I often get asked to describe a typical day at Chickdowntown. Because we all do such a variety of things, a “typical day” simply does not exist. This past week is a perfect example of just how different one day can be from the next, so I thought it would make a great blog topic – plus I was seriously lacking on posts this week and I wanted to give you an explanation…

Monday we had a photo shoot in Pittsburgh. Because the last shoot started out as such a fiasco, I thought I would get in the night before so I wouldn’t fly into any surprises (and of course avoid that dreadful 4:30am pickup). Fortunately everyone showed up on time and things got off to a great start. Going into the shoot, our stylist, Richard, and I decided upon three distinct stories which were all based off of a certain color palette: brights, pastels, and army/khaki mixed with pops of blacks and whites. I also wanted to try to fit in some white denim shots; because we have such a variety of styles, I thought it could make a great blast and potential homepage. As we started mapping out the day to include all of these ideas, I was informed that my manager wanted to do a story around a new denim line that we just got in called Vintage Revolution. At the last shoot, we did two stories with a few quick shots taken at the end, and now this time we were going to try to fit in FIVE…it was going to be a long day…

For each story, we wanted very distinct backgrounds to really set them apart. Our photographer, Ed, mentioned doing the army/khaki story near the river so that we can have the water as the background – having grown up on a lake, I am obsessed with the water so I thought this was a fantastic idea. However, once I was informed about the Vintage Revolution shoot, I knew that I also wanted to do this outside so the water idea may have to go by wayside; plan B was to do it next to these army green and grey walls in the studio (although the walls are very cool, I was extremely disappointed).

The first shoot was the brights story. We used a plain white background and had the colors in the clothes be the main focus. We also added a little extra pop by using bright pink and teal ribbons in the model’s hair. Next we took it out onto the streets for the Vintage Revolution story. At first, the photographer had the model go down onto the street and he took the photographs from up in an old warehouse. It was very cool. For the remaining pics we accompanied the model ON the street…literally (see pics below). After this, we did the pastel scene. These photos were shot on a really pretty pink background (although in the pictures it looks sunburst orange, which we decided went better with the colors in the clothes). After this we still had the army/khaki story and the white denim shots. With not much time left, Ed made the snap decision to take it to the water (yay!). It was quite a hike for the model, especially in the heels she was wearing, so we had a car transport us back and forth (where we nearly got hit by a tractor trailer and a train!). We had to leave two outfits out of this story because we ran out of time, but it was definitely worth it. You can see some of the untouched pics below. Finally we got in some super quick white denim shots which were taken back in the studio. With literally 45 minutes before our flight was taking off, we left for the airport. We checked in with 28 minutes left to go and they would NOT let us bored. They said that 30 minutes was the minimum and there was nothing they could do about it. Being that it was the last flight out, we were forced to stay over another night and fly out first thing in the morning…of course there would have to be a glitch in our otherwise perfect day.

We returned to Philly relatively early the following day. I always love the day after the photo shoot, because I get to go over the hundreds (and I think this time there were well over a thousand pics) to narrow it down to the final selection to be retouched for the lookbook and homepage. Also, the day before the actual photo shoot, the photographer does a product shoot for the images that you see on the actual product pages. Because we hadn’t done one of these in a while, I had a ton of products to upload (I am still not finished). So the two days following the shoot was spent editing and uploading.

Thursday I went to NYC for a few showroom buying appointments with our head buyer. We went to see 7 For All Mankind, Free People, Elizabeth & James, Corson and Peace Treaty. The latter two are in the same showroom as Citizens, Iro, Sunner and Bailey44. We noticed them last time we were there so we wanted to go back and review them. They are both very cool and have very interesting stories. Details to come.

When I returned to Philly that evening, I was able to escape the city and get out of town a day before the Jersey shore traffic madness took place. Friday I worked from home (I’m originally from the Poconos), writing orders and uploading product.

Like I said…Oh what a week!

I hope you’re having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
xo kim