Faux American Apparel meets Pin-up sexy girl

Wait, what's that you're saying Topshop? One of your new trends hitting the shop floors of all your stores across the UK (and probs everywhere else) right now is called, "Pretty Military"? Well, I am taking this as an opportunity to brag about how I was clued on to the military trend waaay before you Toppers! And it was even without the help from fashion forecasters like WGSN- so they should basically just give me a job, like, now?


 Ok, so the reason I chose to style a photoshoot I did in my last semester of third year at uni with military influence wasn't because I have some freakish fashion forecaster power within me but rather I have a bit of a geeky interest in all things war/ military. Luckily, a friend who also shares this passion (but on a massively higher level) hooked me up with some dated American military gear (means that shit is real, no replicas). So, whilst I had access to some very valuable and amazing artifacts I thought I would put it to good use. I also thought I would take the news of S/S 12 taking another crack at the recurrent military trend as a great excuse to post my photoshoot pictures and show off- I've been waiting for a window to do so for a while now.


So, let me give you a quick brief of the thought process behind my final outcome; we were asked to choose a company (any fashion brand/ company we wish) and swot up on their previous/ current ad-campaigns and clientele to decipher what kind of customer they are marketing towards and ways in which their ad-campaigns did so. We were then asked to create a distinctively different ad-campaign in order to "freshen up" their look as a brand and perhaps appeal to new customers (whilst keeping their current happy too). Basically, you could go one of two ways: you could go mental (or some would say obvious) and have a company like Prada swapping their models for reptiles with the most darling on-trend crocodile bags placed next to them (a brilliant "FUCK YOU" to peta which will have their current customers in giggles whilst appealing to a new customer base that weren't aware they had a sense of humour up til now) all being shot by a really shitty camera phone in the most un-chic of surroundings. Orrrrr, you could take elements of their established style and make a few tweeks that will have people talking whilst not pissing off the loyal fans. I chose the latter, although looking at my final images it doesn't look like I went all that crazy- I think I tried to reproduce American Apparels trademark "look" a tad too much. I made a list of what American Apparel are known for in their advertising; being super controversial, raunchy posing, natural/"real" girls are used over models, photography is amateur-esque, surroundings are kept simple, text used on top of images is extremely suggestive-and thought of ways in which I could bend this towards a theme (in particular, a military theme) as American Apparel have never done this. I therefore settled on the idea of a modern version of this WW2 ad-campaign by Parker Quink:

Instead of just writing a letter to your hunky army man, why not get yourself dolled-up, dig out your sexy underwear, practise your "come-hither" face, play around with his army uniform and set your camera to timer so you can attach a few photographs to the letter that will really cheer him up. Basically, be his personal pin-up girl. 


So yeah, I thought this sexy, amateur/ self shot look would work pretty well for American Apparel whilst getting to use genuine American army uniforms dated from WW2 and Vietnam (because I can!).


Here is les outcome:

Here, how much of a ride is my model by the way? What. A. Babe. She could totes turn me. 


On a different note, what do you think? Let me know if you think they're super shit or super shit-haawt.


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