Fabric is the first step in clothing design, and can often be the inspiration for clothing designs themselves — especially when new fabric technologies and material treatments are involved.
While my Gap Inc. content team had been focusing on product development storytelling — emphasizing collaboration across multifunctional teams and also the vendors who make our clothing — we decided to take a step back in the process and focus on the development of the materials used to make clothing, and how their development influences the entire product process.
We worked with Gap Inc.'s Global Supply Chain team to identify a strong brand story that would emphasize their team's work, as well as be a strong product story for the brand.
We landed on Banana Republic's partnership with famed Scottish mill Todd & Duncan, which is not only renowned for their history of producing the world's finest cashmere, but also their investment in new processes and technologies (such as machine-washable cashmere).
I traveled to Todd & Duncan's Scottish mill, and directed a locally sourced photographer and videographer through the factory over two days — capturing imagery and video that would be used to support product storytelling for Banana Republic, mill storytelling for the Global Supply Chain team, and behind-the-scenes development storytelling for my Gap Inc. team.
While there, I interviewed a few of the people who work in different areas of the mill on-camera for a series of videos (some external, some internal-only) and wrote a story.
The content was used externally by our @GapInc handle, as well as by the Banana Republic social media team and on the e-commerce site, BananaRepublic.com, on a landing page dedicated to Holiday sweaters.