When Janelle approached me about this color themed shoot for her textile company, Tono & Co, I was super excited about the concept. She wanted to do a very different product shoot, and show her ribbon with like colored objects. I loved the concept, it reminded of some similar flat lay stories by one of favorite New York prop stylists, Randi Brookman Harris. Referencing her shots and also using the names of each collection for inspiration I began to create a prop list for each color story. For rouge, Janelle thought about playing on the name of the collection and styling with makeup. I loved that idea and I brought cheap eye shadow and lipstick for this scene. This was my first time styling with makeup, I used a knife to break up the rouge powder so it read clearly as makeup in camera. For the lipstick, I bought two of the same color. One I used to make the zig zag on that light pink paper background, and the other, clean, untouched, lipstick I used in the photo. I added in taffy, pink gummy bears, a petite raspberry tart, my own vintage pink perfume bottle, and a Mrs. Box featuring Janelle’s mom’s ruby ring.
The golden collection was one of my favorite looks. I found adorable striped yellow and white candy which went perfectly with sliced meyer lemons and individual narcissus buds. I made a toss cone out of some sparkly vinyl paper and Janelle found this pretty confetti which we mixed with dried acacia sprigs. Probably my favorite detail was my petite yellow flower plate with honeycomb and the tiniest brass spoon.
The forest collection was probably the easiest to pull objects for since there are so many great green things. The final mix included cherimoya, bok choy, kale, lime, mint, sword fern, maidenhair fern, monstera, snap peas, and water cabbage. In the center, I placed a loose ribbon braid that trailed throughout the forest of green things.
The marine or blue collection was definitely a challenging color. Initially, when we started talking about this shoot I suggested spray painting objects to get the effect we were after. So for blue we did just that and Janelle’s team spray painted petite jewelry boxes (including the nasty white liners). I put ribbon in the boxes, and tied around, and Janelle made a petite boutonnière with the a single bloom of delphinium. My blue milk glass bowl held blueberries and aquamarine ring. Then I scattered individual light blue hydranga blooms throughout the scene.elements to this shoot. For the backdrop, Janelle and I had talked about charcoal and Justine made this simple backdrop on set for me. On top of it I styled, foraged oyster shells and textured beach rocks from Rincon and placed them in a “smoky” S-curve shape. I added in petite black river rock, black sea salt and a black Mrs. Box.
The earth collection shoot evolved quite naturally on set. For each scene They would give me a hanger full of ribbon I thought this one looked so pretty, I just simply laid it down and let the ribbon become the backdrop. I added in copper, star anise, antlers and a cool piece of bark that one of the girls had foraged from a tree. I think my favorite moment was the little bundle of cinnamon sticks tied up with ribbon.
A special thanks to Janelle and her awesome team (the queens of steaming!) and Shauntelle of Sposto Photography for the stunning photos.
Photos: Sposto Photography for Tono + Co