This week in the Wall Street Journal’s weekend addition, they featured in their magazine, “Spring 2022 Women’s Fashion.” Having spent over ten years as an advertising art director, I am always intrigued by the full-page ads. The concepts, designs, layouts, locations used, and the photography.
During my advertising tenure, most of the accounts I worked on were consumer and industrial products. Also, most of the advertising agencies I worked for were small, allowing me the only art director, the challenge of working on every account. I felt then, and still do, that working on a variety of different products, kept my creativity sharp. The last agency I worked for was very large. I was assigned to one account. I think that’s why I left advertising, and transitioned to the world of film and television.
Reviewing the “Spring 2022 Women’s Fashion,” magazine reminded me of the small agency I worked for that had two fashion accounts. Russell Mills, part of Russell Athletic, and Dan River. Fashion design was defiantly not in my repertoire, and the Russell Mills account was my first challenge. I bought every fashion magazine that was available, and spent time in the main branch of the New York City Library, studying all the fashion books that were available. I was finally getting a feel for fashion design.
For each fashion season, we were going to run two full-page, full-color ads. One was women’s fashion, the other men’s fashion. The ads were going to run in the New York Times magazine section. The cost of the ad space, at that time was fifty-thousand dollars, per ad. Our account executive for Russell, had a fashion background. She worked with the client in selecting the fabric that the client produced, and the design of the garment.
I was interviewing all the models for each shoot, which went on for days, and days. Once I selected six or seven, then I would confer with the account executive, as who would be our choice. We were using the top models at that time. The client wanted the shoot to be on location, and outdoors in Manhattan, using recognizable landmarks. I found an excellent photographer, and scouted several locations.
Unfortunately, shooting the spring fashion on location in Manhattan was going to be a big problem. The spring fashion ad, runs in the spring fashion magazine edition, which is published in the winter. Therefore, the outdoor spring shoot, was going to be shot in the winter.
I remember one shoot in particular. It was the men’s shoot. Luckily, I hadn’t snowed, but the temperature was in the 20’s. I found a street in Greenwich Village, that was picturesque, and unbelievably, had some plants surviving the cold. I had an old classic convertible as the prop for the model to lean on. His outfit of course was a light-weight jacket, slacks, and shirt. I did have a van for the model to stay in until we set the lights, and were ready for him. He had to stand in the van, so as now to crease his outfit. I knew we were going to do several shots of him with the car, but I couldn’t have him exposed to the freezing temperature for to long. It was very trying, but it worked out fine in the end.
Shooting winter fashion in the heat and humidity of Manhattan had its moments, but not as bad as the spring shoots in winter.
