User:Theinvisiblestylist/Off-figure styling

Clothing, while made to be worn by people, is not always shown on the human figure. To create variety in catalog and magazine pages, photos of clothing on models are interspersed with laydowns, stacks, or other off-figure presentations.

There is a variety of techniques stylists use in working with clothing to show the details of garments, color selections, and the texture of the fabric. It may be folded and stacked on a tabletop in a studio, hung on hangers to show a selection of colors, dressed on a mannequin, laid down flat and shot from above, or arranged on a wall in a manner that suggests the human form.

Most people who are not involved in commercial photography have no idea that there is any such job as a stylist. They imagine that a photographer just dashes that sweater down and snaps a picture. Indeed, photographers may need to style their own product photographs, especially in a tough economy or for web shots which are considered easier (they aren’t).

Currently off-figure presentations are part of every fashion magazine worldwide featuring separates and accessories or demonstrations of ways to combine garments in varied ensembles. Increasingly popular since its first use in women’s fashion catalogs such as Coldwater Creek and The Territory Ahead, “wall styling” is used to show the details of garments being sold more thoroughly than if they were worn by a model. And without the distraction of the willowy figures that many women do not relate to.