One of the most important activities for any business is to put our products where people can see them. The New York International Gift Fair, which happens every January and August, is a major focus of our time and energy: deciding which items to highlight, arranging and rearranging a mock-up of our booth, figuring out how many of what we should order before the show so that we can fill orders promptly after.
Between shows, however, we have to rely on photographs and the internet to display what we have, so 'Photo Days' are a recurring adventure.
Our on-going challenge is to present a textile, something for which weight and texture are at least as important as color and visual impact, through a flat photograph or computer screen in a way that communicates the feel and the possibilities of the fabric. This generally leads to a lot of furniture-shifting, fabric-twitching, climbing on furniture, and bumping into one another.
And then there's the scene-setting. A piece of fabric is... well, flat. Just putting a tablecloth over a table doesn't really give the full sense of its presence in a photograph.
What we're trying to get across is how these textiles live, how they interact with and respond to the people who use them. A pillow may sit on a couch, but its design and fabric communicate something. On the one end, about its origin: the hands that dyed and wove its fabric, sewed it into its final form. On the other end, the about the person who chooses to display it: does the pillow invite you to sit, to plump it up behind you, or is it clearly just a color or design accent to complete a 'look' (and you'll be in deep trouble if you move it so much as half an inch)?
A scarf, too, takes much of its presence from the person who wears it. They way the scarf responds to that person's movements, the way they choose to drape it or tie it closely. We're constantly experimenting with the best way to display the lively possibilities in a static photograph:
Here are two versions we came up with this week: the first seemed good while we were playing with it, but just didn't work as a photograph. The other we kept.
We have some fun putting together different color combinations, and experimenting with a casual toss versus a careful fold, and we can make quite a mess pulling out all our scarves, shawls, throws, tablecloths and napkins.
Which is why it's all so much better when there's someone else to clean it up.
Amy
In the pictures are our Mimi silk shawl (Natural), a Ropes cotton scarf (Mulberry) and the Dukem cotton and rayon scarf (Teal).
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