Here’s How Our Editors Put Together the Kaia Gerber Cover

There are so many things to be mindful of when putting together such a big shoot like this. What are some of the things that you really have to work through?

There are definitely tons and tons of limitations, but we always make it work, and we really pride ourselves on being a scrappy group of gals. Budgets are definitely one. Once we lock in our concepts, we go to our production team, and they’re able to guide us into whether our concepts can be made a reality—if they can help us figure out how to do it within the budget restrictions or if it’s really something we might have to pivot and go back to the drawing board a little bit.

We definitely have those conversations ahead of time, so we can not get too excited about having a shoot on an island somewhere and then having that shot down. We also like to think about what the talent will resonate with the most. … At the end of the day, we can run off with our ideas and just excite each other about certain concepts, but we want the talent to be really comfortable. The more excited the talent is about everything—from what they’re wearing to the concept to the story to the photographer, the hair and makeup, all of it—the more excited they are to show up on set and just have a really great shoot experience.

We also need to work within the confines of a lot of brand deals that might be present with the talent. That often will present a lot of brand restrictions. … If someone has a contract with a big LVMH house, there are a lot of brand restrictions that go with that, which can often restrict what we’re able to call in, who we’re able to shoot, and even often our concepts can be a little bit tweaked because of that. Like I said, we try to get all of that knowledge and information beforehand so that we don’t get too married to ideas. I’ve had my heart broken a few times with being told we can’t do something that I really had my heart set on. Like I said, we always figure it out.