Byredo

Byredo lipstick on serving tray with gradient backdrop and metallic pins

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- about this project

The Context:

Why Byredo as a subject for luxury product photography

I chose Byredo as a creative subject because the brand has solved something most luxury beauty houses ignore: how to feel emotionally resonant without visual clutter. Their packaging sits in that narrow band where minimalism could read as flat or cheap, but doesn't. I wanted to explore what happens when you push Byredo's memory-led storytelling through a contemporary visual metaphor, treating a lipstick like a served object. The brief I set for myself was to build a system that could work as campaign imagery and e-commerce images without one side feeling like a compromise.

As a London product photographer, I know the friction that emerges when brands try to maintain creative identity across different channels. Byredo's challenge isn't just rendering glass bottles or keeping label alignment tight. It's translating scent narratives (desert florals, incense memory, bridal jasmine) into images that don't collapse into perfume clichés. Flowers on sand. Veils. Smoke. The visual shorthand is tired. If a brand like Byredo needed a launch image set for a makeup line extension, the photos would need to carry conceptual weight while still performing on product detail pages where conversion lives or dies on finish accuracy and dust control.

The Concept:

Serving as metaphor for luxury presentation

I built the concept around the "serving" trend, the cultural moment where luxury objects are plated, displayed, offered. That dining-world logic felt right for a brand that frames scent as experience and memory as material. I used a serving tray as the compositional anchor and introduced a rich red gradient that mirrors the lipstick shade while keeping the Scandinavian restraint Byredo is known for. The gradient does two things: it cues emotion without requiring props that would clutter the frame, and it creates a tonal environment that modulates from intense to neutral, giving the composition breathing room. To add tension without decoration, I placed pins on the tray and backdrop, small conceptual punctuation that keeps the scene from feeling too polite.

The Execution:

Controlling reflections and maintaining premium material cues

Lighting centered on controlling reflections across the lipstick's lacquered tube and metal ferrule. I worked with a high-key setup to maintain the clean, airy feel Byredo's visual language requires, but shaped the key light to avoid blown highlights on the bullet edge and cap. The serving tray introduced another reflective plane, so I flagged and diffused to keep specular hits intentional rather than scattered. Glass vessels appeared in some frames to add depth through refraction, a technique that works well when you want dimensionality without adding props that compete for hierarchy. Every surface decision (tray finish, backdrop texture, gradient smoothness) was made to preserve the premium material cues that luxury consumers expect while keeping compositions sparse enough to survive tight crops.

Building a scalable visual system for multiple formats

These images work well for main campaign placements and modular social formats. The full tray setup functions as a launch visual that communicates indulgence and concept. Tighter crops isolate the lipstick for product detail pages where clarity and finish rendering matter more than narrative. Close-up shots of the bullet edge and smear texture could serve press kits or email headers, sensory storytelling without relying on external referents. The approach scales: each frame anticipates different social formats without the composition breaking. This is a personal project, but the system demonstrates what a brand expanding from fragrance into makeup needs, cohesive images that feel Byredo-specific across every customer touchpoint.

The Application:

Where these images would function commercially

The collection includes images designed for multiple uses. Campaign-level stills that imply emotion through restrained metaphor. Clean product shots on controlled gradients that meet retail partner grid standards. Detail captures that function as texture proof for skeptical online buyers. What brands in this category lose is distinctiveness. They either trend-chase into visual noise or retreat into sterile product photography that feels interchangeable. This approach would allow a brand to stay conceptually current (nodding to "serving" as cultural language) while keeping the minimalist codes that protect premium positioning. The images could work on a Selfridges product grid, in a brand's own seasonal campaign, or as cutdowns for paid social without one context undermining the other.

The Takeaway:

Material craft as commercial advantage

The project shows what I prioritize: material craft, conceptual clarity, and format flexibility. I think about how a single shoot can produce a visual system rather than isolated moments. Reflection control, gradient calibration, and disciplined prop logic aren't creative compromises. They're what make high-concept work perform commercially. If your brand sits in that space where narrative and minimalism have to coexist, and where every image needs to justify itself across campaign emotion and conversion rigor, let's talk about building something that does both.

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