behind the scenes festival 2022

March 25, 2022 By Madeline Zafft

We’re pulling back the velvet (crazy) curtain to share our bts (behind the scenes) from our 2022 Festival campaign shoot.

Let’s start at the very beginning! Christine, Creative Marketing Director and resident photographer, Erin, Wholesale Marketing Director, and myself (hey there!) Madeline, Social Media Specialist, met up in Bombay Beach, right off the shores of the Salton Sea in Southern California. We spent just around 48 hours in this living ghost town to shoot our latest festival campaign.

DAY 1

Christine and I happened to be in San Diego for a conference, so we left America’s Finest City bright and early to meet up with Erin who was traveling with a car full of BED|STÜ styles (our favorite, leathery air freshener). Once out of the hustle and bustle, we found ourselves on a much more desolate road, listening to true crime podcasts, as one does when traveling to the middle of the nowhere. SPOILER ALERT: It’s always the husband. As the distance between towns seemed to grow longer, we finally reached Bombay Beach and met up with Erin (success!).

Now, all together, in the driest and hottest part of the Sonoran Desert, we piled in the car that had the snacks, (obviously) and began to cruise around the community of abandoned vacation homes and art installs to scout locations that would lend themselves to tell the story of our campaign.

There was a lot more movement in Bombay Beach this weekend due to their Bombay Beach Biennale, which, according to the official website, is a “renegade celebration of art, music, and philosophy that takes place on the literal edge of western civilization, at the shores of the Salton Sea.” There were many artists in town getting their art displays ready for the crowd.

After we had our Bombay Beach Estate locations mapped out, we headed towards the beach dunes to drive up and over. This. Moment. Was. Priceless. As we drove to the top of the embankment where you could finally see the beach, all three of us erupted in awe-filled screams that anyone within a ½ mile could hear (even with our windows up!). Seriously. We had a simultaneous “aha” moment that swept over us and made us itch to get out and explore the entire desolate area. This was a visual candy store and we knew it was going to be an epic shoot.

After getting over the pure shock of the beauty and insanely wild art installs everywhere, we grabbed a couple styles to get some creative shots and then finished up by watching the sunset go down. *Cue the traveling nightclub* People started to come over to the beach on one-wheelers, electric bikes and skateboards…and even a truck pulling what can only be described as a traveling nightclub (see pics for proof!). We knew we had an early morning and could not get deterred by a grown man dressed up as the easter bunny on a self-balancing, single wheel, electric board (true story)….so we wrapped up the creative shoot.

Next stop was the Ski Inn to grab some grub! The Ski Inn claims to be the “lowest bar in the western hemisphere”. The walls, ceilings and even light fixtures are covered in signed dollar bills. Unfortunately, the kitchen closed 5 minutes before we arrived, so all they had was corn beef and cabbage…Happy St. Patrick’s Day to us? From there we headed to the Airbnb to make flower crowns and listen to…you guessed it…true crime. What we didn’t know at the time is that our Airbnb was indeed haunted. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of our ghost, but we told ourselves he was friendly and hey, we lived to tell the story so let’s not test our luck! Did we all share our location with our loved one’s before we went to bed? 1000% yes.

DAY 2

We woke up (we’re alive yay!) and watched the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. We knew that because of the Biennale, the beach was going to get packed with people quickly, so we hit that first to avoid any background goers plus Christine wanted to make sure to capture the early morning light over the water with our model, Cecilia.

Our first shot of the day was JUDGEMENT in Silver Lux on a set of stairs that led out into the water. This really set the tone for just how epic this shoot was going to be. I mean, this gorgeous model was out in the middle of highly toxic water, wearing Silver Lux booties, a white short set, and a fully beaded bodysuit underneath as the sun rose behind her….(!)

From there we were able to get about six more looks from different scenes on the actual beach of the Salton Sea and then we headed back into the one-square-mile town and went straight to the Bombay Beach Drive-In, which is an art installation set up to imitate a Drive-In movie theatre. It has all the rusted classics pointed towards a white trailer that is acting as the screen. We shot two looks here and then we were in a race with daylight as the sun got higher (and hotter).

We headed over a block to the #Bombaybeachtvs - an art install that is comprised of old TV’s that are painted crazy colors. We then hit a couple more abandoned houses and ended in the graffiti mecca…how did we forget our spray paint?

We wrapped right at mid-day, 80 degrees and full sun! We parted ways with Erin *tears*, as she started her trek back to L.A., and us back to San Diego. Of course, we made a pit stop at In-N-Out to grab a quick bite. If you aren’t following us on Instagram, 1. What the heck! and 2. Head over and give us a follow! You will see more videos of bts, new launches and the final products of what we shot this trip! xo

By Madeline Zafft

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Behind The Scenes: Festival 2022

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