PortraitsStudio note1 February 2025

What to wear for portraits

The only three rules, and why the rest of the advice is noise.

A bride and groom holding each other under a long stone colonnade, her bouquet over his shoulder.

People ask this more than anything else, so here it is in full: wear something you already own, something that moves, and something you are not managing all day.

Movement over pattern

A photograph of two people is mostly a photograph of how cloth behaves when they walk. Linen, silk and wool all do something. Structured synthetics do nothing.

I wore the jumper. It is the best picture of me that exists.Tomas

One of you in the lighter tone

Not a rule so much as a shortcut: contrast between two people keeps them separate in a frame, especially outdoors at dusk.

If you do one thing

Wear it for an hour at home first. Whatever you are adjusting in the mirror at minute ten will be adjusted in every frame.

Everything else, the colours of the season, the forbidden shades, matching the bouquet, you can ignore.

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Simone & Marcus