Creative Strategy
STRAIT
The Brief
STRAIT is an emerging NYC denim label built around a single product: the Bering Cut, a mid-rise straight leg jean crafted from 16oz selvedge denim, right here in the city. I came on as CMO and Chief Creative Officer and built the entire creative infrastructure from the ground up. I've been across everything: brand positioning, logo design, campaign direction, e-commerce photography, visual identity, social media strategy, and web design. I had no playbook. There was no existing brand. No budget. Just passion, a product, and a point of view to build around.
The Approach
The central strategic question was straightforward but challenging. How do you position a new product in a saturated market without competing on trend or price? Most denim brands launching today are chasing the same customer with the same aesthetic. STRAIT made the opposite call. My answer was conviction. The product was too considered to be positioned as a trend play. Customers familiar with 16oz selvedge and vintage shuttle looms buy with conviction. The brand had to reflect that. Every creative decision that followed flowed from that strategic position.
For the campaign, I pushed for the raw, cinematic quality of film photography, brutalist urban architecture, a slightly grungy palette, and storytelling tinged with romantic tension. The clothes were captured moving through the city with quiet authority, from a slightly voyeuristic point of view. The result was imagery that drops you into the lives of two mysterious strangers, with the city as a character in its own right.
Mysterious as they appeared, I also made a deliberate choice to introduce the people wearing the product, not just the product itself. I felt this really mattered. STRAIT says: get to know these people. They're real characters with real details. STRAIT is a product for living, and the people who wear it lead interesting lives worth knowing. This raw, organic, approach only furthers the connection in a prospective customer’s mind to our raw, organic, product.
The website extends the same logic. Black background. White type. No ornamentation. Every touchpoint, campaign, e-commerce, social, web, identity, says the same thing: this brand knows exactly what it is and who it's for. Social media has been our primary touchpoint with our audience. The brand voice is playful with a slight edge. I wanted to convey a human element throughout, leveraging Instagram posts, stories, and reels to build a consistent, cohesive feed.
The Result
Full creative infrastructure: Brand positioning, logo design, campaign direction, e-commerce photography, visual identity, social media strategy, web design. Now fully launched.