The Cross-Category Briefs That Are Changing How We Shoot
Recently, we've had fitness and wellness brands come to us with inspiration pulled from run clubs, lifestyle imagery, heavy graphics, lo-fi textures (think film grain and iPhone-shot content) and retro outfits. We've even seen hospitality creeping in: luxury hotels, travel photography, editorial interiors. It's a shift in how fitness and wellness brands are showing up. They're looking beyond their own category for inspiration to stand out.
The briefs we're receiving right now are some of the most exciting of my career. Brands are thinking bigger, referencing wider and showing up intentionally. For Pilates in particular, the industry has exploded. It would be easy to keep creating and sharing the standard category aesthetic, and there's nothing wrong with it, but the businesses coming to us are actively choosing not to. We're consistently hearing "we don't want perfect Pilates girls". These aren't rushed mood boards thrown together; they're considered and specific to each brand.
The permission is built in from the start. We're not chasing perfect. We're trying something new. Turning down the shutter speed and letting even the tiniest of movements blur. Embracing what's imperfect in the frame rather than correcting or cropping it. These briefs give us room to create and that's where the most interesting work is happening.
There's something that feels important about this moment. At the start of Instagram, yoga was portrayed as white, blonde and thin, and that shift away is very much ongoing. It feels like Pilates is at its own early chapter right now, and what we're seeing in these briefs suggests brands are more conscious. They want to look and feel like their actual communities. The cross-category references aren't just aesthetic choices, they're identity ones.
The one thing that matters is that the brand knows who it is first. Not because cross-category references will confuse an audience, but because a solid brand foundation is what makes the experimentation work. When a brand isn't clear on their identity, the content can get lost. The world of content is yours, but build from something solid.
With 10+ years of experience, we've watched this industry shift and have evolved with it. Because we work across disciplines, we're pulling from everything. Techniques developed documenting run sessions, getting low, working with a wide angle lens, staying close to the ground, translate directly into other movement disciplines. Details we focus on during yoga flows, a hand placement, the line of a pose mid-movement, show up differently and bring a unique POV in a Pilates context. The cross-pollination is natural because we've lived in all of these spaces.
