This campaign was designed for the launch of the Shoes Like Pottery x Blue Owl collaboration sneakers.

Shoes Like Pottery is a footwear label under the umbrella of the legendary Moonstar footwear factory of Kurume, Japan. Shoes Like Pottery designs canvas sneakers using an old-world vulcanizing process that fires the outsoles of each shoe in a kiln, similar to pottery. 

In this collaboration, Blue Owl partnered with a local dye house to submerge Shoes Like Pottery white sneakers in locally-grown natural indigo to create a shoe that would fade with wear, just like a pair of jeans.

For this shoot, I wanted to play up the hand-dye process of the collaboration in a dramatic way. Since the shoes were dyed remotely, the look was recreated through some good old-fashioned face paint. I wanted the paint to be purposely splotchy and uneven to create the illusion of freshly-dipped hands, and also create a stark contrast against the dark backdrop using the model’s skintone. I chose a top-down lighting setup to create dramatic shadows against the black curtain and make the project feel significant and impactful.