BELSTAFF X MERRELL

In April 2024, as part of Belstaff’s centenary celebrations, the brand launched its first-ever footwear collaboration with Merrell 1TRL. The partnership aimed to strengthen Belstaff’s presence in the functional outdoor space and build credibility in the footwear market. My role was to creatively steer the campaign and launch it across all channels. We decided to work on a brand media partnership with Orienteer studio who helped to produce the final assets and reach a wider audience.

The brief to Orienteer Studio was to create an amalgamation of model imagery mixed with digital visual elements, presenting the design inspirations for the collection in a fresh and captivating way. My aim was to develop a suite of assets that were bold yet informative, content that would feel disruptive against our usual content and capture the attention of a younger, fashion-conscious audience.

Rather than opting for the typical rural backdrop, I wanted to emphasise that these shoes could be worn not only for performance but also as a pure fashion statement. A key source of inspiration for the collection was an archival fishing vest, so I recommended shooting by water with an urban backdrop, as well as incorporating an inner-city location. For the video elements, I wanted them to feel playful, incorporating unexpected scenarios to creatively showcase the design evolution behind the shoe, for example, ‘going fishing and pulling out a hydro Moc shoe’.

Below is the initial mood I created for Orienteer as part of the creative brief. I wanted the images to be shot from graphic angles, making the shoes the focal point of the composition. I wanted to capture a mixture of model and still life imagery. The visual direction was for the images to either be shot digitally with a grade that gave a nod to film.

Alongside the main video, I wanted to create an animated asset that showcased the shoe seamlessly transforming from its original design inspiration—a vintage Belstaff Castmaster fishing gilet. This offered a more playful and engaging way to highlight the shoe’s design evolution. Orienteer Studio brought this concept to life and the animation was shared across our social channels as a collaborative post.