The brief for the campaign read "winter energy, summer light," which is the kind of poetry that sounds great in a deck and becomes deeply personal when you're wearing a cream fur coat against a white wall at noon in a Mediterranean heatwave.
Forty degrees. Faux fur. Full stripes underneath. The white stucco bounced light from every direction, which is why the pictures glow - and also why the crew kept a rotation of frozen water bottles moving like a relay team.
Here's the thing though: heat is a performance problem you can solve, and solving it is weirdly satisfying. We worked in ninety-second bursts - coat on, three looks, coat off, shade, repeat. The photographer called it interval training. Between bursts I stood in front of a shop fan like a renaissance painting of a woman being judged by heaven.
The discipline it teaches you is economy. When you only have ninety seconds in the look, there's no warming up to the pose, no browsing options. You arrive already decided. Some of the strongest frames of my career came from that shoot precisely because nothing was casual - every second in that coat was spent on purpose.
The campaign ran in October. Winter energy, summer light, exactly as briefed. My favourite comment online said the coat looked "so cosy." Reader, I have never been less cosy in my life. That's the job, and honestly? I'd shoot it again tomorrow.