While working at nanamica New York store, I often engaged with customers interested in The North Face Purple Label. We realized there was a niche market we could fill in order to bridge the interest between TNFPL and nanamica. I worked closely with the founder and New York staff in order to develop store-exclusive items, combining original nanamica silhouettes with original TNFPL fabrics.

The small collection helped introduce TNFPL fans to nanamica at a friendly price point, and invited fans to come visit nanamica in-person.

For the photoshoot, I wanted to build around the “New York Exclusive” idea by shooting right outside the store front and featuring two of our staff members. It was another opportunity to visually tell people that we had a New York location in SoHo. 

Our Instagram is known for being playful and lighthearted, so we kept that tone for the shoot and used items from the store: coat rack, office chair, stool, etc. 

Where We Wanted to Start:
-One-Size Products, due to limited backstock inventory space
-Waterproof Bandana, a perfect accessory to complement our hood-less GORE-TEX outerwear
-Entry-Level Price Point Bags

What I Learned: 
-Don’t rush bigger ideas! In hindsight, if we extended the design process by 1-2 seasons, we may have been able to customize more of the existing nanamica bag silhouette, as well as secure a waterproof option for the bandana. We wanted to use waterproof LIMONTA from a previous season, however, it ended up not being an option.
-Production timelines are strict! It would have been ideal to wait a bit longer, but we chose a TNFPL SS25 camo fabric for the bag, so we wanted to make sure the release happened within the same season. This meant working with the limitations and making decisions for production to complete in time.
-Delaying things would have also allowed a window to reach out to editors for coverage. We had an extremely tight timeline between delivery and release day. I shot these photos less than two weeks before the official release.