What a fashion lookbook is and how it's made, with real examples

What a lookbook is and what the word means

A lookbook is, literally, a «book of looks». And the key is in that word. An outfit is the clothes you wear; a look is the whole thing: the clothes, the shoes, the accessories, the hair, the make-up and even the attitude. A lookbook doesn't show a shirt: it shows how that shirt is worn and with what.

That's why it is the visual presentation of a collection, the group of garments a brand designs for a season or around one idea. It tells the collection look by look, with a shared light, background and tone, so it reads as one family.

Three kinds of people look at it. Buyers from multi-brand stores and showrooms, who decide what to order for the season. Press and stylists, who choose garments for their editorials. And the public, who see it on the website and on Instagram and decide whether the brand is for them.

It started as a printed booklet handed to buyers. Today it is almost always digital: a PDF, a page on the website, a social media carousel or a series of short videos.

Lookbook, catalogue, editorial and fashion film: how they differ

It's the question that comes up most, because all four pieces usually come out of the same collection.

A catalogue shows product by product, with its reference, sizes and colours. It's for buying. A lookbook shows looks and helps you picture yourself wearing them. Many brands use both: the lookbook sparks the desire and the catalogue closes the order. An online store's product page also needs product photos on a neutral background, which we explain in photos for an online clothing store.

An editorial is freer: it tells a story, looks for a location and may not show the whole garment. In a lookbook, by contrast, each look has to read from head to toe.

A fashion film is the video version of the collection's atmosphere, with music and movement. We cover it in what a fashion film is.

The usual approach is to plan them together, with the same crew and the same art direction. For LARHHA at 080 Barcelona Fashion, together with stylist Andrea Falcceto, we turned the L23 collection into a fashion film, an editorial lookbook, product photography and social media content. The brand used that material in its official communication for the runway.

How to make a lookbook, step by step

First, choose the looks. With the collection in front of you, decide which combinations to show and in what order. There's no need to show every garment in every version: a few well-thought-out looks work better than an endless list.

Second, set the concept. What world the collection tells and how it turns into images: light, background, colour, poses, the model's attitude. All of that goes into a moodboard the brand approves before the shoot, so nobody discovers the style on the day.

Third, prepare the shoot. Casting models for the brand's audience, styling each look, the studio or the location, and a plan with the order of the changes. At Bostak we put it all in a look sheet: what each exit wears, which accessories and which shots it gets.

Fourth, photograph. Each look in full, a medium shot and a detail of fabric or accessory, always with the same light and the same framing so the series reads as one thing. Someone from the brand reviews the photos on screen as they come out.

Fifth, select and adapt. The best takes are chosen, retouched without changing the garment's real colour, and the versions are prepared: the PDF for buyers, the website page and the vertical formats for social media.

The video lookbook: the same set, in motion

If you search for «video lookbook», almost everything you'll find is creators showing their outfits of the day. For a brand, a video lookbook is something else: a short clip per look, with the model walking, turning or sitting down, to see how the garment drapes and moves. It's what a photo can't show.

The most efficient way to do it is to film it on the same set and with the same light as the photos, right after photographing each look. That way nothing is set up twice, the model doesn't change again, and video and photo share the same aesthetic.

Several pieces come out of it: vertical clips for Reels and TikTok, one look a day for weeks; the video on the online store's product page; and a horizontal edit with every look for the website or the buyers' presentation.

It's worth sorting out the music before publishing: a commercial song without a licence can leave a brand's video muted. For NouVelleMaison's Jaray collection, the music was composed from scratch with Panorama Room Studio, and we combined the studio, for the product and lookbook, with a shoot in Granada for the fashion film and the campaign portraits.

Real lookbook examples and how we make them at Bostak

Three of our projects show what a lookbook can be for.

To pitch a project. Designer Ainhoa Uruñuela had to present her capsule collection concept to Stradivarius at the level an Inditex brand expects. We made more than forty lookbook photographs with art direction and a youthful visual language, prepared for digital platforms. It's in the Stradivarius × Ainhoa Uruñuela case study.

For a runway. With LARHHA we wanted the design to be the star: neutral backgrounds, controlled light and compositions that bring out cut and fabric.

To build a brand's world. For NouVelleMaison we made, under one art direction, the fashion film, the editorial, the lookbook and the website for their Aires de Grandeza collection. And for Jaray, more than forty product photos across flat lays and lookbook, eight campaign portraits and a fashion film.

At Bostak Films we are a production company and creative agency, with a studio in Viladecans, twenty minutes from Barcelona. We make the lookbook in photo and video on the same day, from the concept to every version. The price? It depends on the looks, the location and whether there's video; we work it out in the proposal. See how we work as a production company in Barcelona and, if you're preparing a collection, book a free diagnostic call.

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