I want to show you some glimpses behind the scenes of building a fashion brand. After years of designing for global brands, I launched Maxted. Building your own business is never easy, but creating a fashion brand, in particular, is not for the faint-hearted.
I love every minute of Maxted and want to show you some of what goes into building a fashion brand. So, here we go.
Designing collections for a fashion brand
Behind the scenes, Maxted is busy and productive. Each year, I have my head in 2 different collections:
1) The first is the collection designed the year before. It takes a year to design, order samples, check, and order for our retailers and customers.
2) The other is next year's collection
So, while you're shopping our collection, I'm planning next year's. No break!
AW24 was designed in my evenings and weekends around the hours of my young children - my mini-me's.
Photographing a fashion brand
At the beginning of August, we shot our AW24 campaign, so much preparation goes into our collection shoots.
- The collection has to be finished
- Styles are selected to shoot
- and then we do the styling of each look
- We decide on a location, model, hair and makeup and photographer.
It's an enormous project, and so much rests on getting it right. Choose the wrong model in the wrong location, style the pieces incorrectly, and it can affect the success of our collection.
We've learned over the years what works best for our collections and customers, but it's been a steep learning curve.
Choosing a location for a Collection
We shot our latest lookbook at a luxury private estate called Hillbrook. It is set above the Pacific Ocean in the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand and was Maxted’s first international shoot.
It's the highlight of our work, where everything comes together.
We have a blog post here for how to prepare for a photoshoot, and that's the key... - preparation. Because you only have one day to capture what you need.
Agents across Australia and New Zealand take our collection to stores. You can check where your nearest retailer is via our stockist page here.
If you own or manage a shop that is interested in stocking Maxted, here is a list of our agents below in Australia & NZ:
Victoria & Tasmania - The Aviary Fashion Agency
theaviaryagency.com
@theaviaryagency
NSW - Jennifer Clavin Agency
www.jenniferclavinagencies.com.au
@jenniferclavinagencies
South Australia - theco.lab agency
thecolabagency.com
@theco.labagency
Western Australia - Gold Agency
@gold_agency_fashion
New Zealand- liquid brands
@liquidbrandsnz
We will share more about our shoot soon. Stay tuned!
