Fashion Lookbook

A lookbook is a collection of photographs compiled to show off a model, a photographer, a style, a stylist or a clothing line. Done well, it is a creative way of storytelling that conveys the essence of a brand — a fashion catalogue of well-styled images rather than a list of products with prices.

What Lookbooks Do

The purpose of any fashion lookbook is to show a clothing line, a fashion model portfolio, a fashion trend or a style through a collection of photographs. Designers use lookbooks in two directions at once: to develop a collection as they work — alongside trend boards, which organise the thoughts and references behind a line — and to show the finished collection to the world once it exists.

Major fashion brands present lookbook sections on their websites to entice consumers, because a lookbook sells the world around the clothes: the setting, the styling and the attitude that a product page cannot carry. A fashion designer uses a lookbook to tell the story of his or her fashion line, guiding customers through the collection as a visual experience rather than as inventory.

From Print to Pinterest

Lookbooks began as print publications and are now used by stylists, designers and e-commerce sites to show collections online. The digital move widened who makes them: bloggers use lookbooks to show off their own outfits to their readers, modelling looks from a particular period or category of clothing in a format their audience can browse like a magazine.

Pinterest is the modern lookbook's natural home — an image board is a lookbook by another name — and the Apparel Search fashion lookbook on Pinterest, linked from this page, collects the form there. Example lookbooks linked below include a chromatic metallic shoe lookbook and a metro retro fashion lookbook from the Apparel Search blog, showing how the format handles a single product story and a whole retro theme respectively.

Making a Lookbook That Works

A working lookbook obeys three rules. Sequence first: the images are ordered as an argument — opening with the strongest look, grouping colours and stories so the eye travels, and closing on a memorable piece — never as a warehouse inventory. Consistency second: one photographic treatment across the book, so the clothes vary and the world does not, which is what makes a set of photographs read as a single collection. Captions last and briefly: style names and numbers only, because the lookbook's job is desire, with the price list kept in the separate line sheet where buyers expect it. A book that follows all three rules can be read in two minutes and remembered for a season, which is precisely the effect it exists to create.