the brief

Algodão makes underwear from undyed organic cotton in a small factory outside Porto. The founders wanted a launch campaign that was honest about bodies without feeling clinical, and warm without looking like a perfume advert. The budget covered one day of shooting and a week of design.

the approach

Cotton is a plant, so we took the product outdoors. A family in Sintra lent us their garden for a day. We picked marigolds and cosmos from their beds at seven in the morning and shot in natural light until the grass dried.

Every image is unretouched, grass marks included. The typography is a single serif set small, so the photographs do the talking, and the lookbook is printed on uncoated paper the colour of the fabric.

the outcome

The campaign ran on the brand’s website, in a printed lookbook and on two bus shelters in Porto. The first run of 2,000 sets sold out in nine days, and flowers from the garden now appear in every shoot the brand does.