to feel our new collection’s vibes. Only the final result, the printed version, gives us this feeling.
Organizing a photo shoot is quite a logistical challenge. There are models to select, photographers to schedule, locations to scout, outfits to coordinate, weather to take into account, food to provide, transportation, samples… The list goes on. And that’s the easy part!
The hardest part is creating the chemistry required between the photographer and the models, between the support staff and the ‘talent’. To create an atmosphere that is relaxed enough to put everyone at ease and feel natural whilst being under the pressure of diminishing sunlight isn’t an easy task! Even when you manage to establish a good mood and a fun environment, you still have to choose backgrounds, the best angles, suggest poses… It’s a balancing act.
Many of the models we use in our catalogues aren’t professionals. One of the photographers we used for our 2019 Catalogue had his début doing a fashion photo shoot!
Working within a budget, and knowing that you are creating ‘the’ cornerstone around which the whole company will revolve for the next year takes a lot of faith and tests one’s resolve. Can you believe that the day of our 2019 Catalogue shoot one of our models cancelled and we had to replace her on the fly? The poor soul had but 45 minutes to get ready and show up with a smile to what was the second shoot she had done in her life! But I bet you can’t tell me who that is.
Once the shoot is complete, the real work starts to select the best shots, the perfect angles, fine tune the pictures, prove the codes, bust shots, descriptions, names for each product on every single page of the catalogue. The challenge is to put all this information down in a way that makes sense in the hands of the graphic designer. Providing direction for her to understand the concept but also leaving enough ‘grey areas’ for her creativity to come forth is a very scary leap of faith.
Karma is a strong belief in Nepal. I feel that in past lives, I must have suffered a lot because I often feel blessed with good Karma in this life.
Being surrounded by the right people has been a blessing for the creation of our 2019 Collection and Catalogue. The right co-workers, the right designers, the right knitters, the right photographer, the right models, the right copywriter, the right photographer, the right graphic designer.
To quote the novelty t-shirts you often see on the streets of Kathmandu: ‘What a long, strange trip it’s been’.
Shop Laundromat's 2019 range here.
