Shooting a Fashion Lookbook or Editorial in a Studio

How to plan a fashion lookbook or editorial studio shoot in London: choosing the backdrop, lighting for garments, keeping pace across looks, and hair, make-up and steaming.

19 July 20268 min read

Fashion editorial: a model in a snakeskin two-piece with arms raised against a hand-painted blue and pink concentric circle backdrop

Fashion shot in a studio lives or dies on pace. A lookbook is not one hero image, it is thirty to eighty garments that all have to be lit consistently, shot cleanly and turned around fast. The room, the backdrop and the support around it decide whether that day feels calm or feels like a scramble.

Cove or backdrop?

For full-length looks, a cove beats a paper roll every time. A roll is about two and a half metres wide, creases the moment a model stands on it, and runs out at the edges of a full-length frame. An infinity cove has no seam and no edge, so the garment floats in clean space and the retoucher is adjusting a level rather than tracing a hairline across eighty frames.

A colour-washable cove gives a clean full-length backdrop — and takes a wash or a gel when the story wants colour.

Studio B under neutral white light showing the curved cove and the wall-mounted backdrop roll bar — A colour-washable cove gives a clean full-length backdrop — and takes a wash or a gel when the story wants colour.

If the edit calls for colour — a campaign look, a gradient, a saturated set — the colour studio washes to whatever the art direction needs and resets between looks, so you get variety without leaving the room. If it is scale you are after — group shots, movement, a set — the larger studio has the floor for it.

Light the garment, not just the model

Fashion lighting has a different job to portraiture. The face matters, but so does the fabric: texture, drape, the way a fibre catches light. Big soft sources render cloth honestly and flatter skin at once, which is why a large softbox or a scrim high and slightly to the side is the fashion default.

Keep the light consistent between looks so the whole set cuts together — mark your stands.
A large soft key renders fabric texture without harsh speculars on shiny materials.
A little separation light stops dark garments from merging into the background.
Meter and lock your exposure before the talent arrives, then only fine-tune.

The support is the shoot

On a fashion day the room is only half of what you are paying for. Talent needs somewhere to change and get ready that is not the corner of the set, garments need steaming and hanging, and the client needs somewhere to sit and approve without standing over the camera.

A dedicated make-up and prep room keeps hair, make-up and changing off the studio floor.

The prep and dressing room: pink painted walls, a white vanity desk with a bulb-surround mirror, two stools and a clothes rail — A dedicated make-up and prep room keeps hair, make-up and changing off the studio floor.

A building with a make-up room, a client lounge and space to hang a rail turns a chaotic day into a calm one. Rooms move at the pace of their slowest bottleneck, and on fashion shoots the bottleneck is almost always changing and steaming, not shooting.

Plan the run of looks before the day

Order the shot list by lighting setup, not by garment number, so you are not relighting for every look. Group everything that shares a background and a light together, shoot it as a block, then change. Send a one-page call sheet the day before with the running order, the wardrobe order and reference images — it takes twenty minutes to write and reliably saves an hour on the day. There is a fuller version of that discipline in planning a content day.