London Test Shoot in Richmond with Alice for Lionden Staub
A creative test shoot in Richmond brought together fashion director Alice and SwainUK for Lionden Staub. Here is how the day came together.
Richmond is not the first location most people picture when they think of London fashion filmmaking. That is exactly why it works. The riverside light, the open parkland, the architectural mix of Georgian and Victorian detail, all of it gives you something the studio simply cannot replicate. When Alice approached me about a test shoot for Lionden Staub, we knew immediately that Richmond was the right call.
C’est Alice · More SwainUK projects
What you see above is C'est Alice, the creative film we made that day. Watch how the pacing breathes. There are no hard cuts forcing the eye. The camera moves with Alice rather than around her, and the styling by my team sits in conversation with the environment rather than fighting it. This is what a well-executed London test shoot should deliver: usable, beautiful footage that a fashion house can put in front of a creative director with confidence.
Why Test Shoots Deserve the Same Craft as Paid Campaigns
I hear this assumption fairly often: that test shoots are a lower-stakes version of real production. They are not. A test shoot is frequently the thing that earns you the real campaign. For Lionden Staub, this film was a statement of intent. Every decision, from lens choice to the colour temperature we set in-camera, was made with the same rigour I bring to a full commercial brief.
On the day in Richmond, we worked with natural available light throughout. No portable LED panels, no reflectors fighting the English overcast. I made a deliberate choice to let the sky do its job. Overcast conditions in London are genuinely useful for fashion work because they give you a soft, directionless wrap that flatters fabric and skin tones equally. The trick is reading the cloud cover and timing your hero shots to the moments when diffusion is consistent rather than patchy.
- Lens selection: I kept the focal length longer than you might expect for an outdoor shoot. Compression flatters silhouette and pushes the background into a painterly quality that reinforces the Lionden Staub aesthetic.
- Movement: Alice is a confident, expressive subject. I matched that with measured handheld work rather than locking off on a tripod, which would have flattened the energy.
- Colour grading: The grade is restrained. I pulled the highlights down slightly and kept skin tones warm against a cooler, slightly desaturated background. It gives the film a timeless quality without leaning into any particular trend.
"The best fashion film I ever made nearly did not happen because the sun came out. We had built the whole shoot around soft, even light. When the sky cleared mid-morning, Alice and I looked at each other and just moved. We found a shaded colonnade two minutes away and reframed the whole sequence. The resulting shots became the centrepiece of the edit. Adaptability is the real skill."
Styling and Direction: Working With a Fashion Director on Set
One of the things that made this Richmond shoot particularly rewarding was the collaborative relationship with Alice as both subject and fashion director. She came to set with clear references and a strong point of view, which is exactly what I want from a creative partner. My job in that dynamic is to protect the vision technically while also pushing it forward when I see an opportunity she might not be positioned to see from inside the frame.
We shot the opening sequence near the water, where the light bouncing off the Thames gave us a natural fill from below. For anyone planning a similar London test shoot, that reflected water light is a genuine asset in early afternoon. It lifts shadows under the chin and eyes without any artificial intervention.
Good fashion film direction is about tempo as much as anything else. Between setups, I was already thinking about the edit. Every transition in C'est Alice was earned on set, not rescued in post. That discipline, of shooting for the edit rather than hoping the edit saves you, is something I bring to every production regardless of budget or scale.
Behind the scenes from the Shoot with @damasjewellery x Dome · More SwainUK projects
For a sense of how this same principle applies on a larger production, the behind-the-scenes film above from the Damas Jewellery shoot with Dome shows my approach to multi-location commercial work. Even in a more complex production environment, the fundamentals are identical: clear communication with talent, precise lighting decisions made quickly, and a consistent visual language across every setup. Test shoots and full campaigns demand the same thinking.
What Makes Richmond the Right Location for London Fashion Film
London offers hundreds of locations, but Richmond has a specific quality that suits high-end fashion and beauty work. The combination of parkland, period architecture, and proximity to the river gives you genuine variety within a walkable radius. On a test shoot where time and budget are compressed, that efficiency matters enormously.
We moved through three distinct environments in a single day without losing momentum. The visual contrast between each setting gave the final film a sense of scope that would have cost significantly more to achieve in a more fragmented London location. For brands like Lionden Staub, that sense of world-building within a single film is part of the value proposition.
Beyond the geography, Richmond has a quality of quiet that central London locations rarely offer. Less ambient noise in the audio. Fewer pedestrians crossing your frame. More room to work with longer lenses without compressing a crowd into the background. These are practical advantages that translate directly into a cleaner, more elegant final product.
LYSSA Episode 2 IF A MACHINE MADE IT, WHO BLED FOR IT? · More SwainUK projects
The film above, part of the LYSSA series, sits at the other end of the creative spectrum from the Lionden Staub work, but the underlying question it raises is one I think about constantly in my own practice. When craft and technology intersect, what is the human contribution that cannot be replicated? For me, on a test shoot like this one in Richmond, the answer is judgment. The judgment to move when the light moves. To hold still when the moment calls for stillness. To know the difference.
Bringing This Level of Production to Your Brand
If you are a creative director, brand manager, or fashion label looking to develop campaign content that holds up alongside the work you see coming out of Paris and Milan, a London test shoot built on this foundation is a genuinely efficient starting point. The output from Richmond with Alice and Lionden Staub is proof that considered production values do not require a prohibitive budget. They require the right team and the right approach.
You can see the full range of my commercial and fashion film work in my portfolio. If you have a brief you want to discuss, whether it is a test shoot, a campaign film, or something more experimental, I would like to hear about it. Get in touch and we can start talking through what the right production looks like for your brand.