When I first came on to All Is Fair in Love and Wear as Director, it was a mess.
All Is Fair provides binders to the transmasculine community: garments that compress feminine-appearing chests so they appear more masculine and the wearer is presented as such. This can start a transgender person's transition before or without hormonal/surgical assistance.
... But all of the branding was overtly soft and feminine.
All Is Fair was to set a new standard for aesthetic consideration in this incredibly niche, under-served market.
... But the design work was half-baked across the board, to say the least.
(I direct the brand now, so I can say this--don't worry)
The first step in masculinizing the brand was finding the right model, a trans man who was far and comfortable enough into their transition to model for us, but still wore a binder--who was also great in front of a camera.
I was connected to Taylor "Lev" Miller, a native of Wichita, Kansas. I drove out to meet and shoot Taylor in a local nature reserve.
The second step was understanding the tone of AIFLW as a brand.
I needed to do away with the thin and suggestive lines of the original launch: bold, punchy color, fat text, all photos a little over-exposed and over-saturated.
By focusing on the natural and architectural, and how these elements play into each other, I began constructing a visual "binary" that I could play off of in our photography.
Architecture has been historically male-dominated, and nature historically associated with the maternal and feminine; I wanted to move away from that conversation and instead subtly explore "the constructed" vs "the natural" in relation to gender-identity and transition.