Hera London
Premium fashion | Film, Campaign & e-commerce Photography
From first campaign
to global following.
A six-year creative partnership with Hera London, spanning campaign film, hero campaign imagery, elevated e-commerce, product flat lays, website banners and social assets across every seasonal campaign from launch to acquisition.
The Brief
A new streetwear brand launching with one sharply defined product: ultra-skinny jeans for men, precision-cut for a close, sculpted fit.
Hera London launched in 2015 with a clear founding idea: jeans designed for a generation that wanted to look sharp without looking formal. The product was distinctive, the ambition was high, and the brand needed to feel established, desirable and culturally credible from its first campaign.
The visual identity needed to appeal to a style-conscious audience, particularly men with athletic builds, while giving the brand enough polish to attract attention beyond its initial customer base.
In 2015, fashion e-commerce was being pulled in two directions. Established brands still leaned heavily on polished campaign imagery and controlled lookbooks, while Instagram was changing how younger fashion audiences discovered, judged and shared brands. Hera needed to sit between those worlds: premium enough to feel aspirational, immediate enough to belong in a social feed.
For a new fashion brand, credibility has to be visible before it is proven.
The Creative Approach
JCA created Hera's image world from the ground up, built for a brand growing through social-first fashion commerce.
The answer was a photography style developed specifically for Hera from the first shoot in 2015: controlled side-lighting, sculpted shadow and close attention to fit, posture and physique. The images needed to show the cut of the jeans clearly, while carrying the raw, immediate energy of a brand built for social discovery.
High-end craft. Gritty presence. The two things most fashion photography kept apart at this time.
The brief set the ambition, not the visual answer. JCA developed the aesthetic direction from the ground up, and it became the foundation every subsequent Hera campaign was built on. As the brand grew, the image world evolved with it, but the founding tension between premium aspiration and direct, unmediated energy remained consistent throughout.
Over six years, JCA worked closely with Hera's founder and team across every campaign, with the creative trust to shape the image world as the brand grew. As the brand's confidence and budget increased, so did the scope of the work: from a focused launch shoot with a handful of hero images to fully integrated seasonal campaigns spanning film, campaign photography, elevated e-commerce, website and social.
Click play to watch the full
Campaign Film
The WorkFrom launch in 2015 to acquisition in 2021. Every campaign, every season, every format.
6
Years of annual campaigns
£5m
Reported turnover by 2019, from £25,000 startup capital
300+
e-commerce assets for a seasonal campaign
Campaign Deliverables
Campaign Film
One 30-second hero campaign film plus three 10-second social cutdowns
Campaign Photography
4 hero campaign images for print and digital
Elevated e-commerce
200-plus on-model e-commerce images across 50 garments, four images per item
Product flat lays
100+ product flat lay images across the full garment range
Website
4 seasonal website banners
Social
Campaign film cutdowns and photography crops for social formats
The OutcomeHera grew from a single-product launch into a multimillion-pound fashion brand worn by figures including Hailey Bieber, Brooklyn Beckham, Sofia Richie, Lewis Hamilton and Alexis Ren.
The brand reached a reported £5 million turnover by 2019, as documented in trade press at the time of acquisition. The image world JCA helped establish gave Hera a premium, culturally credible presence from its first campaign, supporting the brand as it attracted celebrity attention, built a loyal following and scaled through direct-to-consumer digital channels.
JCA shot every campaign for Hera London throughout the founder-led growth period. Following the brand's acquisition and change in ownership, the creative partnership naturally concluded. The brand had grown from one defining product and a handful of hero images to fully integrated seasonal productions spanning film, photography, e-commerce and social with individual campaigns reaching more than 300 assets.
The visual foundation built in 2015 held the brand's identity throughout its entire growth period.
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