Notes from our AW26 shoot

"There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment." 

 Robert Frank

Up until the day before, I wasn't sure the shoot would happen at all.

We had moved the shoot date four or five times in the three weeks leading up to it. Each time it rained, we shifted, and each shift meant rebuilding the day around it: Tash was flying in from Byron to capture our bts, Rach was styling the shoot (mostly from Paris), models were constantly flying in and out of Sydney and in some cases had to be recast entirely as our dates kept shifting with the weather. Britt, our photographer, was leaving the country on the 30th, so each date shift shuffled us closer to the end of the line. We ended up shooting on the 29th, the morning before she flew out.

I could have moved it all indoors, perhaps. It would have been simpler, and no one would have known the difference. But since the very beginning, we have shot PALME outdoors, and I have never once been able to talk myself out of it.

On beaches, in forests, flower gardens and beside beautiful ocean pools. It is never the easy choice. Shooting outside means working around the weather and the seasons, permits and people and holding patience for the moments when the light is just right. A studio would give us none of that trouble. But it would have also taken away the soul of this shoot.

There is a deeper reason as well. The faster the world moves towards technology and automation, the more I find myself retreating to nature, and to the things that still feel real.

Because outdoors is where the clothes come to life, and my favourite place to be. Cotton behaves differently in natural light. It softens, and I love how it catches the morning sun. Movement is also captured differently outside than to a set. You can feel the morning in the photographs, and for us that has always been the whole point. We are drawn to what is natural and real, to clothing that comes from the earth and honours the world around us.

So when the rain finally broke at sunrise on that fateful Tuesday, we did not move indoors. We rearranged the entire day in a matter of hours and went outside.

The first setting was a garden across from Vaucluse House, where Theodore came to join us. Theo is the golden retriever who belongs to my friend Iliya, and he took to the camera as though he had done it all his life. My original plan for getting him to set had fallen apart in the reshuffle, so my father in law stepped in, collected him from Iliya's home, and drove him across town. Even with everything moving around behind the scenes, everyone arrived on time, Theo won all of our hearts, and Harbour, our model, was extraordinary with him.

Pictured: Myself, and my daughter with Theo and his little brother. 

The concept we were chasing for this shoot was the perfect Sunday I would build for myself if I could. A few quiet moments before the children wake. A coffee - while it is still hot. My hair somehow perfectly kept from a full night's sleep. The winter sun warming my skin, a dog running through the grass with no muddy paws jumping up at me, the morning paper instead of a phone. Slowness, stillness, nature. And the set that started it all, the Gigi. Named after my first daughter.

From there we followed the morning along the Hermitage Foreshore walk outside Strickland House. Theo couldn't come, dogs are not allowed there, which was a small heartbreak, but the light held and so we kept going.

A little further along, we shot the Elle set with a vintage bike borrowed from a childhood friend, Bec. I had noticed the night before that the tyres were flat, which, at eleven o'clock the night before a shoot you have already postponed three times, is its own particular flavour of panic. Thankfully, Andy, our neighbour, came over and pumped them up. Without him, the bike would not have moved, and the shot I had in my head would not have come to life. 

Pictured: Andy pumping up the wheels!

We finished at my sister Tali's home, where we shot the ecommerce imagery. We had meant to start there in the morning, partly to stay out of the way of her four children, and partly to shelter from the storm. By the time we arrived in the afternoon the after-school juggle was underway, voices everywhere, the campaign now sharing the house with the regular family chaos of any other Tuesday. They were a joy to have around. We were in her space, amongst all of it, and somehow it worked. But such is the reality of a small business.

 

A father in law who collected a dog at short notice. A childhood friend who offered her bicycle, and a neighbour who came over late at night to pump the wheels. A sister who made space in her home with four children underfoot. A friend who lent her golden retriever for the morning. A photographer who pivoted again and again and held the whole day together with one window of light.

As luck would have it, everything came together at once. The clothes, the light, the morning, and the small group of people who turned up to make it happen.

Pictured: Me, bearing the weather

I think about this often, the amount of unseen effort that goes into reaching the polished work you eventually see. Campaigns with a real story behind every frame are becoming the exception. Budgets shrink and shortcuts multiply. This may be the age of automation, but the further the world moves from the human hand, the more I find myself reaching for it. The whimsy, the stillness, the sense that someone was there and loved being there, that is the part I never want to lose.

There is no new product this season. AW26 is our core collection, shot again and reimagined for cooler weather. The Gigi and Elle sets lead because they are cut for the cooler months, but the rest of the range was photographed in the same morning light and is meant to be worn alongside them. Layer the Signature Tee back with the Elle pants on a cool morning, or wear the Elle top with the Ralph short if you prefer more on top and less below.

You can shop the collection here online.

And to you, our customers and the village still growing around PALME. Thank you for being here. PALME is still very much being built, and watching the people who choose to join us has been the most humbling joy of all of it.

T x